Ohio Meteor Sept. 27, 2013

I was driving home from work and recorded this meteor on my dash cam. The meteor was over Columbus, Ohio. I was 200 miles away, just south of Windsor, Ontario. It looked pretty cool.

Here's the link...

 

Cool.


You have a dash cam?

 

Doesn't everyone? They're $50, and really necessary in today's world. I'm looking for a non-chicom one that's the full mirror replacement instead of just the clip on that's under $300

 

Necessary for what?

 

Evidence in court. You never know when you're going to need a witness. Someone tries causing an accident brake checking in front of you for insurance fraud. Psycho cop during a traffic stop. Someone parking by braille.

Many good ones also come with impact sensors and back up cameras. If it senses a jar, all lenses start snapping pics. Better than zero odds they'll catch something identifiable.

 

So on the off chance you might need something like this in court on the once chance in a million you'll be a victim of insurance fraud or when a cop pulls you over (and I've been in two accidents and pulled over by a cop maybe three times in 40 years of driving), assuming the cop is actually "psycho" and assuming the camera is even pointed in the right direction at the time, you're going to spend hundreds of dollars for a device that will always be on whenever you're driving anywhere and is just another thing in the car that will tempt a thief unless you remove it or at least hide it every time you get out of the car.

I think you're watching a little too much of those reality shows on TruTV.

And, no, I don't have one.

 

Stopping tempting the thief is why I'm looking for the complete mirror one that's not so obvious .. but as for the rest .. yeah. I carry about a spare tire and jack every day too, as well as pay insurance... on the rare and off chance I need them. I've been pulled over for 'random checks' instead of actually infractions ... and it's funny how polite people are when they realize they're being recorded (sound as well as video on most cameras). Likewise, if someone hits your car in a parking lot and sees the camera .. the odds go up that he'll leave his number (avoiding the hit and run charges) instead of just leaving. Given that even cheap cameras have 140° viewing angle, the odds are pretty darn good I'm gonna get something. The very best ones have 2 forward cameras and one rear .. They cost more, but they don't miss anything.

As for tv ... not really. Never even heard of that channel. I do read the news tho. There's more and more cases where police are being charged thanks to camera phone footage ... cases where even when the footage is seen by their bosses, they still support the officers .. until the higher ups accept that they've lost this one and about face. Even one case recently where a woman was abused in court ... in front of a judge ... video evidence was her only help.

You don't feel you need one ... I hope you're right. I also hope you don't need your spare tire or insurance either. But I'll bet the next time you get a flat ... you're glad you had that spare anyhow.

 

First, there's a bit of apples-to-oranges comparison going on here. The likelihood that I'll have a flat tire and need to change it is far higher than the likelihood that I'll be pulled over by a rogue cop, the victim of insurance fraud, or abducted by space aliens, for that matter.

With regard to insurance, first it's a requirement by law that I have it. Second, I didn't say that the likelihood of an accident was remote. I said the likelihood of being the victim of a deliberate accident was remote.

Plus, it's not "tv", it's TRU-TV, a channel that, when not showing the NCAA basketball tournament each year, is pretty much dedicated to the black helicopter crowd.

http://www.trutv.com/index.html

 

Well I'm not living in your neck of the woods, so I can't speak for your odds .. personally, I've been subjected to more random checks in the last 25 years than I've had flat tires... including one that had the 2 police women claiming they were looking for a stolen white minivan as their justification. I'd just pulled out of the church parking lot and was driving two elderly women home from a meeting.


As for the black helicopter crowd ....http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime...t-his-side.ece ... there sure are a lot of them about these days. Good thing that neighbour had his home security camera running at that particular time.

Jaybird ... Cool vid. Glad you had your camera running. You know that's how they got nearly all the footage of that big meteor in Russia too .... I read that every other car in Russia has a dash cam now.

 

Professur: I enjoyed the dash cam videos of the Russian meteor. I also like all the Russian car crash videos. I run my dash cam on the way to work then I take it out of my pickup and transfer it to my 18 wheeler while I'm at work. I have seen a number of morons make boneheaded moves in front of me.

 

I hear they're a "must have" in Russia.

 

How about the one on the 401 near Guelph, where the tractor dump trailer went through the centre barrier and the four wheeler did some fancy stunt driving to save his donkey!!! That one got on the CTV news that day.