Interesting -- "Why almost everyone in Russia has a dash cam":
How is it possible that a dozen different motorists around the Russian city of Chelyabinsk were able to capture video of a massive meteor flying through the sky? Because almost everyone in Russia has a dash-mounted video camera in their car.
The sheer size of the country, combined with lax — and often corrupt — law enforcement, and a legal system that rarely favors first-hand accounts of traffic collisions has made dash cams all but a requirement for motorists.
“You can get into your car without your pants on, but never get into a car without a dash cam,” Aleksei Dozorov, a motorists’ rights activist in Russia told Radio Free Europe last year.
Not a bad idea here, either, it occurred to me. I mean, the cops all have them, so any encounter you have with them is going into their video system; having a recording from our point of view seems like a good self-defense policy. And the way the world is going, it's not outrageous to think about having a walk-around video system, either (you can get a camera in a pen for your shirt pocket really cheap). You say I did what? Well, let's just check out the video.
