RoadPixel Car Cameras Explored
At Gadget Show Live, we met up with the team from RoadPixel, who talk us through their range of in-car camera and recording technology, designed to keep your insurance low, and your driving safer.
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Listen to FrequencyCast Show 84 - RoadPixel Interview
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Transcript of our RoadPixel Interview:
Transcript continues from Facebook Graph Search Discussed
Pete:
So let's move on from Facebook's Graph Search (what a catchy little name that is), and look at something far more exciting, and it's road driving kind of technology stuff. Is that of any interest to you?
Kelly:
Go on - we'll give it a go!
Pete:
Well, this actually takes us back to December, where we were at Gadget Show Live in London, looking at some rather interesting tech. Now, the stand we visited had all sorts of weird projector screens, showing images of car accidents, which was not a lot of fun, was it?
Kelly:
It wasn't, but I ended up getting quite mesmerised by it.
Pete:
And the reason behind it was a piece of technology from a company called RoadPixel, and here is Frank from RoadPixel, to tell us more.
Frank:
These are professional drive recorders. Fundamentally what they are is, cameras that also have inbuilt DVRs - that means digital video recorders, that will also record the time and date, and some of the models also have GPS that will record your journey and your speed.
Pete:
So let me get this right - this presumably sticks on the inside of your dash, just by your rearview mirror, points out forward, and is recording everything that it sees as you're driving along. So if you see something nasty, or heaven forbid, you're in an accident, you've got that video evidence.
Frank:
We're basically using the same technology as you would find in a CCTV system, and therefore the evidence that we're actually creating has the same value to protect you, in the case that something happens that you might not like to happen.
Pete:
Presumably you can also use it to send off to Police, Camera, Action! - if you see a good incident, and maybe make a few quid, for getting some accident on the TV?
Frank:
Personally, I wouldn't really recommend that you do that, because then you're actually using it outside of the main purpose, and you're actually likely to breach some of the privacy laws by doing so. It's quite legal to use it for the purposes that you're using it for, but it's not really for uploading to the web.
Pete:
Can you think of any other more sort of serious use cases for this product, apart from just watching out for an accident?
Frank:
We need to touch on the spiralling cost of motor insurance for everybody now, and over the last few years, the UK has become a bit more like the USA. We're in a far more litigious society that we used to, and all of the crash for cash scams that we've been hearing about is really, sort of just a licence to print money for those people involved in these crimes. Unfortunately, the insurance companies don't always feel that they want to try and protect their clients, and they will rather just pay out under these circumstances. That's why everybody needs to protect themselves.
In terms of another application that we're seeing a lot of people buying our products for is, young drivers. Parents have got to support their teenagers, when they say, "Please mummy, please daddy - I want to drive the car." Typically, that would be a 20% increase on the parents' motor premium. They then want to apply some rules to how their teenager actually drives, so they will say, "Of course, I don't want you to be using your smartphone. I don't want you texting. I don't want you updating Facebook. I don't want you breaking the speed limit, and I only want you to have one passenger in the vehicle at any time, otherwise there's a risk you may be distracted." So how can a parent actually enforce those rules? Well, with one of our fantastic cameras that also has an internal view, it means that the parents can then find out where their teenagers went, at what speed they were driving, and if they break any of these rules that have been set out, they're grounded.
Pete:
How many hours will one of these record, typically?
Frank:
Typically about eight hours, on a 32 gig SD card.
Pete:
That's not too bad, and is it rechargeable batteries?
Frank:
Well, it's fed constantly on a trickle charge from the cigarette lighter that we have in the vehicle.
Pete:
What sort of price are we looking at for these gadgets?
Frank:
They start about £99; more fully-featured ones, they're about £250 to £300.
Pete:
Would there be any kind of discount, do you think, in the future with insurers, if they could know this kind of technology's on board?
Frank:
The insurers are under pressure to take cognisance of these products, and we're already working with some insurers, such as Adrian Flux, and they will offer 10 to 15% discount if you have one of these devices in your vehicle, not just because they know that they're safer and less likely to have to pay out, but they actually understand that drivers are more likely to be careful, knowing that they're also on camera.
Pete:
If someone wants to buy one of these and they're not coming down to the show, do you have a website where you can buy these?
Frank:
Yes, of course. They can visit www.roadpixel.com.
Transcript continues: Toy Fair 2013 Roundup
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