Teenage drivers only represent 5.4% of total drivers, but account for 8 percent of all drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2017. Long story short, teen drivers are over represented when it comes to accidents compared to other populations. If you are a parent, this statistic can be scary and so you’ll want to do everything you can to protect your teenagers while also allowing them the freedom they legally deserve.
- Front and Rear Dash Cam with 1080P resolution
- Built-in 4G LTE compatible for Remote Live Viewing or Vehicle Locate
- Power Magic Pro Hardwiring Kit included
- Built-in WiFi and GPS Logger to record speed/location and review or transfer footage
- Motion Detection, Parking Mode and G-Sensor
There are several reasons why teen drivers are involved in so many accidents and they aren’t always to blame. First, they are new drivers. Teenagers have only been on the rode for weeks or months compared to those who have years of expertise under their belt. Encountering new scenarios lessen as you drive longer so any surprises on the road you have a built up reaction. When new drivers are on the road, they are experiencing and reacting to things for the first time. Cars braking unexpectedly, animals crossing the road, or even interacting with other teenagers are all new experiences.
Apart from the “normal” events that happen on the road, your teenager is at the age where driving means freedom. They aren’t bound by parents and other kids love latching onto friend’s who have cars themselves. This is a recipe for disaster which is why in California if your teenager has a permit, they cannot drive with any friends for the first 12 months. Distracted driving is an important conversation you need to have with your teenager. And while you may trust them with a car, you might need to verify that they are sticking to the rules of the road and this is where having a dash cam can make such a difference.
The Perfect Dash Cam for Parents
Inward Camera
As a parent, you need to be doing a little bit of profiling on your kid. It’s not as dangerous as it sounds. What I mean by profiling, is you need to understand where your teenager could get in the most trouble. Often times, the teenagers who get their license first will have the rest of their friends depend on them for transportation.
This is where having an inward or cabin camera is useful. You’ll be able to confirm that they are or aren’t driving with approved friends. The amount of restriction is up to you, whether you are OK with certain friends, siblings only, or no friends at all. The cabin facing dash camera can confirm any agreement you have with additional passengers.
Be sure the inside camera has IR LED lights in order to see what’s happening in the car if it’s night time. The IR lights help illuminate the entire cabin (without affecting the driver) and can give a better picture of what’s happening.
Having a cabin camera can quickly determine immediate red flags like drunk driving, distracted driving or sleepy driving. And while you might feel guilty of always having an eye on your teenager, it might be a safer choice in the long run.
Cloud Capabilities/GPS
Let’s be honest, there are some teenagers that are going to require a little more supervision than others. Or, there are parents that are overly concerned about their kid. Either way, recent advanced dash cams have cloud capabilities where you can remotely check into the dash cam from anywhere you want.
That’s right, dash cams can be connected to the internet. This is typically used on commercial fleet vehicles, but can be re-purposed for teenager drivers. The one caveat to this is you’ll need an internet source inside the car, whether that be a mobile hotspot, or the actual dash cam has LTE capabilities.
Once broadcasting, you can tap into the dash cam’s view at any point, see where they are on a map via GPS and set physical boundaries. Notifications can be sent to you if they leave a certain area or are involved in an accident. GPS can help monitor speed and routes taken so you have a complete understanding on how the car is being used.
This might be helpful for kids who drive on long trips and you want to keep tabs on them without calling every few hours.
Wireless
As a parent of a teenage driver, if you are considering a dash cam for them, you’ll want to review the footage consistently or at least have the ability to do so. Nothing is more annoying than having to remove the SD card every time you want to download footage and more often than not, will get lazy about it.
Having a WiFi-enabled dash cam allows you to use your smartphone to easily review footage without tinkering with the dash cam. Using a smartphone app, you can connect to the dash cam where you can change settings, review and download footage.
Pro tip: Having a WiFi-enabled dash cam helps reduce the teenager from tampering with the dash cam as you can change the WiFi password to whatever you want. This way, a malicious teenager cannot easily delete select footage. There might be cases where ambitious teenagers might try to remove the SD card; perhaps use a piece of tape to cover it might be a deterrent as you can see any manipulation.
G-Sensor
G-Sensor is a dash cam feature which essentially is an accelerometer which can measure heavy gravity shifts, like what you would experience in a collision. Having this accelerometer signals to the dash cam that there was an impact. Most newer dash cams will either immediately begin recording if it wasn’t already, and save the footage to a protected folder that is separate than all other video files. This makes it easier to review later and makes it so there’s no chance loop recording will override the footage if the driver doesn’t realize they’ve been hit.
BlackVue DR750-2CH LTE
If you come across any advanced dash cam, you will most likely cross the BlackVue company. They specialize in high end dash cameras that can be used for a variety of applications. The DR750-2CH LTE is a new version of their DR750-2CH camera that now offers a cellular connected option. This means you would have to supply a data-only sim card to the dash cam and as long as their is a cellular signal, it can connect remotely. The BlackVue DR750-2CH LTE is the best live streaming dash cam that is perfect for parents who want to keep an eye on their kids.
We think this is the perfect option for parents who don’t mind spending an extra $30 a month being able to keep tabs on their teenagers. This cam offers both front and rear cameras filming in 1080P. The great thing about this dash cam besides the LTE functionality is it includes a hard wiring kit which allow you to power the dash cam through the car’s battery. This means even when they key is out of the ignition, the dash cam is powered on.
BlackVue calls this hard wiring kit the Power Magic Pro and it will shut off if it detects the car’s battery dying. Having this powered on at all times means you can check in with the car when parked, driving or otherwise. There is a walkie-talkie aspect and it’s fully GPS enabled. The only thing is doesn’t have is a cabin facing camera, but you could sacrifice the rear camera and have that point inside the cabin.
Rexing V3 Dual Camera Front and Inside
The Rexing V3 is a front and cabin facing dash camera, something that the BlackVue doesn’t have. If you really footage within the cabin, this is a go to. It films in Full HD, 1080P video. The lens are ultra wide at 170 degrees and the inside camera has infrared lights to help illuminate the cabin at night.
It doesn’t have the ability to connect to the cloud, but it does have a GPS unit that will mark time, date, location and speed information on top of the footage. Additionally, this dash cam has WiFi, meaning you can easily access all of this information and the stored footage fairly easily.
Another feature parents might utilize for new drivers is the time lapse feature. This requires the unit to be hard wired into the car, but will take pictures once a minute and can stitch multiple hours into a few minutes. If you don’t have time to scrub through 8 hours of footage, this is a necessary feature.
We find the image quality both day and night to be sufficient and haven’t run into any recording issues.
VAVA 2K Front and 1080P Cabin
Next we have the popular VAVA Dual Dash Cam, with a front and cabin facing camera, similar to the Rexing. The VAVA has a better front camera resolution filming at 1600P @ 30 FPS. It does have a built-in GPS and is accessible through your smartphone.
We don’t particularly like the design of the VAVA. It seems a little bulky but you can hide the unit behind your rear view mirror. We are impressed with the quality of the footage especially reading license plates are moderate ranges. The night vision for both cabin and front facing footage is really exceptional.
The feature that stands out the most with the VAVA is that although the form factor isn’t desirable, it does have a built-in 320mAh battery. While most dash cams require it to be hard wired to record in parking mode or when the car is off, the VAVA can briefly record if it detects an incident. The VAVA does not need a constant power source to record footage in short bursts. If you are uncomfortable with hard wiring, this may be a good solution.
THINKWARE U1000 Dual Dash Cam
The THINKWARE U1000 is another premiere dash cam that has remote capabilities. It is a dual camera setup, with the front filming in 4K and the rear in 2K resolution. It has all the standard features you may be looking for when monitoring a teenager such as Parking surveillance mode.
What sets this one apart from others is this includes an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS). This means not only is the dash cam able to monitor driving behaviors, it can also detect potential forward collisions, lane departures or vehicle departures. Yes, new drivers might get distracted and need a machine’s help to drive safely. There is no shame here; nowadays most modern cars are loaded with safety features like blind spot monitoring or even detect if you are falling asleep. This camera also has red light and speed camera notifications.
Since this camera has cloud capabilities, you’ll need to setup a WiFi hot spot so that the THINKWARE can send data to the cloud. Like the BlackVue, the Thinkware Cloud has the ability to Remotely Live View the dash cam and locate the vehicle. Notifications can also be sent to the user if a crash is detected.