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Camera for submitting footage to police
Hi, I should be grateful for recommendations for a camera, to be attached to bike or helmet, for submitting footage to the police. (I have been thinking about it for a while, but on Friday I was struck by an object deliberately thrown at me entirely unprovoked from an oncoming vehicle, so now is the time. I reported that to the police but I'm dependent on whether they can find CCTV footage of the incident.) I have in mind to record close passes and other bad driving to submit to the police. Presumably front and rear cameras would be advisible, fairly light if possible as I want to use it primarily on leisure cycling and be able to swap it between bikes reasonably easily. Thanks in advance.
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33 comments
For a rear camera I cannot recommend this rear camera highly enough, 7 hours battery life, 60fps, 1080p. Half the size of a Fly 6
Currently you have to order direct from HK until there is a UK distributor, I have just ordered the new Version 2 rear camera and previously had the V1. I believe they are working on a front camera.
https://www.facebook.com/TOOO-Cycling-105347488077019
Another Cycliq12 user, after trying several cameras its the easiest to get along with ive found for all my short & longer rides and I've had issues on reliability with other makes, once got left hooked by a bus only to find my GoPro had decided to stop recording by itself midride with no notice.
Interesting point on the maintenance part, as I've got an archive after 4 years of over 1000 incidents, taking 1TB of storage up, basically for no reason, as I've probably only reported 1% of those to the police in total, and I only publish a handful of the very worst to YouTube, I guess I had visions of doing one of those compilation videos,but it just takes too much time.
Another vote for Cycliq.
I'm now on my third Fly12 (Cycliq upgraded the original when it developed an intermitent fault to a 12ce, I replaced that one with another the same after an accident sent it skittering across the road because I stupidly hadn't attached the tether).
And 2nd Fly6 - likewise I upgraded the original 6v to a 6ce (gen2) a few years back. I've never had any issues. I've kept the 6v for when I rent a bike - the velcro strap is quick n easy to attached to any seatpost.
They're not perfect (the 6ce gen3 seems to have a reputation for water ingress). But my experience has been that they're at least as good as any other lights I've tried, customer service can be slow but is good (unlike others I could name) and battery life is decent (unlike most action cameras).
They're expensive but the Black Friday sale helps. Alternatively wait for a new model and get the old one reduced (I got my original 6 and 12 half price - which made the 12ce they upgraded my to very cheap!).
If you want a cheaper alternative, Lidl sometimes make copies. I had their Fly6v equivalent (it cost £40) but it kept switching itself off so I got a refund under warranty and bought the actual Fly6v instead (for £50).
My (original) Fly12 demised on a wet day when a driver thought it was acceptable to drive at speed through flood water and it felt exactly like having 6 buckets of freezing water flung over me simultaneously!
Original Fly6 still working (I think) with decent battery life but every now and again the memory card would need a poke due to getting too many locked segments or something like that, so I'd find that I didn't have a record on days when I wanted it. I gave up setting the date, there was a knack to setting up a special file which I didn't have.
That last point is important. You will have incidents every day, but once you get through the novelty factor, life is simply too short to review the footage (like some of the YouTube warriors do). So you need to be buying these with the intent to only review genuinely prosecutable footage that is worth police time. On the other hand, you do need to check the operation of them, and on these devices that means getting the card out and checking some footage to make sure it is recording. It's a commitment.
I stopped using my camera about 2 years ago. I concluded that the mindset it induced was not conducive to a healthy mental state when cycling. I now point to my Garmin or light when motorists look like they are going to get silly and shout "Camera!". That is quite effective.
I had a car camera too, and there have been several incidents, but having got a cheap Amazon one, it too was amazingly unreliable for getting in a mess - it would lose its date and therefore only record over old footage - so it would fill up with new footage, reset to 2010, then not be able to delete the old footage automatically because it wasn't!
Good point about the maintenance overhead. Exactly the same happened to me with my car dashcam (Nextbase). Once the novelty wore off I stopped checking the footage. When I needed it I found it had stopped recording a while back.
I think the "mindset" is also a factor. Many will deny it, but having a camera can make you want to get bustards.
And by the way, before it drowned did your Fly12 at least catch the idiot who drenched you?
I've never felt personally I've had to go that hard looking for footage to capture, if that was my goal, which it definitely isn't.
Most rides produce something I could post on a YouTube channel if I wanted to follow that route, I do post some videos there, but its not the purpose of why I have a camera recording rides.
It's about submitting evidence of the very worst drivers I encounter who have put my life at risk, to the police to tackle and hopefully make the roads abit safer for all cyclists.
I think that's only whilst it's still new. I've found that having cameras provides a calming influence on my riding. If someone does a close-pass or something dangerous, then I don't feel the need to confront them anymore - I'll just remember where the incident happened to check the footage later on.
I agree, and what I then realised was that it was rarely worth even reviewing, because it was not reasonable to expect the police to deal with an event that did not have serious consequences, or not contact the employer, what was I really going to do with it aside from fume?
One of the issues, I guess, is, even from a video, you can't prove intent and in our minds often we view these incidents as intent - but even, for example, my handful of this weeks' perceived punishment passes could equally have been incompetent motorist fixated on getting back to "their" side of the road ASAP - inspite of clear vis.
It's very important to submit close passes (assuming a willing police force) even if they don't have "serious consequences" as it's that kind of driving that puts off people who want to try active travel. It's also pro-actively persuading poor drivers to pay more attention and care.
100%, acting on near-misses is precisely the logic that drives industrial H&S improvement. Serious consequences are invariably foreshadowed by near misses, and could have been averted if the lessons of those rehearsals were implemented.
To that extent, I wonder whether submitting them to your MP and/or Councillor would be appropriate as well. If our great leaders regularly received brief clips of near misses maybe the issue will move up their priority list one half notch.
Having worked in the steel industry in the 1980s, I can remember the days of the big sign outside the main sites with (non-zero) deaths and serious injuries counts. The problem is that there is a mindset in the "road using industry" that non-zero KSIs are acceptable. In turn, that informs the courts that reasonably careful drivers are allowed a few KSI's in their driving career.
If a pilot was allowed the tolerance of a car driver... well, I don't need to say more except that as drivers our driving interacts with many more people on a journey than a pilot when you consider it, yet we are held to far lower standards. That's not even a cycling issue, is it?
Now you've got me wondering... I was so miffed about trying to dry it out and revive it, I'm not sure I did. Time for a rummage!
Edit: Found it! I realise I'd given up turning it on in group rides because the batteries didn't last. I used it for riding the 5 miles to and from the ride from home where as a single cyclist I had innumerable incidents (espeically the wild eyed loons of the school run). In a bunch, we get abuse but we've never had a collision and we've been able to communicate effectively enough to cope with some dangerous passes.
It will have written the video data to the SD card, but it's likely the file will be corrupt.
I've had success using HandBrake to repair a corrupt Cycliq file and recover most of the video footage.
Just in case anyone is interested - I have just purchased a Cycliq bundle as part of their Black Friday deal. Front and rear (12 & 6) for £405.
You could get a reasonable bike for that !
So you're not interested then?
Not at first glance, but I note the Fly6 and Fly12 bundles come with lens protector film and a silicone case which no doubt helps on water protection, which might solve two of the biggest bugbears I have with their cameras.
The US deal for the same was $455 (about £340.)
Oops, forgot yours includes VAT, so that's actually a very similar price. I had a love-hate relationship with my second generation Fly6, but it got stolen this year and I decided I'd take another chance on them and ordered its replacement on the Black Friday deal, $219 including shipping.
I've been using the following since 2018, primarily for commutes of c.50 mins each way:
Rear: Cycliq Fly6CE. Good - looping recording, decent quality, convenient mounting, decent battery life (would get most of a week's commuting out of it). Bad: difficulty connecting to Cycliq's own software to change settings like timestamp.
Front: entry level Go Pro Hero. No looping and poor battery (maybe 3 legs of my commute) meant it was inconvenient and I stopped using it. Mount is also more involved.
Cycliq Fly 6CE on the back works well. No issues with water ingress given a little care on replacing the rubber cover. Winter ride with mudguards also avoids that.
Did have an issue with not recording but a format SD card solved that. Like all cameras the SD card write speed is key so cards for high definition recording only.
If I have to find a fault it is the tools for processing the video. The long press on a button will lock the clip so is important, however hard to reach meaning a stop to do that.
So better button options are required for a continuous ride. Shimano DI2 provides that but the integration with Cycliq isn't available. The Shimano wireless for DI2 provides button configuration but Garmin Edge won't tell Cycliq Light anything but the light settings!
Having got home and connected to a computer the locked clips are easy to find. However video editing software is required to cut out the specific section. That's not possible with the Cycliq software sadly. Many editors will recompress the chosen section which is bad because it is no longer the original record. Of course the original can be supplied if a court requires it but it's more faff.
Otherwise battery life is good for many hours, and image quality sufficient.
Thanks very much everyone. Does anyone have any experience of the Insta360 One X2 which Jeremy Vine has shown footage of?
https://twitter.com/theJeremyVine/status/1380143121493819392?s=20
Not directly as nearly 400quid on a camera is more than I'm willing to spend, but every review I've seen criticises its battery life, it's no more than 1hr in normal operation, which probably means in practice you get less.
It's basically designed as an action camera from which you can post brief snippets of 'cool' footage to Instagram as a social media influencer, its not designed to be a camera cyclists use to capture the 5% of their journey they need to submit stuff to the police with.
though it captures video and so inevitably people use it this way
For short commutes you could probably make the insta work ok (battery life is only an hour and file sizes are huge). It will be a bit more faff than a Cycliq (no loop record, so having to open app, wipe, start recording prior to each ride).
But for longer rides (or less faff regular commuting) you can't really beat the convenience of the Cycliq. It's a simple as adding lights to your bike.
To get longer from the 360 you'd need an external battery pack, or stop to swap batteries every hour, not to mention a large SD card and regular manual wiping of footage.
Cycliq Fly 12CE despite the well documented issues with it,it still seems to offer the best choice in terms of usable footage captured. I'm just surprised there is still no real comparable competition for it on the market.
I have a GoPro on the front and it's great while it lasts - excellent image stabilisation, good quality video, even in poor light (although has limits in very poor light). The only real downside is the battery life - I only get ~1.5 hours (which may or may not be enough for you).
I used to have a Cycliq Fly6 (Gen 3) on the rear too, but it randomly stopped working (the Cycliq team immediately blamed water ingress, which was very telling but also entirely unfounded). They did send out a replacement... but a couple of months later than also stopped working (again, no actual explanation). So in the end I sent the replacement back too and got a refund. While it worked, the video quality was OK - noticeably worse than the GoPro but adequate for most purposes. Overall, a nice idea and much more elegant solution than most of the competition, but the reliability and quality control is not just there.
When I get round to getting a replacement for the Cycliq, I'm planning on giving a Ghost Drift a go - seems to tick the same box in terms of battery life but hopefully will actually work...
I started off with a cheap apeman but now have a Drift Ghost XL helemt mounted. 8 hours battery life so ideal for longer rides but low light performance leaves a lot to be desired. Haven't tested it in heavy rain yet but its survived light showers.
Which go pro do you use? I'm looking for a camera which will get number plates in low light for commuting where battery life isn't so much of an issue. Don't want to spend too much though.
You can't have all of those though ! Which is why I ended up with the XL like you.
Cycliq all the way.
I've an older model Fly 12CE on the front and a Fly 6 2nd Gen on the back.
I have no issues with image clarity, although it will struggle in low to zero light - as will all cameras on moving vehicles.
The image stabilization on the 12CE is first rate; I even record gravel rides and the cameras cope well with majority terrain.
I'll also always read it the number plate of the offending vehicle, just to reduce ambiguity.
I've never had any problems with water ingress on either camera, and they have both been out on storm conditions as well as the all persuasive drizzle that southern Scotland wears like a jumper.
The ability to record segment lengths and loop recording is a must; segment lengths make it so much easier than one continuous recording.
If you want to see video from multiple times of day and weather conditions, I record and upload all my rides to YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCsfBOmOh2FrA5Jm7__8yAxA
I'm using a Cycliq rear cam but most of my reporting comes from my Drift Ghost XL. Battery life is great ~8hrs and it is a resonable price at £150. I have had a few issue but the tech support seems ok at fixing those. Quality is ok but not fantastic but you would be paying more for better. I'm using VideoPad free editor for spliting them down to size.
My Cycliq Fly 6 and Fly 12 have paid for themselves and made recovery of damages against 2 drivers very straight forward.
Including this one: https://youtu.be/cLF93a5w7ko
That said, it appears that Cycliq may have dropped the ball a little on their latest models, including stupidly expensive proprietary fittings and not addressing issues such as lens scratching and water ingress.
Key features for me are: looping recording once the SD card is full, audio track, number plate clarity in poor conditions, robust design and timestamp. I also like the integrated lighting on the Cycliqs.
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