By Alfred Siew, a freelance writer

YOU have heard the story before - a car swerves into your lane while you are going straight on a highway and the next thing you know, you have slammed into the guy's bumper.

Soon, the unfortunate becomes the ridiculous, as the errant driver claims that you had been following too closely whereas he had kept to his lane.

Your word against his, so who wins? No one except the workshop owner.

Evidence is often so lacking in accidents that you wonder why every car is not fitted with a camera like the ViGi MT12, which records what the driver sees at the point of impact. No argument necessary; just the video evidence of who is in the wrong.

The gadget, from home-grown firm ViG Services, uses a China-made camera that connects to the cigarette lighter in the car to draw power.

What makes it impressive is its ease of use. Everything is automated: just leave the gadget hanging from your windscreen after a quick setup.

Turn on the ignition and the camera is activated in four seconds. With the supplied 2GB Secure Digital card, the device can record up to 90minutes of footage - enough for a day's journey. Or pop in a 4GB card to double the storage time.

The camera, at 640x480 pixels, can show clearly what went on before and after an accident.

Even if the offending car is not in front of you and not in frame, the camera will show the direction of the impact, say, from the sides. To see how good the quality is, go to video.vigidrive.com.

What is more, its internal battery enables it to keep recording for 15seconds after power from the car is cut, which means you still get your video evidence even in a serious crash that takes out the engine.

Another plus: little or no maintenance is needed. The gadget will overwrite the oldest videos when the storage is used up, so you do not have to worry about running out of space.

Footage is broken into five-minute video clips and stored in the popular AVI file format. To view them, simply take the SD card out and plug it into your PC.

Besides video, the MT12 also records audio with a built-in microphone. Plugging the SD card into my PC after the test, I could clearly hear the conversation my wife and I had on where to go for lunch.

Final say

With car insurance costs at sky-high levels, the ViGi MT12 camera may be a small price to pay to keep accident-claim fraudsters in check.

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

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