Owning a Dash Cam

Leaving work on Thursday meant it was time to attend weekly trivia, but this time it was pouring rain at rush hour. Of course this meant that traffic for even a small 5 minute (1.3 mile) drive was more stressful than normal. I arrived with a bit of rain on my body and attended trivia where we got like 6/7th place.

As I walked outside the venue it was still raining nearly 3 hours later and approaching 930pm at night. So I wasn't exactly excited to drive home at night in the rain. I pulled out of the parking lot and glanced both directions before pulling onto the road and all seemed fine.

As I entered the road I saw a car driving with no lights on at 9pm at night in the rain! I was so happy the car was far enough away to not cause an accident, but furious they were driving basically invisible.

I flashed my lights a ton of times to draw attention to their lack of lights and went on my way.

The video above should help show this situation as described - the camera makes it seem like I was blind until the windshield wipers ran, but in actuality it was not that hard to see through the glass with a bit of rain on it.

Alyson was leaving behind me so I instantly called her to see if she also noticed this and she was well aware. I started wondering how someone could be driving at ~9:15pm at night in the rain without lights. I just couldn't fathom unless a pure mechanical issue had occurred why an individual would be doing this.

It's not like the sun was now just setting - the sun had set at 8:11pm that day and my video timestamp is at 9:14pm. So I was just flabbergasted that here I was in the rain at 9:15pm at night and someone is driving without their lights on.

So as that drive continued on I kid you not - I spotted another person doing the same! Watch the video below a few times and see if you can even spot the car. A black truck without lights on at 9:30pm while raining really blends in.

At this point I was just more disappointed than anything - since you learn in school to keep lights on during rain. Of course you'd keep lights on at night and here we have both rain and darkness and this car doesn't feel like they need any lights.

Is this another case of a vehicle malfunction? It would seem odd in my one drive home from trivia to encounter two cars with a malfunction that only disabled lights so it must be something else.

Regardless of the reason I'm finding it more and more important to have a dash cam when driving in Florida (or maybe any state). You have to drive defensively with top focus and expect anything to happen, because if anything is true while driving defensively is nothing is predictable in today's age.