Can a Dash Cam See All Around the Vehicle?
3 Answers
A dash cam cannot see all around the vehicle; it can only capture the view in front of the car. The purpose of a dash cam: It effectively records drivers' violations such as speeding and fatigue driving, thereby monitoring the work quality of drivers, reducing the occurrence of traffic accidents, and improving vehicle operation standards. The functions of a dash cam: After powering on, the dash cam performs system checks on all components and interfaces; it has identity recognition capabilities; records and stores vehicle driving time, speed, and mileage; includes speeding alerts and recording functions; alerts and records for over-time driving and fatigue driving; features accident suspicion recording and analysis; data communication capabilities; and video image storage functions.
As a veteran driver with over a decade of experience, I initially thought installing a dash cam would give me full car coverage, only to be greatly disappointed. A standard single-lens dash cam mainly captures the front view, with its 170-degree wide-angle lens barely covering parts of both sides of the car's front. Once, when my car got scratched while reversing, I tried checking the dash cam footage only to find nothing was captured from the side. I later learned that achieving 360-degree monitoring requires installing four or five cameras—one each for the front, rear, left, and right—plus a panoramic monitoring system. Many new cars now come with built-in panoramic imaging, but ordinary dash cams simply can't match this. To monitor the rear, you need a separate rear-facing camera, and additional ones for the sides, making the whole setup three to four times more expensive than a basic model.
When I first bought the car, I was also curious about the dashcam's perspective and did some testing. A regular dashcam is like human eyes staring straight ahead—it can't capture what's behind. The most dangerous blind spots are along the sides of the car, but dashcam lenses are fisheye-designed, and when mounted in the center, they only cover a fan-shaped area directly in front. Some people think a wide-angle lens can capture all sides, but the physical structure inherently limits this. A 170-degree lens can at most capture the front corners of the car, leaving the doors and rear completely blank. To truly monitor high-risk scratch zones, you need to install additional cameras—for example, mounting a downward-facing lens below the left side mirror specifically to capture the wheel area.
