Once upon a time, our society relied on eye witnesses and good will to solve minor mysteries, like car crashes or vandalism or theft. Can you imagine? But with the magic of modern technology, s have helped out tons of vehicle owners.

As I live in Brooklyn, I have already reserved myself to not being too concerned with the cosmetics of any future vehicle I own. The goal is to keep it cheap enough to not care too much about street parking it.

But if I did care about the cosmetics, which, let’s be honest, I probably will regardless of what I tell myself, one of the first things I’d throw on the car is a shiny new dashcam.

Now, I’m not a huge fan of the surveillance state, coming from a military family who installed cameras on the doors and didn’t tell the people living in the house they did it. But if it’s something super exposed to the outside world (and not my own children), I could definitely see the justification in CCTV-ing the shit out of your ride.

I’ve seen firsthand how a well-placed camera could be necessary for vehicle protection. Jalopnik’s own former social editor Aaron Brown has somebody bizarrely steal the “L TRAIN” license plate off his street-parked motorcycle. After that, he put a camera in his apartment window facing the spot he often parked, so he’d at least know who or what was involved if something ever happened again.

We’ve also seen and written about . Do you have a dashcam, or a security camera specific to your ride? When has it come in handy? What did you catch and what did you do about it? I want all the juicy minor crime drama.