The terrifying footage of a plane clipping a bridge in Taiwan and crashing into a river this week was a reminder that "dashcams" have become an increasingly standard piece of kit in cars around the world. The TransAsia crash, which killed at least 31 people on Wednesday, was filmed by at least two cars each carrying a dashboard camera. But it was not a complete coincidence, since dashcams have become increasingly popular in Taiwan to guard against disputes after an accident.
It's not the first time a rare event has been captured in this way. In February 2013, a car-camera caught a meteorite crashing to Earth in Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring more than 1,000 people. Last summer, a dashcam filmed a missile landing on a motorway just a few metres ahead of a speeding car in eastern Ukraine. Dashcams have become particularly popular in Russia to prevent scammers who throw themselves into the windscreens of slow-moving cars in a bid to claim insurance money. The trend has spawned several amusing videos of people jumping on to the bonnets of stationary vehicles and pretending to be hurt.
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