Fun little cheap mod... "Overtake cam"

[eTiMaGo]

I had this idea formenting in my head for a while, and put it to practice today.
Not a DIY per se, but anybody with half a brain should be able to set up a similar thing if they wanted. Took me 15 minutes and not even a screwdriver was needed.

Anyway, to give a bit of context, we have a lot of 4-lane roads over here, which is fine and dandy. But, very often the outside lane is not really usable as there are cars parked there! So, if it is necessary to overtake someone, it's hard to tell if there is space to go or not, since the driver does not have good visibility on that outer lane. Having a passenger helps, but you can't always expect to have that extra pair of eyes.

Enter the "overtake cam". A small cheap wide angle video camera attached on the furthest possible left of the car, so as to give a clear view of that lane. The original idea was to mount it insode the side mirror with a clear window, but that is beyond my skills. So, it has found its way to the upper corner of the windshield:





It's held on at the moment by that sticky putty usually known as Blu-tac (although the one I used is UHU's patafix, but it's pretty much the same thing)

And the whole thing hooked up to a spare video input of my head unit. The result:



A nice clear view ahead and to the left of the car!

I tried to take a picture while driving, but it wasn't easy:



The camera requires a 9V input, and since I had an inverter handy, I mounted it in the stealthiest possible location, which is the glovebox:



It's not pretty but it works.

Of course, this is really more of a proof-of-concept, there are several shortfalls:

The camera is the cheapest I could find (about $15...). And as such, it can't handle low-light situations, or direct sunlight all so well, causing it to go dark sometimes (and I think it can actually damage the CMOS sensor over time). Plus, the focus is less than ideal and it's a bit difficult to identify what you're looking at.

There are reflections on the windshield which can make it hard to see, but I think this can be solved by using a shade around the lens.

It's easy to get distracted and try to drive using the screen only. Like one gigantic Playstation...

Soooo.... what do y'all think? Coolest thing ever, or has this French guy finally gone certifiably nuts?