Dashcam Legality/Issues/Ideas

I am new to this forum.

Just signed up to drive Uber last week but have one big issue keeping me from getting on the road. Installing a dash cam for my safety from false accusations.

I have looked around and done my research extensively on this but still have concerns. I purchased the Falcon F360 HD but haven't installed it yet. Here are some of my concerns though.

1. I understand that, since I am in CA, I need to have a notice in my car saying video and audio recording is in progress. Check! I got stickers made for my car that say "For safety purposes, audio and video recording in progress."

2. False accusations: This is the main reason why I wouldn't drive without a camera. Simply because there is no way of knowing who's getting in your car. I like to think that people are generally nice but...

Here's a bad scenario that keeps playing in my head. Say you get accused falsely for touching your passenger inappropriately or worse, rape. From what I've read, you'd get arrested no questions asked. It's perhaps just the way things are right now.

Then you go through lawyers etc. and get your video shown to them. Apparently it could take them months before they determine whether the video is genuine. In that time you are sitting in jail. There was one case I read about where the driver recently got exonerated after four months in jail but only after they determined the audio he had recorded was genuine.

3. People declining consent after getting in your car and seeing a camera. What do you do then? If it were up to me I wouldn't drive anyone with the camera off. So I would politely tell the passenger to find another ride and contact Uber about it immediately after canceling the ride.

4. I read about another case where a driver dropped a person off to the airport and then allegedly tried to break into her apartment in broad daylight (1 PM I think). There was someone in the house who saw the guy trying to break in and told police it looked like the Uber driver. Guy gets arrested and I haven't heard more about it again.

Did he really do it? I don't know. What if the guy breaking in was someone else who looked like the driver? I know the odds of that are remote but hey. Stuff happens.

The advantage of having your dash cam on all the time would be to prove you were elsewhere at the time of the break in. Also, I would keep my Uber app on till I got home and done for the day. That way your location can be tracked. And Uber is known to hand over information like that to law enforcement.

///SORRY THIS POST IS SO LONG///

So here's my plan if I ever get on the road.

- Install the Falcon F360 and have it on the moment I get in my car till I'm done for the day.

- Only drive daytime hours. Almost 99% of bad incidents happen at night. At least that's what I've been reading. My other job is working from home with flexible hours. Which means I can do it at night and be on the road during daytime.

- Save all video at the end of the day on an external hard drive. I have found software and compression that will save video in small file sizes. Right now I can compress a 1-hour clip to about 360 MB. Which means if I drive 3 hours a day on average, I can have each day's driving saved in 1GB of video files.

The reason why I'd keep the recordings for at least a few months before I delete them is because I think you can get falsely accused at any time. A few days, even a few weeks after driving a passenger. So better to have some evidence of your innocence than none at all.

- I would never upload the video to any site or share with anyone. That's lame and has a myriad of repercussions. Video is only for my safety and to prove my innocence if the need ever arises.

So what do you guys think? I'm really on the fence about getting into the driver's seat for these reasons (and a few more which I may post about later in this thread). Call it paranoia but I'm not ready to lose everything I've worked so hard for just because of one unruly Uber rider.

Thanks for reading and any input will be appreciated.