The video was creepy and frightening, showing an impromptu roadblock encountered by a driver on the Newark Bay extension of the New Jersey Turnpike in Hudson County. Without a dash cam to capture it, no one may have believed what the driver saw.

Ivan Tukhtin of Edison, who recorded that encounter, said that's why he bought a dash cam, to document what he encountered on the road and avoid the "he said, she said" that can happen after a crash.

"I was interested in the accident protection. I don't know how erratic other drivers are, and if I have a close call, the camera records it," said Tukhtin, 24. "I'm Russian and they're popular back home as an insurance policy. If you get in an accident, it shows good proof."



On Nov. 6, Tukhtin's dash cam showed two traffic cones set up across the highway. When he stopped, a man emerged out of the shadows. Fearing the worst, Tukhtin drove off and called the state police. The dash cam footage of the incident went viral.



"It records every time I drive," he said.

While experts said dash cams here haven't hit the kind of popularity that they have in Russia, where one third of the drivers have one in their vehicles, use of dash cams is increasing here for similar reasons.



"From an insurance standpoint, they could be used to clear-up accident and hit and run claims as an objective observer in a crash instead of the "he said, she said" account," said Tracy Noble, a AAA Mid-Atlantic spokeswoman. "A camera could be a reliable source of information."



Most commercial dash cams start recording when the vehicle is started and use a card that records over the oldest videos, meaning that drivers can set it and forget it.



"It could come in handy if you are in an accident and you weren't at fault," said Steve Carrellas, National Motorists Association state chapter Government and Public Affairs director.

Are dash cams, which can range from $30 to $300, the latest wave of motorist protection or a nanny cam that can rat out even the most minor driving infractions to police and insurance companies?

There is no trade association to provide figures of how many drivers have dash cams. But the owner of one camera company, Windshield Witness of Maryland, said increasing numbers of drivers told him they bought one for their own protection.



"Fifty percent are buying one before they have an accident and 50 percent are buying one after they've had an accident," said Dewey DeVane, Windshield Witness owner. "In Russia 1 of 3 vehicles has a dash cam to thwart crime and protect themselves from fraudulent accident claims."



In the last five years, demand for his vehicle dash cams increased 200 percent, Devane said, who added that he got in the business after a friend had her account of an accident with a public official disputed.



After his cameras were featured in a motor home blog, sales to those motorists also spiked, DeVane said. Only 10 percent of recreational vehicle drivers he surveyed said they bought a dash cam to film the scenery, 90 percent said they bought one for protection.



Officials of two New York City cab companies, which purchased dash cams from his company, told DeVane they believe the devices helped thwart potential robberies.

"People got in the cab, saw the dash cam and got out," they told him.

Windshield witness sells two models online priced at $168.58 and $190.58. The cheapest is a $29.98 dash cam on Amazon that is sold without a film card. The most expensive model on Amazon is $260, which has built in GPS.

Attorney Robert J. Brass of Newark, a former Middlesex County Assistant prosecutor and retired deputy state attorney general, compared a dash cam to a security camera in a store.



"If you're in the right, it's the best thing since sliced toast," he said of dash cams. "If you're in the wrong, it's the last thing you want."



Brass recalled the concern by law enforcement officers when dash cams were introduced in patrol vehicles, but the cameras were quickly accepted.



"As a prosecutor, I found the best thing you could have was a camera that showed what the defendant was doing at the time," Brass said. "It was invaluable to police and prosecutors."



Another question posed by dash cams is who owns the data and is allowed to access it.



"Bottom line is that the motorist should have complete control of their data, including not letting it be collected or stored," Carrellas said



If authorities want footage from a dash cam, they would likely have to obtain a search warrant, he said. In the case of a serious accident, resulting in a death, police might impound the vehicle to prevent camera footage from being tampered with until they obtained a search warrant, Brass said. In a civil suit, a plaintiff could subpoena a dash cam recording.



"Police would make a note of a camera if they saw in an accident (investigation)," Brass said. "They would only be interested if there was a criminal charge."



Noble also cautioned that dash cam footage only can help in the case of a crash if the video is unaltered and hasn't been edited to be more favorable to a driver who's been involved in an accident. Some dash cams record and display the vehicles speed.



But that's the double-edged sword of the dash cam.



"If it's used to monitor driver behavior and they didn't behave properly, it could affect their insurance," Noble said.



AAA's insurance experts said no insurance company currently offers a discount for use of a dash cam, Noble said. It's hard to predict if insurers would offer rate reductions the same way they do for devices, such as Progressive's "snapshot" which records driving data.



"Would people view it as an invasion of privacy?" she asked.



Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @commutinglarry. Find NJ.com on Facebook.