Dashcam Wiring, Side Curtain Airbag Warning

kirving

I've wired front and rear dashcams into a few cars recently, and thought I should make this thread.

Most of the time, people will stuff the wiring for a dashcam into rubber strips surrounding the front and rear doors, and up into the headlinging. It's important to remember that that in doing so, you need to avoid the cable from interfering with the deployment of the side curtain airbags, which can extend some way down the A and C pillars of the car.

Ideally, cabling should be run below the doors, but the provided cables may not be long enough, and to be honest that can be a lot of additional work, as depending on the car, it can be hard to find a safe route for the cable down the A-Pillar, and then up the C pillar (if you have a rear camera). Once you avoid the airbags, running it via the headliner is still OK.

The key part of doing this, is to pull out the trim on both the A and C pillars, look for the rolled up airbag and straps, and route the cable behind it (ie: towards the outside of the car.)

Some people will say that this is scaremongering, but airbags need to deploy in milliseconds, and wiring used by dashcams is extremely strong in tension. You do not want a tangled wire to impede it's deployment. Others will say that this is bad advice, as the cable should be run another way. I'm just trying to advise people on the precautions they should take when wiring the car this way.

Hope this is helpful, and feel free to PM me with any questions.

2016 F30 BMW 3 Series (I guess most F Code BMW's will be very similar)

A-Pillar

C-Pillar

Depending on your car, it may or may not have a strap which runs quite far down the A-Pillar (and/or C-Pillar). Below is a comparison of an F30 3 Series Crash test done by EuroNCAP and IIHS in the US. Don't rely on just a Youtube video when planning out your dashcam install, as the video may be from a different region, or slightly newer or older model of your car.

2022 Mk2 Nissan Leaf

A-Pillar 1

A-Pillar 2. Notice the strap which holds the airbag in place.

You can see how this strap is needed to hold the side curtain airbag its proper position in a collision.