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Rear-View Cameras On Cars Could Become Mandatory In the US
According to the Los Angeles Times, "The federal government wants automakers to install back-up cameras in all new vehicles starting in late 2014. The plan, announced Friday, received a strong endorsement from insurance industry and other analysts and is likely to get some level of support from car manufacturers. ... The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that, on average, 292 fatalities and 18,000 injuries occur each year as a result of back-over crashes. The agency said children and the elderly were the most common victims. About 44% of the fatalities in such accidents are children and 33% are people over 70, it said. NHTSA said its proposal was designed to keep drivers from running over pedestrians who might be crossing behind their vehicles. It could also prevent parking-lot bumper thumpers. The camera systems show motorists what's behind them via a video display on the dashboard. They typically feature a bell or alarm that alerts the driver if an object is within the camera's field of view."
Yes this mirror is illegal in the us:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=drivers-med-rearview-mirror-sans-bl-2009-01-19
More Federal Government encroachment into our lives. Will they now ban all existing cars so we have to buy shiny new ones? "for the kids" of course.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
292 fatalities a year in a country of 300+ million, and they want to legislate mandatory backup cameras...
If you legislate everyone be strapped to a medical exercise device and fed a perfectly balanced diet through a tube, everyone would be almost perfectly safe.
Ban them, and no more problem.
blah.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You cannot "outlaw" stupidity. Why not take it to the next level and put everyone in inflatable suits when they drive, pack them in egg cartons. If people would take more responsibility, they wouldn't be backing over the family dog, a skateboard, fire hydrants or their kids. You know what will happen if/when they put this into play. The first person that hits something while backing up will have a hoard of lawyers knocking down their door to file a class action lawsuit.
... that a company that manufactures cameras is on a lobbying spending spree?
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
Seems kinda stupid to me. Car makers overcharge for the things already. Consumer Reports just did some article about how big the blind spot in cars is and depending on model and driver height it varies between 6 and 150+ feet (for spotting a toddler).
So how about either mandating a better view out the back of the car, or only requiring then on cars where the blindspot is over 15 feet for an average height person?
Better ideas for cutting down on deaths: bigger bumpers, lower speed limit (like 45), tougher driving tests, taking away licenses more aggressively, mandating disc brakes (probably more effective at safety), or just some public safety commercial. Those would probably all be more effective at saving lives.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
"there are 250,844,644 registered passenger vehicles in the US"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States
Backup cameras are becoming common in the fleet anyway. Let's see what that actually does to the incredibly few problems first maybe? It's not like there aren't actually pressing issues to deal with right now.
I've spent a lot of time driving a car with one of these cameras, and they're excellent, and relatively inexpensive. But they shouldn't be mandatory! Cars are already too complicated.
"proposal was designed to keep drivers from running over pedestrians who might be crossing behind their vehicles"
Its called a rear-view mirror.
Unless its a toddler or a VERY short person, having an image on your dashboard, or to your top will make no difference to whether you can see them or not. If your kid is small enough such that someone reversing his car can't see him - then s/he probably shouldn't be out on their own.
There are a lot of these in Japan, but they're not mandatory; they're part of an upgrade package and use the screen that people use for the navigational GPS system. They're especially nice for backing up at night since the area behind you is illuminated and there's a grid overlaid on the view that adjusts itself when you move the steering wheel -- that way, you can see where your car is going a lot easier than you can by leaning out the window.
On the other hand, most people I know who have this camera don't seem to use it; they just use their rearview mirrors or just look back normally.
I really don't think that making them mandatory will help all that much; it'll just raise car prices and many people will probably ignore them in favor of looking around like they always have (or haven't). And aren't we trying to get people to STOP looking at screens while driving?
http://www.tenjou.net/
They typically feature a bell or alarm that alerts the driver if an object is within the camera's field of view.
When, exactly, is NO object in the cameras field of view?
THL phish sticks
Cameras aren't necessary - mildly enhancing the standard ultrasonic parking sensors would address this problem for a fraction of the cost.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
I would have expected the usual government reaction to a statistic like this:
About 44% of the fatalities in such accidents are children and 33% are people over 70
Would be to ban children and the over 70s
People are going to stop walking around their car and glancing at their vehicles, choosing instead to trust the technology. It won't be long until a child's toy, then a beloved pet, then even a child gets crushed under a wheel, out of sight of the cameras. :(
You don't see motorcyclists with this kind of problem.
I watched my sister-in-law in a vehicle with a camera shortly after she bought it. She couldn't back up to save her ass, since she spent more time looking at the camera's feed then actually turning her head to look behind her. Took her three tries to back out of our neighbor's crowded driveway with no success. Then her sister's husband did it first try. He just looked out of the damned window. Newsflash - the camera has a limited field of view. The difference is that if you turn your head to look, you've probably got a better chance to see what may be outside of the camera angle, or moving into it.
What's wrong with the old passive back-up camera, commonly known as "rear view mirror"???
Reminds me of the NASA space pen allegory. But what really worries me is putting home theater center in dash. Is it just me or does it seem like little to no consideration is given to how many deaths are caused by driver distraction? Maybe I'm getting old too, but it seems like oncoming headlights have gotten way too bright when I'm driving. Don't even get me started on the giant blinking red billboard that reads "Buckle up for your safety." I wonder how many people look at the sign instead of the road.
It seems like they only make cars safer if it can co-inside with a feature that will raise the price or sell more cars.
OK, that's enough cynicism for one post...
meep
In an age where reverse parking sensors, backup cameras, mirrors and everyone else in and outside of the car yelling at you to stop; I still have guys at my body shop back into cars that were parked in the same spot all day. Also had my brother back a Maserati into a box truck the following evening.
It will probably end up adding $20 to the cost of an automobile costing tens of thousands, make the world a safer place, reduce nuisance collisions, make the next generation of drivers able to assume that they will be there where they expect them (no surprises)...
How much did it cost to add dual circuit brakes to every car? How many deaths due to outright break failure per year would there be otherwise... I'd bet fewer than the back-overs.
And maybe you'd like to save a few bucks and not have seat belts in your car too?
We're all in this together. It's called progress... Things advance to the point where a majority of us agree that that will be the new normal and we spec it out and move on. You'll get the benefits whether you like them or not.
Pat
What I would like to see is what the total cost of this program is and how many lives will it save? If the answers are to be found in the article, I wouldn't know... it is Slashdotted.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
292 fatalities and 18000 injuries a year. But how many of those drivers were drunk, stoned, decrepit or otherwise unfit to drive a vehicle? Would the rear-view or bell actually have mattered in those cases?
In fact, I know that the people who build such systems have lobbied congress greatly to make it mandatory. If they were to provide the actual studies of human behavior, it would reveal that these systems actually make drivers MORE careless. They assume that the bell will work. They assume that if the video is clear, they are clear to backup. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But you will never see those statistics or studies. Because the people who build the systems make too much money. Just like you never see any scientific studies regarding the impact of cell-phone use on the ability to drive, or real statistics on the number of accidents by people using "hands-free" phone systems. Grease the right pockets and you can have the federal overlords make your product mandatory across the US too.
I can think of one good use for rear-view cameras... dealing with tailgaters! Imagine being able to record some video of some primo dickbag in his BMW X5, angrily following five feet behind you at 50mph because you aren't willing to go significantly above the speed limit for him. The computer's technology can measure how far away the other car is and overlay it on the screen. Then, hit a button on your dashboard, it sends the video (with a capture of his license plate, if he's got one) off to the police and they mail him a ticket. If enough people catch the same person doing it, fuck'im, take his license away and force him to take the bus.
On a more cheerful note, there is another use that Jeremy Clarkson recently suggested on Top Gear -- looking at pretty girls in the car behind you while sitting at a traffic light. Lech-o-matic!
I have a rear-view backup camera in my car and I love it. It's not always a substitute for turning your head back and looking since it's difficult to judge distance since it's a very wide angle camera. It's good for seeing pedestrians and is great for parallel parking though since I see my own bumper. I also find it useful since as I get older it gets harder to turn my head back when backing up. Since it's so wide angle it also lets me see if there's any oncoming traffic I need to worry about as well.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
If we just made sure people got in a car to drive, instead of play games, read, write, talk on the phone, do work, eat, sleep, piss, shit, and ever other thing people do instead of paying attention that may actually work.
America, no one is responsible for their own actions. Please check your personal liberty and responsibility at the door. Thank you.
So glad the priorities are all about rear view cameras and TV commercial volume - that's EXACTLY what our Government should spend its time working on! Meanwhile, in the 10 seconds it took to type this entry, our wonderful Government blew another $412,227 in deficit spending...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The government should very well be allowed to mandate safety devices in cars. They help save lives often without a lot of cost. It also doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can require a feature on new cars and then slowly as wear and tear takes its natural course nearly all cars will have the feature. So the real questions are:
1) What is it going to cost in a new car to implement? Real cost, not bullshit cost. How much will it actually raise the price for the consumer?
2) What kinds of savings does it generate in terms of lives, injuries, and property damage? That will be more of an estimate of course but you can still do some studies to determine it fairly accurately.
Now for these particular devices I don't know, I've done zero research so I'm in no position to say if they are worth it or not. However it is silly to suggest that the government shouldn't be able to introduce new safety standards, or that it would require getting all new cars. All that needs to be done is a good cost/benefit analysis of the idea. If it turns out to be worth the cost, then it can be required for new cars.
Stop mandating this crap. I don't want traction control in my car, I don't want more screens, I don't want want my car to drive itself, and I don't want my car to disable cellphones.
I enjoy driving, and I drive a lot. My car is comfortable, gets good fuel economy (45-48MPG), has a manual transmission and drives like a car (not a golf cart). There are no screens (aside from the 1"x2" LCD clock and Odometer) and my speedometer and odometer have needles (so you can see how fast you're going out of your peripheral vision (is the needle straight up? I'm good)).
I agree, there are some safety features that should be in all cars... Seat belts, and airbags are important. But back up cameras? 292 fatalities a year. This is insignificant, seeing as how there are about 40,000 automobile fatalities per year, 0.7%? More people likely die from just being poor drivers. Why doesn't the government require better driver education before issuing licenses? Why don't we require retesting at certain ages? (Do you really think that all of the people out there driving in their late 80s drive just as well as they did when they were 19?) I'm betting fixing these problems would save a lot more lives than making us have more crap in our car.
If these cameras are mandatory, will they be included in states "safety" inspections? Will I be required to fix it if it breaks? If I swap out the stereo in my car for a different one, will I be required to reattach the camera?
Newsflash: maybe your sister-in-law isn't very bright either.
We already passed a health care bill that was nothing more than a massive handout to the insurance industry. Now we are considering mandating backup cameras on the advice of the insurance industry? Notice that of course they didn't say anything about reducing rates for people who have them; more likely the insurance industry will just start raising further the rates of those who don't (and then later calling it a "discount" for those who do).
Yeah, I'm glad to see that the government isn't just looking out for big business... Remind me again how we changed things in 2008?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
We can add a driver footwell camera to resolve "unintended acceleration" claims.
We can add a view from near to passenger side sun visor toward the driver. This would document drowsy and distracted drivers.
We could use the GPS to report people who don't signal.
We could offer a button to report a bad driver. Something like wireless MAC sniffing would allow police to know which records to look at.
I don't know, maybe you can get an LCD screen and camera and associated circuitry, etc., for $20 in very large quantities, but that seems like an awfully low estimate. If you could, OLPC would sure like to know, huh? How much will it really cost, and how much will it add to basic models that lower income people may be buying? Will it be considered a device necessary to pass safety inspections, meaning if it breaks, you are obliged to repair it? Probably more costly to repair than replacing a taillight.
I'd think that stricter tests before allowing people to obtain licenses, along with periodic reevaluation of driving skills could do more to lessen accidents and injuries than throwing technology at one particular issue.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
well great! At this rate this will be require by law too: http://itn.co.uk/7ba8745111174317738adf9ebbeb68b0.html
you will need alot of HDD space to store raw video.
Lets get our priorities straight....292 fatalities, and we want to add cameras that must add not less than $50-$100 per car. If everyone driving a car gave $50-$100 to cancer research, we could save 100's of thousands of lives each year.
Yes, they are useful so you should be able to get it on a car if you so choose. Just like everything else, if you want it, go ahead and have it installed and have it on your car. However, don't make everyone else have to have it. There isn't anything wrong with having rear-view cameras, there is a problem with the government mandating rear-view cameras. I'm sure that once more information gets out about this bill I can almost guarantee you that the sponsors of the bill have some ties to rear-view camera technology and the bill will be written to include them while exclude their competitors because of technicalities.
When the market works, innovations are made and things work. When government tries to control it, corners get cut, customers get screwed, companies get screwed and only the government ever wins.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
They should put a camera inside the vehicle instead so investigators can see what the driver was distracted by when they ran Grandma over.
Or maybe they should be more stringent in the requirements for getting a license in the first place.
=Smidge=
Won't anyone please think of the children? Oh how horrible it is that so many are run over! If only our cars had mirrors that could help us see the back of the car! If only humans had the ability to turn around and look behind them! But, don't worry! The wonderful benevolent Big-Brother-in-training US government is here to the rescue!
<rant>
This is why we, as Americans*, need to stop playing the "It's this party's fault" game. The parties, especially the major two, are using our division as a means to shove through insane and stupid legislation like this. And we're too busy blaming each other instead of the numb-skulls in charge. Please start voting based on principles, not party! Vote for someone who will uphold the constitution in all their decisions, not just when it suits them. And no, it's not so complex that it's hard to do sometimes. You read the document and then you say, "Is legislation X in line with the constitution and with the original intent** of the founders?" If the answer is no, you don't pass it. If your rep won't do that, then vote them out. We hired them and we can fire them.
</rant>
There, now I feel better.
* Yes, I know plenty of /. members are not in or from the US. I'm not talking to them.
** Original intent as can be seen from the federalists papers, other writings by the founders, and the plain simple writing in the document in the first place.
"The plan, announced Friday, received a strong endorsement from camera industry and other analysts and is likely to get some level of support from car manufacturers."
There, fixed it for you.
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
There's a core concept in decision making, called cost/benefit analysis, that our modern day society has completely forgotten. I mean this very seriously: Once you move from cost/benefit analysis decision making to Precautionary Principle decision making, you are officially insane, because you believe things that are contradictory. This applies (especially) to societies - if you refuse to make a decision because it has any con at all, you will be left with the status quo. This means that the Sierra Club and other Green groups, who oppose pretty much everything everywhere nowadays, are responsible for us being stuck with gas cars, coal burning power plants, and the ongoing destruction of our nation's food supply.
Some examples:
1) 10 kinda-sorta-endangered (threatened) desert tortoises are found near a new, environmentally happy C02-less solar plant in the Mojave. You might call it HELIOS-1 because you've played Fallout New Vegas, but this is a true story (it's actually in Ivanpah, which is a bit south of the HELIOS-1 plant in the game.) The company offered to relocate the tortoises at a cost of $100M. $10M per bloody tortoise. The Sierra Club and Senator Feinstein shut it down. Any downside whatsoever, even if the Pro column in the Green playbook is much bigger than the Con column, causes them to file lawsuits to shut it down.
2) See any number of examples of Green groups shutting down nuclear power plants or stopping them from being built. The really amusing/frustrating irony is that they then say that nuclear isn't a viable option because they continually encounter delays and cost overruns due to, well, their own lawsuits. Even though the Pro side is very good on nuclear from a Green perspective, they still block it because they are too stupid to know the difference between Chernobyl-style positve feedback plants and modern negative feedback plants. Bonus points for stupidity: a Green group that chained themselves to a fence of a local nuclear plant to protest the CO2 emissions it was emitting.
3) They're extending an interstate in North Carolina. 10 river snails on the Endangered Species List migrate up a branch of the river from their homeland downstream. The Endangered Species Act is our modern insanity codified into law - it doesn't matter how the Pro and Con balance works out, the new snail habitat must be protected. Even though rerouting the interstate will cost billions, add 10 minutes to every person's commute, and will cause untold extra car emissions to go into the atmosphere, it doesn't matter. We don't do cost/benefit analyses any more. They're going to reroute the interstate.
4) A buddy of mine (PhD economics from the University of California) got a job working for Fanny Mae over the summer. He started doing a cost benefit analysis of the effect of the Community Reinvestment Act and similar policies on our housing market, and on the economy in general. The first thing that he found was that nobody had done this analysis before. In Fannie Mae, Fortune 100 company whose entire business is based on these sorts of things. Conclusion number 2, it was possible to codify the costs for each of the lowerings of housing standards congress (i.e. Barney Frank) mandated to Fannie Mae. They kept pushing standards lower until the whole system collapsed. Conclusion number 3: nobody was ever able to quantify the upside of home ownership. Why is it important for people to own homes instead of renting, if all else is held the same. What kind of dollar value can be assigned to owning instead of renting? The whole system was based on a nebulous upside, subsidized by the American taxpayer, and nobody could say why, precisely.
Anyhow, going back to
Turning your head works too. If that is too much of an athletic feat there is always looking in your mirrors.
The auto industry can get in on the act and make cars with good rear window visibility.........one of the reasons why I DIDN'T buy a Prius this past spring.
Things advance to the point where a majority of us agree that that will be the new normal and we spec it out and move on.
If the majority agree that it will be the new normal, you don't need to have a government mandate, the market will provide that new normal. Once the majority of people want a certain feature in new cars, manufacturers will gradually stop making cars without that feature.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
as someone who supplies the optics to those cameras on high end vehicles I can tell you: this will cost a lot more than $20 a car. You have to have an optical system that works perfectly well over a range of about 200F. This is no small feat of opto-mechanical design.
Someone doesn't run over grandpa because he isn't visible enough, they run over grandpa because they ~aren't looking~ (small children may be another story, below the FOV when backing up). If someone isn't looking, this device isn't miraculously going to turn them into a good driver.
Even if you could realize all the proposed lives saved, 292 deaths is less than 1% of automotive fatalities in a year (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year). Of course, automakers aren't going to fight this too much, since everyone has to play ball/raise prices, and having the in-dash monitor is an immediate point for feature up-sells such as GPS.
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
I only need to check my immediate left and right really quick. The mirrors on the Jeep Patriot are larger like most trucks, so I get a better spread: managed to get them so the blind spot is really small. For backing into a parking space I use them, the rear view, and looking back. They are tall enough I get the white lines of the space in them.
Also, more cars need the bouncy plastic collapsing mirrors like it. There are some tight parking spaces, and being able to fold my mirror to the side to get by it is sweet. The thing I hate is that it's mostly SUVs and trucks that have these features.
It will probably end up adding $20 to the cost of an automobile costing tens of thousands,
Uh, what? The automakers will end up paying some other provider (like Hitachi or Mitsubishi, who already make a great quantity of automobile electronics including stuff like igniter transistors, throttle position sensors, and PCMs) probably a minimum of $50 for the system, then there's the added wiring and connectors. Note that the backup cameras pretty much only come in the fancy trim level packages today. Odds are there will also be additional bezels, there's a bunch of added bracketry and its associated hardware, blah blah blah. And then there's going to be the cost of repair when it fails, and plenty of them will. If you make it mandatory that they be in operating condition now it's just one more thing to add to the emissions/safety inspection, so the total cost to society could be fairly massive.
How much did it cost to add dual circuit brakes to every car? How many deaths due to outright break failure per year would there be otherwise... I'd bet fewer than the back-overs.
That was WAY cheaper, because making a dual master as opposed to a single one adds very little brake line and only one fitting at the master, plus some changes to the piston. This is adding a video screen and camera.
We're all in this together. It's called progress... Things advance to the point where a majority of us agree that that will be the new normal and we spec it out and move on. You'll get the benefits whether you like them or not.
It's another gimmick that people will depend upon, when what we should be doing is taking driver's licenses away from people who can't or won't look behind them to see if someone is there. A backup proximity sensor system is significantly cheaper to implement and is sufficient to let people know if there is an obstruction.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I wonder if this was a real problem before everyone started buying huge SUVs that they don't really need. I had never heard of someone backing up over their own kid until people started buying Excursions and Tahoes.
Makes sense. Half the soccer moms I see driving these things can barely see over the steering wheel anyway. Of course, if this will enable them to get out of a parking spot without making a 14-point turn, then maybe it's good technology.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
The 'flat mirror' requirement would rule out a 'no side mirror' vehicle with cameras on both sides.
A modded Honda Impact (for a high mileage contest) included the replacement of both side mirrors with small, low aerodynamic drag, cameras and LCD monitors just inside the side windows where drivers would expect to view the mirrors. According to the guy at the auto show I spoke to (sorry, can't find a link) the drag reduction is measurable at freeway speeds.
captcha: illegal
Have gnu, will travel.
It is not raw video on these cameras; it is MJPEG.
Probably in the next year or so the MJPEG format data will be sent via ethernet within the car by using AVB
--jeffk++
ipv6 is my vpn
Instead of spending time on useless things like this, they should really focus on making it a legal requirement that cars drive themselves. I think more lives would be saved if human error was removed from the equation. They are talking about saving 292 lines per year? This is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of lives you would save if all cars drove by themselves. According to this link, there are about 100,000 traffic fatalities per year... If you want to make a law, why not focus on ones that might halve the number of traffic fatalities... Saving 292 people who didnt look back when they were putting their car in reverse is such a random useless thing to talk about. Making a law to "fix" this "problem" is ridiculous. If cars were forced to drive by themselves, so many other problems would be solved. DUI would not exist, all the "using a cell phone while driving" laws would immediately become irrelevant.
but I don't mind the senior killing part.
We've got two cars. One, which we just bought, is a Toyota Highlander Hybrid. We live in a small city, in the downtown historic area, where streets are small and parallel parking is the norm. However, we camp often, go on road trips, are planning on having kids, and have a large dog we bring around with us pretty often. Also, my wife, who drives the car most, has an hour long commute. So, when her Jetta gave up the ghost, we got the Highlander mostly for her, but also for the aforementioned things. Having the backup camera basically just makes parallel parking the car--which is pretty big, much bigger than the Jetta--much easier. And when it's loaded up to the point where there's no visibility out the back window, it's nice to still have a rear view besides the side mirrors.
On the other hand, my car is a 1999 Honda Prelude. I can see anything anywhere near my car pretty much all the time. Despite having a crappy turning radius for a coup, and being longer than most cars in that class, I can park it pretty much anywhere and see anything behind me without a problem. The space between the bottom of the rear window and the street is less than three feet.
When the 'lude dies--God forbid--I'm planning on getting something very similar, just newer. How exactly will a backup camera add to the safety of a car of that size? Or a Mini, for example? Here's a thought: maybe a one-size-fits-all law isn't the answer here.
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Old news. NHTSA is just carrying out a law that was passed three years ago.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.01216:
For Bob's sake, congress. We just finished bailing out GM and Chrysler. Do you just want to go and do it again in five years when sales plummet because no one can afford an American car with all these "safety" mandates? The Yuan is licking its chops at us.
Oh, and of course everyone in this country has to drive everywhere because no one invests a damn dime in rail. Clue stick: You can't expect someone to get a well-paying job if he can't get from his house to a place of employment easily.
Hope! Change! Yaaaaay!!!!
I'd like them to focus on less obvious deaths. I bet you could spend a couple hundred grand in factories and save hundreds of lives (or 1000s of additional healthy years).
There are cheaper ways to save lives. $20 * 8,000,000(cars sold per year) to save 300 * 50%? lives isn't exactly the best we can do. It puts the value of a saved human life at 1 million USD. Guarantee it can be done more cheaply. If saving lives were honestly the only factor then they'd have done a study on 'how to save lives cheaply' rather than one about cars. I bet subsidizing condoms would save more lives. I bet there are a million things that could be done for 1/1000th the cost.
I was wondering today why the front mirror isn't curved to cover the blindspots. Like just on the edges. Does anyone know why?
Sonar would be useful since global warming will put the coastal cities underwater. But we will also need snorkels and flippers (well propellers )
1) This could be done MUCH cheaper. Have cars beep when backing up just like trucks. Problem solved instantly for 1/1000th the price. If you want to be more technical use ladar to judge distance and beep if you are going to bump something. Cheaper still and slightly less annoying.
.5 and 10 million per life saved. If you can't think of a cheaper way to save lives, you are retarded.
2) Saving lives could be done for a very very very small fraction of the cost if that is the goal. Think of almost anything that you think could save a life. And apply it everywhere. This costs somewhere between
You're on the way to implementing legislation which means you can leap before you look.
Do cars in the United States prevent you from moving your head and looking at where you're heading?
With all the electronics, the new bumpers, where most cameras now reside, will become more fragile and expensive than regular bumpers. Even fender-benders may require replacing the whole bumper. Will car owners be forced to continuous maintain their cameras, even at substantial cost over the lifetime of a vehicle?
That was WAY cheaper, because making a dual master as opposed to a single one adds very little brake line and only one fitting at the master, plus some changes to the piston. This is adding a video screen and camera.
In three years I doubt if the cost of a 9" non-touch lcd screen will be more than $1. Low res camera elements are so ubiquitous in phones now that they probably cost less than $1 in bulk today. There is no reason that adding a camera will add anything at all to the cost of the car in production... It will be effectively like a stylistic decision... except one that will make us all safer.
...or how about people just turn their head and look behind them when they're backing up? It's really not that hard.
How much does it cost to add seat belts to a car design today? Essentially zero, because everyone designs for them from the start and the cost of the material is negligible compared to the car. The same will be true of the backup cameras. The cost of the silicon will go towards zero in production. It's just a matter of setting a standard so that everyone does it and people can come to expect it.
Did you know that in 2012 all new cars are going to be required to include electronic stability control? (The horror!) What does that cost? Well, at this point it's basically some software... which probably makes it more expensive than the hardware due to patents, etc. But at some point that issue will go away and it will cost about zero to add to a car.
Pat
Place your right arm on the passenger seat. Rotate your body and neck. Look out the FUCKING BACK YOU MORONS.
Bad drivers. How about instead of giving every schmuck out there a license that wants one, giving licenses to people who can't read English, and people on the road may just know how to drive. Here's a thought, in NASCAR they go 150+ MPH, yet they don't have headlights, taillights, turn signals or cameras. Why are they safe during this sport? Because everyone in the race KNOWS HOW TO DRIVE. Sure there are accidents when something goes wrong. My thought it to have a mandatory driving test every 3-5 years, a test that is in English only and has more than 20 multiple choice answers that don't change ever, and then driving would be safe. Also, this would really get municipalities building a transportation infrastructure that is worth a damn for the public.
So if the government is going to mandate that cameras be installed to fix this "problem;" I wonder what they'll do with the penalties for causing one of these accidents? I would imagine most of these incidents are related to drivers not paying attention. What happens when Grandpa backs his Suburban over a 4 year old despite the incessant warning bell and clear image plastered on the dash? Are then penalties any steeper?
If you're going to force us to have something installed on every single car made, why not a far simpler, cheaper backup system that they have on some cars already that beeps when you are backing up and get close to something, Aliens style? It will be ignored (or not) by as many people who would not be looking at a video screen either.
If they install a mandatory backup camera and make me put a video screen in my dash, I swear I'm going to drive backwards everywhere I go and just drive by the screen.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
can think of one good use for rear-view cameras... dealing with tailgaters! Imagine being able to record some video of some primo dickbag in his BMW X5, angrily following five feet behind you at 50mph because you aren't willing to go significantly above the speed limit for him.
First of all, you are the problem here, Mr Left-lane 50 in a 55. Yeah, I've seen you.
Secondly, this "problem" when it does exist, is far more easily solved by mandating every car have rocket launchers installed.
Although I'd vote for the BMW having them over you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I can't help but think this is one of many more terrible ideas from Ray LaHood.
That guy is a nut job and needs to be let go.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
When Congress repealed the 55-mph speed limit, annual death rate in traffic accidents went down, not up. Look it up for yourself.
My van, a Mitsubishi L300 Delica privately imported from Japan, has a "periscope" mirror on the rear hatch so I can see the vicinity of the rear bumper from the driver's seat. It has a similar mirror in front so I can see the vicinity of the front bumper as well.
It also has a 2.5 litre turbocharged diesel engine, shift on the fly 4 wheel drive, seats 7, and is wonderful on road trips. The stereo has a karaoke microphone input...
It may not be imported to the U.S.A. Why?
...laura
New regulations for stronger roofs and better side crash impacts have increased pillar size and raised belt lines. This has greatly reduced rear visibility (and front/side visibility, driving a new car feels like driving a TANK). To have any rear visibility in new vehicles almost requires a rear view camera.
This is a bit of an urban legend. To be really safe you need to have a portion of your car visible in the mirrors, otherwise you have no reference of what you are looking at.
That's not at all true. It's far more important that you know something is next to you in a place where you will be going if you move over, but cannot see.
If you adjust your mirrors as described, you have no blind spot, and thus can move over in an emergency in a moment without worrying you're going to hit something.
It's only for slow maneuvers around cars or poles where reference to your own car would matter, and in that case you can easily just look to the side or even temporarily re-adjust the mirror. But for normal driving moving the mirrors slightly away from where you can see the car is much safer for you and people around you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The older cars w/o the extra light were grandfathered and have gradually disappeared from the road.
No need to wait any longer since when this becomes mandatory the Government will simply buy and trash, all the old perfectly usable cars without a distracting video screen.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If drivers are not looking in the review, and side views now, why would we think they will look at some screen in the dash? On a further note I try to drive in black out mode at night, all instruments turned to the lowest setting. Of couse I have never backed over someone.
I do not play in the middle of the road
My Prius already has a rear camera, it is great. Should it be mandatory? I don't know, maybe.
I do know how to use my mirrors, and I double check everything. Yet, a child could walk behind my car, just as I am looking away. The back up camera could help in those situations. It is also quite useful for parallel parking, as I can tell exactly how close I am to the car behind me.
Just to give you an idea of what these cameras are meant to prevent:
Fortunately it was no one I knew, but at the time it happened about ten years ago I drove by the place where it happened every day on my way to work. A mother had dropped off her child at daycare, and then went back to her car. Unknown to her, her two year old evaded the staff and dashed out after her. As she was backing up there was no way to see behind her, and she rolled over and killed her own child.
Digital cameras are cheap enough now that there is no reason not to have this. Properly implemented, the systems may even be useful in retrofitting these cars a few years down the road with computerized guidance systems. If you're worried about the video screen being a distraction, have it only turn on when the car is in reverse or when a button on the steering wheel is pushed.
You need a monitor to watch it on too... Either way it is less effective and more expensive than following trucks' lead and having a loud beeping noise.
... software scales pretty well. Lol...
Also
Visibility has been getting worse for a long time. It`s particularly bad out the rear on large pickups and SUVs but even sedans have higher boot lids and smaller windows now (and maybe a rear spoiler added on to block what was left). In my `70s sedan the window sill is about the same height as my hand on the steering wheel and the boot lid slopes downward. I`m certain that I would be able to see a toddler standing behind the car at a distance of less than GP`s 6ft figure.
Why not mandatory recording too? That's OK, we'll enable it for you with this automatic OTA firmware upgrade.
OH SHI-
They should just make an unified display for the side & rear view, mounted very easily viewable near the forward view - presumably with three cameras, one mounted at the back of the car, two on the side. Merge the picture, put it on a display. A single look would then suffice to get a ~270 degree view - a nice panorama picture.
That would sure help to prevent at least a lot of those non-lethal accidents where people bump into another due to not perfectly checking all views, driving on objects backwards that are low'ish on the ground or missing the timing between checking the rear and side view or whatever...
My question to old people being backed over is: Whose backing over them?
I took allergy shots at an outpatient hospital that's close to my house. And not surprisingly there are a lot of old people there during work hours, because they are retired/too sick to work/dieing/whatever. These aren't healthy I can't believe that guy is XXX years old kind of old people. These are people who can barely turn around to look out their windows, are lucky if they can turn their head only to look out the side window kind of old people.
So again, not surprisingly these old folks tended to walk in front of cars, walk behind cars that were backing up, nearly run me down as they come around the corner to park in the lane of cars Im walking up along the edge, nearly back over me because they just aren't turned around to see that they are nearly hitting the vehicles parked behind them across the lane. They either drive REALLY fast for a parking lot, or drive incredibly slow but always drive in the center of the lane....causing more traffic issues and pedestrian issues because now cars have to swerve out to avoid them in the center and into where people are walking.
My guess is old people are running over old people, and likely that it's 50/50 on whose fault it is...old people do dumb shit because it's everyone else responsibility to look out for them....and when both people have that that attitude in a situation the guy in the car comes out without serious injuries.
They need to mandate yearly license renewals for people over 60, or at least anyone in social security age range. And I think requiring them to have a doctor sign off on their ability to drive is another thing they should consider. Because their spouses/children feel bad about telling them they can't drive and really don't have the authority to stop them anyway. So someone at some point has to say "You are so physically deteriorated that you can not safely operate a vehicle." and the best person for that is their doctor. They do it to people with epilepsy, they have to be seizure free for specific amounts of time to even be considered for a license. So if they can subject an entire swath of people who have one disability/disease I think they can ask doctors to make that determination on others.
I know freak accidents happen, but old people are easily as dangerous as new teenage drivers. Old people just should know better, and since so many of them don't seem to even consider it until after they've done something horrific....it needs to be address. And TECHNOLOGY WILL NOT HELP THE ELDERLY DRIVE MORE SAFELY. It may even make it worse.
And I know it'll be a huge problem in places that don't have well kept public transportation, but that's their own fault for not looking ahead. Just as so many now seem to think we should eliminate and overlook voting in all these socialist programs, because dagumit Im healthy and don't need it! Need a War on Stupidity or War on Short-sightedness.....blah.
You can bet that someone in congress is getting money from someone who manufactures backup cameras. Simple as that.
I have an Infiniti EX35 which has 4 cameras (back, left, right, front), which they call Around View Monitor; along with showing one of those views which you can cycle through, it combines all 4 images into a view that looks like you're above the car looking down. I think it's pretty awesome, and I use it all the time. The side views help when parking in tight spots, where just the rearview doesn't help as much. (I'll admit though that I've gotten so used to the cameras that I probably don't turn my ahead to look around as much as I should.)
You seem to talk as if material cost is the only one to consider. Do you have any idea what the breakup of the total cost of a feature is - material, labor, testing, maintenance?
Oh great so they want to remove the "Darwin Gene Pool Cleanser" feature that cars have had for the last 110 years. That feature being the back bumper and poor visibility that removed children from the gene pool who are too dumb to live. There children are always playing and hanging out behind running automobiles in driveways.
People complain about our world becoming more like the movie Idiocracy, well crap like this only adds to the number of dumb people we allow to live on in this world in the name of "Protecting the Children" and "Safety". If we keep removing the inherent Darwinist mechanisms in daily life even the most dimwitted fool will be allowed to pass their genes on tot he next generation and the gene pool will start to grow over with the gross algae called stupid people.
I for one think that letting people do stupid things and making them face the deadly consequences at the same time is a very good idea.
Children like to play int he street like idiots in my neighborhood, I drive by at 10 mph when I see them because I don't want to hit them, however the teenage pizza delivery driver I see sometime blasts through my neighbor hood at speeds in excess of 40mph.
I guess when little Suzie or little Malcolm get squashed like a bug on the Pizza Palace delivery car bumper their parents were to blame for not teaching the little "darlings" not to play in traffic. Well those genes won't be passed on unless they had brother or sister who hopefully will learn better the hard way.
Not to mention all the jay walking idiots I see everyday, the idiots only have themselves to blame when they get ran over. Simple physics tells us that a 2,000+ pound car moving at many many times walking speed is going to win the war of inertia when slamming into a 100-200 pound human being.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
This problem just goes away if you park the correct way around (reverse into the space).
As you pull up to reverse the car you have just checked that the space is empty and clear of obstacles and you can reverse straight in with no delay. Then when it comes to leave you have full visibility around the front of your car.
Reversing out of a space necessarily leaves you totally ignorant of what's around you. By the time you've got in, belted up, adjusted the radio and put the car into gear, any observations you may have made about obstacles before you got in the car are completely redundant. You then have to rely on edging out and hoping that everyone else is going to allow you to complete your manoeuvre.
Of course it doesn't help that (admittedly entirely based on evidence from TV) US car parking lots tend to angle the parking spaces in a way that encourages people to park the wrong way around, presumably because when people first pass their tests they find it easier to drive straight into a space head first, with no thought or consideration for how they're going to emerge later.
How much does it cost to add seat belts to a car design today? Essentially zero, because everyone designs for them from the start and the cost of the material is negligible compared to the car. The same will be true of the backup cameras. The cost of the silicon will go towards zero in production. It's just a matter of setting a standard so that everyone does it and people can come to expect it.
Did you know that in 2012 all new cars are going to be required to include electronic stability control? (The horror!) What does that cost? Well, at this point it's basically some software... which probably makes it more expensive than the hardware due to patents, etc. But at some point that issue will go away and it will cost about zero to add to a car.
Pat
Yeah. The price of everything falls over time. Bandwidth, gasoline, houses, food. The free market is an awesome thing, isn't it...
NOOOO! Please no mandatory beeping noises on reversing cars! There's enough noise already. And they don't even work. Not long ago I found myself behind a reversing truck and actually only realising after several seconds "o, yeah, that's right, that annoying ubiquitous noise means the truck is reversing, maybe I should get out of the way".
Is it possible to configure these to recognize politicians and to gun the throttle when it does?
You've assigned zero economic value to the avoided accidents in which somebody didn't die. These include both the medical cost and lost productivity of non-fatal pedestrian injuries, as well as the cost of the bumper-to-bumper physical damage. I'd bet that once that's included, you'd actually come out way ahead with this. Heck, bumper repair alone might be enough to make this work, depending on what the new backing-up accident rate becomes.
That written, my bet is that the biggest problems facing pedestrians who are being backed up upon are poor visibility common in SUVs and drivers who've forgotten that operating a many thousand pound vehicle requires full attention and two hands.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Not true!
What they really want(insurance companies) is to have a recording of the last 5 seconds of an accident on a video loop, so they could not pay to those that created the accident but are not telling you because there are not witnesses or all witnesses are from the same family, or friends, that will lie to protect their friend, family member.
Really simple to do:
Video loop of last 10 to 20 seconds in Hight Quality.
Video loop of minutes on medium quality.
If accelerometers detect an impact, the recording loop is saved with info about accelerometers, gyros and whatever.
People already don't pay attention to their review mirror, side mirrors, etc. They're yacking on their phones, futzing with their cigarrettes, etc. This is just one more costly mandate that will increase car prices.
In three years I doubt if the cost of a 9" non-touch lcd screen will be more than $1.
Uh, what? You are seriously on the wrong drugs. Three years? Snicker, snort.
Low res camera elements are so ubiquitous in phones now that they probably cost less than $1 in bulk today.
You need at least SD resolution to do this at all and preferably more.
It will be effectively like a stylistic decision... except one that will make us all safer.
Stylistic decisions only cost a significant amount of money in the design phase. The amount of sheet metal doesn't vary much with style changes.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why is this needed? There are 250 million vehicles in the US.. Out of 250,000,000 vehicles, Assuming each vehicle only backs up once a day that is 91250000000 backups per year. With only 292 killed during vehicle backups your odds of getting killed are 1 in 312,500,000. The odds of getting hit by lightning is 1 in 576000. Even if you figure the numbers based on the 18k injured your only even with chance of being hit by lightning..
More government regulations that are not needed. Want to include it as an option? Fine, make it mandatory, NO!!!!
What clarity. If you ever had a chance to visit and work with "Washington", you would see that they live in a very different economic bubble, one apparently where adding such luxury devices are insignificant vs. what the the rest of us has to deal with. Lexus? Cadillac? Volvos? No, it's (old, inexpensive, used, rusted, dented) Fords and GMs all the way down.
...If you legislate everyone be strapped to a medical exercise device and fed a perfectly balanced diet through a tube, everyone would be almost perfectly safe.
It depends. What are the mirrors like on the medical exercise device?
Because car manufacturers don't like different versions the cable is probably in your car already because the camera is an option right now.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Here is a novel idea: Turn around and look where you are going when backing up. You know, throw your right arm over the passenger seat back, turn your torso, neck, and head, then watch where you are going. A similar procedure for checking the blind spot when changing lanes. When i learned to drive, my dad taught me to look where i was going, forward, or reverse, . By the way, before someone decides cars need a sensor to detect cross traffic approaching from behind hills and curves before you pull out, i have a solution to that too, it's called "roll your window down and listen". (true, electric cars may cause a problem with this technique) It's amazing how heavy and expensive cars have become, and incompetent drivers have become, due to "safety" equipment. I feel like people are being given excuses to not learn how to drive, and not be alert and responsive.
If backup cameras become standard on all cars manufacturers will have to include it in the base price and continue selling the car at whatever the market will bear. Car manufacturers would no longer be able to charge an extra $400 to add that cheap camera. I think car manufacturers will be one group that lobbies against this legislation.
Have you paid no attention to what's happened to the prices of new cars over the last 20 years as things like passive restraints, tire pressure monitoring systems, OBD II (better emissions, nobody can argue against that, but also increased cost due to redundant sensors), stability control systems, and so on have been mandated?
Every time the automakers have to add some feature or functionality to meet the baseline legislated requirements for new cars, the prices of all cars go up - all manufacturers have to add the same safety/emissions/whatever features at the same time, so the price rises across the whole market.
The prices of new cars will probably not rise $400 when cameras are mandated, but you can bet there'll be about $50 of price increase on every car from a lowly base model Hyundai all the way up to the fanciest Rolls Royce cars.
That said, I added a backup camera to my big SUV last year. It cost $59, and it's great! I mounted the little screen on the upper console (the thing with the map lights on the roof), so it's just above the rear view mirror. The camera has such a wide angle lens that I can back into a parking space easily - not only can I see things behind me, I can see the lines painted on the ground and the cars next to me. If I'm backing up to a trailer and have the drawbar inserted, I can see the hitch ball and line it up perfectly with the trailer coupler.
I don't see the point of adding one to my regular car though.
Putting moderation advice in your
I know there are plenty of bad drivers out there, but we should probably spend time writing laws against parents letting their kids run around parking lots. How about instead of cars being required to have cameras, parents are required to put their kids on a leash?
We get more and more expensive requirements for smaller and smaller problems. Diminishing returns, anyone?
(and then we wonder why people aren't buying as many new cars...)
This law / regulation was made possible by funds from Sony and other tv / lcd / screen / camera manufacturers.
Or at least: that's what she said...
Privacy is terrorism.
The same would have been true with a video screen, only he would have paid $500 more for the car (yes I know it doesn't cost them $500 to put it in).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You absolutely right about the prices of these components off the shelf, but once the automakers start including them the mark ups will be in the thousands of dollars. Just look at built in entertainment systems now.
Umm... no... cars today, in inflation-adjusted dollars, cost several thousand more than they did 20 years ago specifically because of increased mandatory safety and environmental equipment.
Just because every manufacturer includes seatbelts in their car, doesn't make seatbelts "essentially zero" cost. What happens is that everyone, as customers, end up paying more.
Why do you think they can sell a brand-new $2000 car in India, but nothing new under $12-13K in the US? Because that cheap Indian car doesn't even come close to meeting US safety requirements.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Exactly, and when it becomes a required piece of safety equipment they won't be able to charge those markups any more... Of course they'll probably find a way to make the base model suck and charge for the HD backup system or whatever...
What bothers me about some of the (other) comments on here on Slashdot (which should know better) is that this is not an intrusive, usage hampering, CYA silliness... This is something obviously beneficial that long term will be about as expensive as the software to run it... i.e. trending towards zero. The cost of the camera and display will essentially be nothing in a few years (e.g. color LCD displays in magazines!). So it's really almost purely a question of whether it's a good regulatory issue.
Another opportunity to get some input on how much a life is worth.
Assuming the cost of the butt-cam as roughly a cheap web-cam and a cheap display, say $150, 4 million cars built in the US per year, and 100% effectiveness in preventing 292 fatalities per year: The value of a life in the US comes to $2,054,795.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
A much more effective, zero-cost policy would be automatic year-long license suspensions or revocations for at-fault accidents. Rather than addressing the cause, poor drivers, current automobile safety policy keeps poor drivers on the road while attempting to make driving idiot proof. A reduction in the number of licensed drivers would also have many positive environmental and suburban development effects.
I have a single 2TB drive storing video from 4 surveillance cameras at 1280x960. It stores about 12 days of continuous footage from each camera. I'm sure the fast motion of driving would take a bit more space than mostly stationary surveillance cameras, but you can definitely get a good amount of footage on a standard hard drive.
but even at 10 days max is no where need whats is needs for good monitoring your driving habits. and NO home ISP other then maybe FIOS has to bandwidth to upload that 2-3 times a month and THAT IS WITH OUT EVEN thinking about download / upload caps.
No it will end up costing about $20 in actual parts, which the vehicle makers will gladly tack an additional $200 onto the price of the car.
I live in Korea. This is on every car. It makes backing up easier for the spatially challenged and it is actually very important in Korea where space is limited.
But, then again, the 99% of the time when they're not reversing they're watching TV on it while swerving into lanes without signals and running red lights. It's funny how insane the Korean drivers are.
I'd rather see the government taking steps to reduce the number of drunk driving-related deaths on the road. Those steps would reduce the number of deaths to passengers, other drivers, and pedestrians or bystanders. I would support ignition interlock devices on all vehicles if such a technology could be developed that was not obtrusive to non-drinkers. The 292 fatalities for back-up related crashes is a minuscule amount compared to the number of DWI-related deaths.
just remove the reverse gear! can't back into something you didn't see if you cant go into reverse! ; )
I just saw an add in the local paper for a 3rd party backup camera for forty bucks. I would imaging that it would cost considerably less to build one in when you already have the wiring harness, LCD panel, etc in place.
Just encase the whole damn car in bubble wrap. The cost/benefit ratio of backup cameras just isn't there. If you're too damn lazy to turn around and look, then bubble wrap makes as much sense and is a hell of a lot cheaper.
Electronic stability control works through the ABS braking system. One of the costs at least for my GMC, is that in the event of loss of engine vacuum, the brakes become next to useless after one use and I mean stand on the brake and push my head into the ceiling useless. The parking brake actually becomes a better option. Luckily loss of engine vacuum is unlikely with a manual transmission.
You're being very generous in your assumptions. I doubt that the systems could be installed for less than $100 in cars that don't already have some sort of video display. I also doubt that it's going to save many lives; people who can't see behind themselves generally back up very slowly, allowing potential victims to move away or make noise. People backing carelessly and rapidly aren't going to be paying attention to a display, either.
If something like this is mandated, there ought to be exceptions for vehicles that meet certain rear vision requirements.
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Mandate EV's instead? Hello? Peak oil?
I am in favor of creating a kind of black box that records continuously the last 10 minutes of position, speed and orientation of a car. In case of accident, the data can be pulled out and analyzed to get the culprits. People will start to drive more carefully if they know they can be accountable without doubt.
Agreed. I simply used 20 since that is what the parent used. Even with my generous assumptions it is still a damn stupid idea. That was the idea.
The cameras are there to see short people (children) that may be literally impossible to see just by turning around and looking behind you while backing up. Why take a license away from someone for someone invisible running behind them while backing up? Don't you think that virtually everyone that isn't a sociopath would already feel bad enough about doing something they couldn't even control?
every read their car reviews? Among the most important features in a car to them is rear-ward visibility, which they almost always determine to be 'poor'. I imagine if they were given a car to review with no top, trunk, or rear fenders, they would deem the rear-ward visibility as 'marginally adequate'. No doubt in my mind; a large CS donor or very senior staff member either backed over a child or suffered this happening to them. A tragedy to be sure, but it definitely over-colors their reviews. But if they're that safety-conscious, why do they even review the occasional 911?
I just began driving a small SUV with a back-up camera, and I'm finding it to be something between a nuisance and a distraction. It only shows the first few feet behind the car, not the area where I want to go. Since it's a television screen on the left side of the rear-view mirror and I'm a middle-aged guy who wears progressive lenses, I have to tip my head way up to see it, so I usually don't. I expect it to be useful for backing up to my camping trailer when I don't have a helper, but there's no way I'd trust it around small kids or pets. Maybe it'll be useful in urban parallel parking.
I'm not sure whether the additional cost is worth the added safety that it's supposed to provide. It'll probably end up being like the tire pressure sensors that were mandated because Ford screwed up in designing the Explorer.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
I petitioned our local transportation system to require the new buses to have cameras to replace the large mirrors at the front passenger side door. I have seen elderly women get hit by the mirror in wintertime. When one stands on a snow bank (in winter), one is at least 1 foot off the level of the sidewalk, and therefore the mirror and one,s skull are in alignment. With cameras to replace the sidewalk side mirror, a few serious casualties can be avoided.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Really so the parts for seat belts are free, add no additional cost? And I'd need a citation on the basically software for the stability control. As far as I know it requires a special set of suspension parts with pumps/sensors for it to work correctly, which I'm not sure how you'd get a non-issue out of that.
Your argument that given long enough it's essentially free is not a good one, as everything still has a cost which is passed on to the consumer. Try again.
Not free now, but cheap and closer to free as time goes on. That is the story with all technology. Stability control operates on electronic braking, which is already in essentially all cars now. That is why I said it is essentially just mandating software (and a few accelerometers probably).
Adjusted for inflation, cars are not insanely more expensive than they were 50 or 100 years ago, but they are insanely better.
Pat
More equipment will never compensate for operator stupidity. Already, new cars in the USA are required to have central tire pressure monitoring systems, which add $$$ to the price of the car, and cost $$$ to repair/replace. People will still drive unsafe equipment on the road, it will just cost more to be legally compliant (and force more people to bend the rules).
Where does it end?
How about this: accountability. Rather than requiring a $500 driver-monitoring system that can detect drunk drivers (some of the time) be installed in every car, ((and there are such proposals floating around)), why don't we increase the penalties for drunk-driving? Punish the people who screw things up for the rest of us, but don't punish everyone for the sake of "improving safety."
Covered in adequate detail at the Daily Mash. (It's probably safe for work if your cow orkers are slow about reading, because it contains words, not pictures. But if your cow orkers can read, maybe save it for home.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"