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Rearview Car Cameras Likely Mandated By 2014
Hugh Pickens writes "Every year around 17,000 people are injured and over 200 die in backover accidents involving cars, trucks and SUVs. Now the Chicago Tribune reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will send Congress a proposal mandating a rearview camera for all passenger vehicles starting in 2014. 'Adoption of this proposal would significantly reduce fatalities and injuries caused by backover crashes involving children, persons with disabilities, the elderly and other pedestrians,' says NHTSA in its proposal. But the technology won't come cheap. In its study, the NHTSA found that adding a backup camera to a vehicle without an existing visual display screen will probably cost $159 to $203 per vehicle, shrinking to between $58 and $88 for vehicles that already use display screens. Toyota of Albany Sales manager Kelvin Walker says he believes making backup cameras standard on cars made after 2014 is a good idea. 'If you want to get a backup camera with a mirror in it now, it may cost you $700 to $800 as an additional dealer option or you have to purchase a navigation which is about $1,500 to $1,600. So $1,600 compared to $200? You do the math.'"
Most configurations of the Toyota Sienna minivan now have the backup camera standard and the price has not increased significantly from the last model-year that offered it only as an option. This indicates that the price difference in other vehicles is much more of a "convenience charge" than the cost of the system. If it is in every vehicle, there will be no added convenience and therefore nothing to charge for.
> And every time I'm on the expressway, I wish I had a camera for my blind spots.
You're doing it wrong. Seriously, when you mirrors are _properly_ configured in a car you should NOT have ANY blind spots.
Angle your mirrors out more. You should be able to track a car in your rearview mirror, to your side mirror, to the right/left WITHOUT moving your head.
Most people "toe in" their mirrors WAY too much, which means they need to move forward to see "more." This is inefficient, lazy, and just bad (as in accident prone.)
In determining how much money should be spent preventing a death, it's useful to attach a dollar amount to a human life. The dollar amount says that after you've spent that much money on one life, you're probably better off spending money saving a different life (probably from a different danger). The usual amount is $1 or $2 million.
Assuming a car lasts 14 years before it's permanently retired, consider a block of 14 years. At 200 lives/year saved, that's 2800 lives saved. At 250 million cars in the US multiplied by $75/car for additional equipment, that's $19 billion. Divided by 2800, that's $6.7 million/life saved. Too much money -- and that's for cars that already have displays.
As just one example of where money would be better spent, and yes it's a pet peeve of mine, is installing a guard rail in the median of the Fairfax County Parkway. There are a handful of deaths from head-on collisions every year, and it would cost only $10 million to install a guardrail.
According to wardsauto.com, 13M cars and trucks were sold in 2011. At a cost of $200 each, that means it would cost $2.6B per year to add these cameras to every vehicle. Even if this would eliminate all 200 of the backup-related deaths each year (which it obviously wouldn't), that would mean spending $13M per life saved. This is far higher than the figure used in most engineering projects; i.e. this is not a good return per dollar on safety, and there are much more cost-effective ways to spend this money.
Last week, I borrowed a Honda Odyssey with a backup camera. The back of the vehicle was so coated with winter road garbage that you almost couldn't tell that the vehicle was sky blue. Nevertheless, the picture from the camera was quite good.
I second this. A lot of people bring their mirrors in until they can see the sides of their own car -- this is effectively useless and the complete opposite of what you want to do. As soon as someone slapped me up side the head and told me to adjust my mirrors properly a whole new world opened up. Not only do I not have a blind spot I actually recalibrate my mirrors (after the wife cranks 'em in) by making sure that as the cars next to me transition from the rear-view to side-view to the out-the-window-view I can see them in both the before and after views simultaneously.
Second most useful thing I've ever learned...
Let's put some numbers to it as well. Annual car sales are about 6 million/year in the US. At a cost of $200/vehicle, that's a total incremental cost of $1.2B. That puts the "cost to save a life" at $1.2B/200 = $6 million per life saved, assuming that the backup cameras prevent every single death. I would posit that it's more likely to be half that effective at best, so $12M/live saved.
IMHO, such numbers put this proposal squarely in the same category as proposals to increase the required age/height/weight for children not to sit in booster seats--they result in a huge financial outlay by the public to offset a (statistically-speaking) relatively minor problem. The US sees about 2.4 million deaths per year. Two hundred is 8.3 thousandths of one percent of the death toll.
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In the stupidly big vehicles lots of people drive these days,
Some are less big, but with large blind spots none-the-less. From a related article U.S. Rule Set for Cameras at Cars’ Rear:
Edmunds said some of the biggest blind spots are on passenger cars where the trunk has a high deck lid and the driver sits low to the ground. For the Cadillac CTS-V coupe, Edmunds measured a blind spot 101 feet long, compared with about 40 feet for minivans from Toyota and Honda.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I read about this on another newspaper site, and they cited the reason as specifically being child deaths - as children, particularly if they're not standing, are often too short to see in the rear-view mirror or over your shoulder.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
confirm there's nothing in the blind spot that you DO have no matter where you point your mirrors
Actually, with the SAE recommended method (Google: adjust mirrors sae ) there's NO blind spot requiring a look over the shoulder as the rear of the vehicle next to you is still visible in the side mirror. That said, a *really* short car - or motorcycle - it may not be visible unless you turn your head to the side, but there's no need to look over your shoulder. Obviously, this adjustment method requires three mirrors.
Still you're absolutely correct that double-checking should *always* be done.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It's funny you mention obesity.
I can't find the article that was dicussing this, but one of the reasons for making back up cameras mandatory
is that really people literally cannot turn around far enough to look over their shoulder while backing up.
The same goes for elderly drivers, as they no longer have the range of motion to look behind them while seated.
America is getting older and fatter.
Back up cameras will make cars safer.
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o0t!
I have a pretty big SUV. There was an interesting segment I saw once were they had not one, but an entire kindergarten class stand in front of that model. From inside the car, you couldn't see any of them. For that reason, I always walk around my car if there are small children known to be in the vicinity. Sometimes I do it anyway just out of habit. 10 seconds of inconvenience to spare me a lifetime of guilt if I run over someone's kid? Yeah, I'm willing to take the time.