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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.'"
When it's requires dealerships will have to add that to the direct competition package along with "takes you places" and "blinkers work." The price will drop accordingly.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
hook up a non-functioning camera to the rear of my Jeep. I can see out the back just fine, and unless they make a waterproof screen to mount on my dashboard, it won't last too long anyway.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
And every time I'm on the expressway, I wish I had a camera for my blind spots. When the government mandates cameras they will probably be like $200 to meet the standards. I'm not sure why automakers didn't think to add the cameras as a cool cheap safety feature. And the ones that do are only on when you are in reverse, so they don't help you with blind spots.
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most times I can't see you when using my mirrors. I'll look behind me in parking lots but idiots like to walk in the street in NYC
The article failed to mention that at least 12 pedophiles and 27 terrorist suspects will be saved each year by rear view cameras. Good laws put into action to save the peoples!
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Rearview car camera was unable to prevent a minivan from backing into my car.
First I was tempted to make a joke, something connecting rear- view and up-skirt with car analogy. But I won't do that, and instead say that, here in Japan rear view cameras has been fairly standard for a long time. My 11 year old car came with one that recently broke. And it is one of those things you don't miss until you had one and it is gone. We live in a neighborhood with lots of kids running around and playing on the small streets between the houses. And with the rear view camera I could be absolutely sure there were no toddler on a three wheeler behind my car when backing out.
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
Don't people look over their shoulders and use their mirrors when they back up anymore? It's not that hard and has worked fine most of the time for over a century. If some people don't know how to back up properly, then why the hell are they allowed to drive?
Cameras should be an optional luxury feature, not a mandated system. Besides, what if the camera breaks/lens gets dirty?
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
This, as with all car safety laws, isn't a retrofit law. They aren't saying "You have to go buy this and put it on all cars out there." They are saying (or rather considering saying) "All cars made from now on must include this feature."
Same shit as passive safety systems, window mounted stop lights, seatbelts and so on. You needn't retrofit them on something that didn't have them, manufacturers just have to include them on new vehicles.
How did all of these accidents happen?
Would a camera have prevented it?
Or will we find new and exciting ways to get ourselves run over because we can't be bothered by our surroundings?
We should consider reducing the amount of silly, wasteful and frivolous laws on the books, before we add to the pile.
I think that front cover of this weeks' The Economist sums up my feelings quite well.
Am I the only one who has seen drivers with a rear camera hit something or someone because they looked ONLY at the camera and not at the mirrors or out the windows. I think that when more vehicles come with a standard backup camera, there will be more such incidents, not fewer.
I already know how to back up? Look for people and objects that are behind me and know how to avoid them? Do *I* still havbe to pay extra fora car with a feature I'll never need?
And what about heatproof, waterproof, sun/age embrittlement of the screen and button? Guess what, some of us live in climates with actual temperature extremes and cracked dashboards are a way of life in older cars. Do those cameras and display screen hold up, or do I just replace them regularly (at a nice tidy profit for the dealer and manufacturer) as the environmental wear kicks in?
And then there are the insurance liabilities. If I have a camera and it doesn't work, am I now automatically at fault, even when it was the otherguy that ran behind the car?
Just not loving this as a requirement.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Well you would only have to pay attention the the rear-view cam when backing up. When driving the screen usually show GPS/Media player controls or whatever. I have had a car with a rear cam for a long time, and I never had to wipe mud or junk from it. I do wash my car every now and then, but not too often.
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
Yes, it will be mandated that it works all the time and yes it will be checked as part of the annual inspection. And like all the other safety features it will be one more thing that will make a car that is in a minor accident too expensive to repair so that over time it will become more and more difficult for the poor to find affordable transportation except for that provided by the government to travel to government approved locations.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The problem with a camera is that it will only save a pedestrian if the driver uses it.
I suspect that in most of the accidents due care isn't being taken. A camera won't change that.
The same people who ignore their mirrors, will ignore their rear view cameras as well.
I am so waiting for my HUD visor displaying my rear view video camera output! The ultimate geek bicycle gizmo!
I drive a single cab light pickup. It has almost zero blind spots and backing up is a breeze. Adding a camera to it would be superfluous. Same goes for the last car I own. It had lots of glass so you could actually see out of it all around. Vehicles with big blind spot problems are huge cars with tiny glass for aesthetic purposes and behemoth trucks / SUVs. Believe me, I know, I also drive loud motorcycle. You can tell the people with very poor situational awareness due to blind spots because they freak out when they first hear me near them. I can literally see them squirm around on the road as they are in there going "OMG Where is the motorcycle? Am I about to run it over?"
Dupe: http://www.tech.slashdot.org/story/10/12/05/0115234/Rear-View-Cameras-On-Cars-Could-Become-Mandatory-In-the-US
Also, I think this is a good idea. I used a backup camera in a rented Ford once (the screen was in the rear-view mirror.. clever). It was very effective and made what is honestly one of the more nerve-wracking parts of driving far easier.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
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.
There is allready a rearview mirror installed in every car and people don't fucking look in those or pay any attention to sideview mirrors. The problem is the drivers not the equipment. If the morons back up without looking in the damn mirror then why do they think the dimwits will look at a screen. Now IF they transmitted the video wirelessly to their smartphone then maybe they might notice the guy walking behind the car. I doubt it though.
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.
Breaking news: The guy who tries to upsell you at the car dealership has a tenuous grip in economics.
Next will come back-up beepers (mandated by OSHA and yet at 97-112 decibels exceeds OSHA's own standard for job-site noise level!).
"But what about deaf people? They won't hear them!"
Next will come blindingly bright, flashing warning lights.
"But what about blind and deaf people?"
Fuck 'em -- they're not a big enough voting block.
Yup, our economy is in the shits and our elitist, establishment politicians are wasting time on yet more nanny legislation.
I know people who have backup cameras and don't pay attention to them. My friends wife had the backup sensors AND the backup camera but she didn't wait the 5 seconds it takes to boot and show an image so she backed up into her friends car. You can't fix stupid. All this will do is provide guaranteed income to companies that produce rear view cameras and make cars less affordable. Get off my back government.
Preach!
Math, it really should be mandatory to vote. Google sez we sell about 16 million cars annually. At the minimum price mentioned of $58 per car that works out to $929 million. Now ASSume it cuts that 200 deaths to zero (it won't) and that works out to what per life? Uh huh. For 4.6M per there are a lot more cost effective ways to save lives. Oh, but there are also people injured. Ok, go that math. For over 50K per injury that is still pretty fracking expensive. And I'd bet good money that a fair chunk of that 17,000 didn't get hurt very badly, perhaps a broken bone. Again assuming a rear camera would cut that number to zero, which it won't.
Democrat delenda est
But I'm more comfortable with real numbers.
I mean, _clearly_ they would save at least $3000 because they would reduce the manufacturing cost that can be had for usually $4000.
Compare the $1000 savings... much better than paying just $1200 for the dealer option. I mean, that's more than 20% off.
And who doesn't want more than 20% off?
mov ah, 4ch
int 21h
How about turning around and looking behind you before you back up?
The referenced articles all seem to refer to the blind spots that can occur when you depend solely on your mirrors for situational awareness. This is appropriate when you're on the highway, driving at a high rate of speed, and with all the other cars around you going in the same direction.
Presumably, you are not moving forward when you initiate backing up. That means there's plenty of time, and yes, an obligation, to turn around, look over your shoulder, and look directly for obstacles, especially other people, before and during the entire time you're moving backwards.
As a parent of 3 I would like a backseat camera with DVR. When the yelling starts I can rewind it and see who started it.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I agree with future seeing guy who uses "sez" and "ASSume".
I also agree that the 200 people who would potentially be saved per year from this are not worth an extra 58 dollars for every car I purchase from now on.
That is my 58 dollars! WWWWAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!
Sarcasm end...
i do not want to share a road with you.
simple. if you can't see all around you, don't fucking move until you can!
Even if you're looking out the back window, you cannot see everything behind you.
Imagine a small child on a tricycle right behind your back bumper -- it doesn't matter if you're a great driver or a terrible one, you simply won't see the child without a rear camera.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Wouldn't a proximity sensor be a much better solution? I think they're cheaper, and they can yell at you if something/someone is in the way, much harder to ignore than a blob on the screen.
horror vacui
maybe put the ignition coil in the driver's seat? ~200 amps cold-start oughtta get the message across.
I've driven a Prius with a backup camera for three years now. The view is generally good in all conditions. The only real problem is when it rains heavily, you can get a single raindrop hanging from the lens (the lens is tiny) and blocking much of the view.
But then, the rear-view mirror still works.
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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I understand that people don't like to be told what to do by the government. (esp. us slashdotters). But everyone who is arguing against this honestly just sound like people did back in the day when they mandated seat belts and air bags. ( I don't need it, I am an excellent driver, it is to expensive)
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
And if the person behind you is shorter than the peak of your trunk? Children can and do put themselves right behind cars, and some of them do get killed because of that.
While there may be a way to avoid this by combining a walk around the car before entering the car, with near-constant use of the mirrors from the moment you get in the car to the moment you finish reversing, the plain fact is that it is not easy to know if someone less than 3 feet tall is right behind you. I suspect most drivers have avoided hitting kids while backing up more out of luck than out of assiduous mirror-usage.
I don't often say it, but: think of the children!
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
Speaking of cars and 2014, aren't we supposed to all be in flying cars by now according to Back to the Future Part II? Why not regulate that into existence. All new cars have to fly by 2015. Then no one will get run over...EVER!! Finally government working for the people!
I suspect the problem isn't lack of cameras but lack of people paying attention while driving (to whit I saw someone reading a book while making a left turn. great).
What? You want to blame people? You hateful, hateful person! No one is actually responsible for their own actions these days. Silly person...
If you're handicapped it's fair enough to have any vehicle you need. Not want, but need.
But most people driving trucks and SUVs from home to their desk job don't need one. They're just idiots.
my wife is disabled, and last time i checked she fitted just fine into an 88 corolla hatchback.
last time you checked, oooh zinger
because you know, every handicapped person is handicapped the same way
they are also the same size
arrogant asshat...
but, how many thousands die at the hands of drunk drivers each year? The breathalyzer mandate would be a tougher sell but save more lives. i guess you can sell cameras as "think of the children". The only thing that scares me on the road is the drunken idiots.
If they make the camera wireless (to save money) then the government can watch us (from the car ahead). Wireless would be much easier than tying this into ONStar.
I think the price is severely overestimated.
The cost of cameras is quite cheap for the low resolution required as is the cost of small LCD displays. The cost of a decent cellphone camera is around $10 and LCD's in the quantity required are probably less than $20 with maybe $5 for the drive electronics. The camera can be lower quality since it doesn't need to handle very high resolution or internal focusing and the lens can be quite cheap as well. Add in the cost for the housing and lens and wiring and you may have $60-$80. The added advantage is that it makes parallel parking easier. My car came with it with the GPS unit and I find it useful since I can see my own bumper, making it easier to squeeze into spots where I otherwise can't see the hood of the car behind me very well. It still doesn't replace a rear-view mirror or turning your head around to see what's behind you since it's impossible to properly judge distance with the fisheye lens on it. In fact, a quick google search shows rear-view camera add-on kits for cars for under $100. If it's built in to the car it can be cheaper since the LCD housing and mounting hardware would be integrated into the dash.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
In the stupidly big vehicles lots of people drive these days, the blind spots are huge, even if you turn to look. Kids can easily be there.
When you are looking ahead while driving, your eyes are focused at infinity. When you glance at the rear-view, they may remain focused to infinity. But if you look at a screen, you have to refocus, which takes roughly 10 - 100 ms (depending on the person and lighting conditions).
As long as the screens are only for parking and the "kid check" it doesn't matter...
.: Semper Absurda
my wife is disabled, and last time i checked she fitted just fine into an 88 corolla hatchback.
Yes, all disabilities are exactly the same.
And public transport is not a viable option everywhere. For example, if you live in the country, where, coincidentally, F-150 are fairly popular.
If this was really such a huge problem, then commercial vehicles would all beep like freight trucks when they back up.
When your government works for commission you tend to get a lot of odd jobs. I guess the companies that make cameras and in car TV's needed some cash.
Please, please mute the audio (1) when in reverse and (2) for 2 minutes after engine start.
That's just long enough to hear "DON'T BACK OVER THE BABY!"
They used to do this and people were getting killed left and right on the highways in accidents which today are easily survivable. For example, in the 1960s seat-belts were optional and not very common. My father had to specially order them for his cars because they were not standard. Collapsible steering columns, crumple zones, safety glass, etc. were all mandated because it cuts down on deaths and serious injury. I suspect having this feature will lower insurance costs, perhaps enough to cover the additional cost. Many of the safety features save money by lowering the cost of people in emergency rooms.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Ignoring deaths (which are usually cheap, economically speaking), for 17,000 victims and 5 million cars sold per year, with a $200 premium per car, that's $58,823 per victim.
The missing bits of information are lost lifetime earnings and medical costs per victim. If it's substantially more than $58,823 (because not all 17,000 accidents will be prevented), then it's worth it.
The trick is to tell them to stay down when you close the hatch.
Guess people gave up on trying to teach kids. Or I guess parents stopped teaching their kids anything. I remember clearly being told by my parents when I'm young to watch for cars backing up in parking lots. Another case of the 99% having to pay for the 1% of bad drivers. I ain't paying $200 for a camera I would not use.
I can see it now in sepia tones...
The Inventor of the Windshield: 'This glass will block the wind when driving and keep bugs out of your teeth'.
Anonymous Coward: 'Yeah, but what happens in winter with snow or mud'
Well you would only have to pay attention the the rear-view cam when backing up.
This is the problem. People back over other people because they aren't looking behind them (OK, there are accidents, but 9 times out of 10 it's because some idiot just drives out without checking over their shoulders and mirrors).
What make the lawmakers think that people will use RV camera's instead. It's not very useful as most RV cameras only show what is directly behind you, not what is going to T-bone you as you jet out without looking.
FTA
17,000 people are injured and over 200 die in backover accidents
That's a death rate of 1.1% of accidents. That's a pretty good survival rate for car accident.
Wouldn't this time/money be better spent on better driver education? I mean if someone backs out without checking their mirror/shoulders, they'll back out without using the camera too.
I have to ask, how many accidents are when Bob's wife backs over Bob's little toe at 2 KPH and all Bob has is an owie? Bob has to list that as a car accident if he wants an X-Ray for his toe.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
People need to get off the cell phone, stop being in a hurry and pay attention to what they are doing period.
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why don't they just mandate a cow catcher on the back, would that be more to-the-point?
Now I seen both slash tard and ass hat mentioned in the same thread.
For the sake of optimization I hereby suggest that we coin the new expression.
Ass/hat.tard to just cover them all.
DISCLAIMER:
I have not verified that any of the persons mentioned in the thread are in fact ass hats or slash tards. Please use Ass/hat.tard responsibly.
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
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 drive a minivan. The backup camera cost $1500 and came with free nav. I can't imagine backing out of the garage or driveway where I live (with 3 kids) on to my street (lots of kids) or on my kid's daycare or school parking lot without one. But when I drive the sedan, the blind spot is much smaller; I'm not so concerned.
The Prius camera is amazing. You can get within an inch or two of something with the cars bumper because you have such a great view of exactly where you are. I have an older model Prius before it was an option, though apparently Toyota did actually produce the part for it but only sold it in Japan - I've been meaning to try and import it.
No, citizen, you cannot be allowed to choose for yourself. Who knows, if they let you choose this, you might want to choose how much medical insurance you want to buy, or you might decide you want to own a gun, or who knows what other politically incorrect concept of freedom that conflicts with the 21st century nanny state.
Stop buying stupidly oversized automobiles
I own a "stupidly oversized automobile" by your criteria, yet my extended-cab pickup has FAR better visibility in all directions and much better mirrors than my Elantra. The Elantra gets about 50% better mileage and is a little easier to park, but that's about the limit of what's better about it IMO.
It seems silly to mandate rear-view cameras when people can't even be bothered to pay attention to the perfectly functional mirrors they already have.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Sometimes you may want to get out and wipe it off with your thumb. Or hit the car wash.
i do not want to share a road with you.
simple. if you can't see all around you, don't fucking move until you can!
People make mistakes. So if I'm reversing out of a parking spot, and you walk behind my car, with lights clearly indicating that I'm reversing, and I hit you, you may have the law on your side, but I know it hurts you considerably more than it hurts me.
Especially if I move forward / backward over you a few times to make sure you can't sue me.
As looking at the source of the statistics just as many kids are harmed and killed by frontovers as well as backovers.
http://www.kidsandcars.org/userfiles/dangers/shared/non-fatal-pie-chart.pdf
http://www.kidsandcars.org/userfiles/dangers/shared/fatalities-pie-chart.pdf
Also, they should install a camera inside the car so parents don't forget to leave their kids in the car as 16% of kids are killed from Heat Stroke and over 50% are harmed from being left in the vehicle.
3) If children are seen anywhere nearby, be really freaking careful and maintain location on said children.
Except,
a) it's difficult to keep watch on a child behind you and get settled in / startup the car / start reversing. Not impossible, but still difficult; and
b) what if there are two children? Or if you see one, and focus on that one, but another walks in from a different angle?
It really isn't completely preventable. Backup cameras don't solve the problem entirely, but they remove a lot of the risk from the equation.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
Wait, you lost me - weren't they talking about NYC? I'm not handicapped and can't really comment on the Anonymous Coward's situation, but the public transit is awesome in NYC, and you'd have to be handicapped in the head to drive an F150 there.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You can get much cheaper cars built overseas and use them all you want. You just have to use them on private roads instead of roads built by the nanny state that insists on making it cheap for you to get to work.
People back over other people because they aren't looking behind them
This is about sight lines. The problem it's trying to solve is backing up over someone who's too short & too close to be seen over the back of the car even if you *do* look in the mirror.
This type of logic worked out pretty well for Ford too.
There are no laws that prevent you from doing this. You just have to keep those cars on your own private property instead of on the socialist roads that are provided to you for "the good of the whole".
We could easily solve this by privatizing all roads and making them toll roads and letting businesses decide if they require these safety features to allow you on their roadways.
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
Hand controls for handicapped car drivers can be very effective. If you have a garage, you never have to deal with snow. But try taking your wheelchair through a half mile of snow banks: if you make it to the bus stop at all, you'll be fortunate.
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They used to do this and people were getting killed left and right on the highways in accidents which today are easily survivable.
And in an interesting twist, I read an article about artificial hearts the other day which noted that because of the decrease in traffic fatalities due to all these safety features, the supply of hearts for organ transplants has dropped dramatically, putting more pressure on the effort to build a long-lasting artificial heart.
I tend to ignore the camera when I back up in a car with one (my mom's, which I've only driven a couple times). Do any of you who have one find yourself relying on it over actually looking over your shoulder? I imagine there are a lot of things happening (especially to the side of your car, like cars driving perpendicular to yours in a parking lot) that wouldn't always get shown, even with a field of view close-ish to 180 degrees.
My driveway is more than 20 yards long, and if I don't back in I have to back out.
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We live in a neighborhood with lots of kids running around and playing on the small streets between the houses. And with the rear view camera I could be absolutely sure there were no toddler on a three wheeler behind my car when backing out.
One thing to say - Darwin.
If we don't run over the little shits who insist on running/playing/giving me the finger behind cars, how are we going to clean the gene pool of those little fuckers! Huh?!
And the thing is, running those little shits over because I can't see them is a great excuse! Now, I'll be accused of steering for them!
Goddamn technology!
First those Goddamn stop signs on the buses and now this ....
Think of the children! Think of the children! Blah blah blah!
Yeah yeah yeah, there's a Matlock marathon on, the TV room is closed, and they've ran out of banana pudding - I am pissed! No really, I got to change my depends.
Here in the UK, drivers are taught to reverse from the road into a driveway (or from a major road into a minor one when manoeuvring) and then drive out forwards. This means you're going the more dangerous way around (backwards) into the quieter area rather than the busier one, you have a better view of the busier area to choose when to complete your move, and usually you can concentrate on looking one way into a driveway/road you're reversing into instead of both.
A fair proportion of drivers actually do this, but you see a disturbing number of people who will just drive straight forward into a space in a car park by the shops, only to reverse back out later into a "road" where there are often other vehicles manoeuvring, pedestrians walking past close to vehicles where they can be hard to see, people wheeling stuff around on their way to their car, kids running off, and so on. Then they act all surprised when they back out and miss something. So, score one for better driver education.
Having said that, I would love to have better parking assistance with my car. It's a great vehicle, but the one big downer about modern safety design with curves everywhere is that it's much harder to judge how close you really to nearby hazards when manoeuvring in tight spaces. Similarly, all those crumple zones and such are great, but they do mean that rear windows tend to start higher up these days and obviously I can't see through solid bodywork to know how close I've got to that wall/post/child behind my car. In any case, whichever way you look, there's always a region near the ground you can't see from the driver's seat. So, score one for technology that allows careful drivers a better view around their vehicle as well. It's not like this vs. driver training is an either-or thing, when things like choosing to reverse in the safer direction only take ten seconds to teach and half a minute more to justify why.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
if you're that badly handicapped that you can't manage public transport, you also would be unable to drive.
Uh yeah, if you're missing your left leg, you should walk to the bus stop instead of driving to work.
it's useful to attach a dollar amount to a human life.
Let me guess: someone in your circle of friends and family works for some company in the automotive business. A major one.
The bumper of my Ram has a row of backup sensors that alert me when I get close to something. Why not mandate them? They work well, and above the back window is a sensor light that shows from what direction your obstacle is approaching. It silences the radio and beeps repeatedly if you get REALLY close.
I imagine the cost of that is minimal (even without a sensor light), and this "camera in the rearview mirror" stuff is just more crap to break and cost $500 to fix outside of the warranty. (You can get a replacement kit for $25 if your backup sensor fails.) More importantly, it isn't obtrusive and adding gobs of cash to the car's already inflated price. And the bonus? The $25 kit includes a sensor light you put in view of the rear-view mirror, or above it in the front. Simple? Yes. Which is why the government is mandating a fucking camera.
But then again, this is the government. They mandated tire pressure monitors. Which makes rotating tires a big hassle.. and judging by the bell-shaped tires on brand new cars driving around these days... it's worked SO fucking well.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Why would you own an SUV if you didn't need it a good number of days out of the year? They can't be that much fun to drive?
Yeah, but no amount of technology will make them better drivers anyway.
Here in the UK, drivers are taught to reverse from the road into a driveway (or from a major road into a minor one when manoeuvring) and then drive out forwards. This means you're going the more dangerous way around (backwards) into the quieter area rather than the busier one, you have a better view of the busier area to choose when to complete your move, and usually you can concentrate on looking one way into a driveway/road you're reversing into instead of both.
A fair proportion of drivers actually do this, but you see a disturbing number of people who will just drive straight forward into a space in a car park by the shops, only to reverse back out later into a "road" where there are often other vehicles manoeuvring, pedestrians walking past close to vehicles where they can be hard to see, people wheeling stuff around on their way to their car, kids running off, and so on. Then they act all surprised when they back out and miss something. So, score one for better driver education.
This, here in Australia drivers have a mortal fear of reverse parking despite the fact that it's safer. It's just that drivers are bloody lazy. I always reverse part, it's faster overall and safer. Plus what inevitably happens is my low profile Honda Civic gets boxed in by two massive Mum-Tank SUV's which I cans see past due to the high windows and illegal tint.
Add to this that it's near impossible to lose your license in Australia if you're over 22, six speeding fines, no problems. Never indicate, never fined. Lane discipline, schlane discipline. UK drivers always get a shock when they hit Aussie roads.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The easiest way to force you to buy their display technologies (computing) is by making it a safety issue, thus having the government mandate you paying for the technology. Why? My understanding is that this is a backhanded way to force display screens, via visual systems, into all cars because many people simply won'tt pay a premium for it - they want a plain car. First, car manufacturers want to heavily profit on their technology investments (remember car stereo markups?) and to recoup their investments - they can likely only do this if they sell the volume. Second, car companies want to sell software and services to you (profitable only in volume, maybe even force ads), and they cannot do so if you didn't pony up the money for their technology. Crazy? Maybe. It was not my idea but I tend to believe it having experienced enough socio-pathic Marketing behaviors in pursuit of profit.
Let's just pass a car use tax of $5/day, in your face, like it or take the bus.
That should cut the number of automotive deaths by at least 200/year. Of course, deaths from muggings and pneumonia contracted while waiting for the bus will increase, but, hey, we're saving the planet and paying down the national debt, right?
There are cars that need cameras, and cars that don't. My Miata comes to mind as one that doesn't, if you can't tell what's behind you in a Miata, you have no business driving, backwards or forwards.
But if they really want to reduce child deaths they should maybe look at other causes first, since this cause seems to be relatively insignificant compared to other causes. Of course it's easier to raise a "hidden" tax than to use actual tax money to invest in health care instead of say military. Or maybe some camera manufacturer has connections with some politician. Or maybe both. Or maybe I'm just paranoid.
On a related topic, many cars have a kind of radar which beeps when the back of the car is getting too close to an object (like a wall or a pole). Do these work with kids too? I would assume they are cheaper than cameras. Plus, they have the considerable advantage that they do not require visual attention, unlike the camera feedback.
... for the company(s) that make the backup cameras did his job properly.
Working...
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.
Well, as it just so happens, the Transportation Department has tabulated the value of a human life and decided it is $6 million.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/business/economy/17regulation.html?pagewanted=all
Don't forget that America is getting older and fatter, with a corresponding decrease in range of motion.
The number of deaths from being backed over is only going to go up as the "greatest generation" loses its wits.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
but the public transit is awesome in NYC
No it's not if you're disabled. Unless you like walking five blocks to the subway, climbing four flights of stairs, walking another two blocks in transfers, another four staircases and then another five blocks when you get to your location. Or spending three hours on a bus and still having to walk five blocks to and from the bus.
Oh wait, you can't walk more than fifty feet? Well sucks to be you.
There's a reason NYC provides (read: is legally forced to provide) free shared van service for disabled people. It's slow as shit even by NYC standards but it's there for a reason.
... this really going to make?
If people don't look behind them now, what makes people think they will look when this new equipment is installed in their cars. Hell, I ride a motorcycle and I got hit by a car going to work this morning and I was directly in front of the person who ran into me at an intersection where I had right of way. No, they didn't pull in front of me, they literally drove right into the side of me because as they said 'I didn't see you' which makes me think that these devices are not going to be the magical silver bullet to fix the backup issues certain people seem to think it will be.
Add to this that it's near impossible to lose your license in Australia if you're over 22, six speeding fines, no problems. Never indicate, never fined. Lane discipline, schlane discipline.
And the idiots illegally talking on their hand-held mobile phones while driving. Including the police.
I agree, but... It's pretty much the only thing you'd actually get fined for if the cops catch you doing it (different rules for you and the cops). But it's only two points, you can get six of these fines and still be able to drive (thanks to the Double or Nothing system).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I just re-aimed my rear window washer out behind my truck.
Have gnu, will travel.
People back over other people because they aren't looking behind them [...]
Mostly when driving big hulking SUVs. I have no problem seeing small children behind me in my little roadster--especially with the top down.
Seems kind of silly to put a rear camera on that vehicle...
Why could these only save 200 people, max? Will they be uninstalled from the car after the first year?
Beyond lives, I see potential in preventing "oopsie, I backed into a parked car"-type accidents, avoid just one of those over the life of the vehicle and the camera more than paid for itself.
I am not a sig.
But if they really want to reduce child deaths they should maybe look at other causes first, since this cause seems to be relatively insignificant compared to other causes. Of course it's easier to raise a "hidden" tax than to use actual tax money to invest in health care instead of say military.
One of our installers ran over and killed his 3 year old just two weeks ago. It would have been nice to have a camera, as th e child darted out of the house as the father was backing out. I know another fellow who killed his daughter that way thirty years ago.
I have a back up camera installed on my RV, along with a fresnel lens, and west coast mirrors. The back up camera is so inexpensive that it seems a crime to not require them. And I'm not even a safety first person
But here we are in 21st century America, where a no brainer like a requirement for backup cameras becomes a political issue like taxes. You've said your part, maybe next up will likely be someone saying that if people can't control their children, then don't make ME pay for it! I think that if we tried to mandate headlights today, someone would be complaining about "Those Damn socialists telling us how we're supposed to outfit our cars!"
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
> You're ignoring the costs of the emergency services to deal with an accident
You are right. I was ignoring a lof things. It is called a back of the envelope calculation, to see if a proposal passes the smell test. Take the most optimistic numbers from the article (almost certainly overcounting every minor injury to inflate the problem and seriously lowballing the price of the proposed solution) and Google up the one missing number (number of cars sold annually) to make a first run through. It failed. If you were expecting a detailed, exhaustive cost benefit analysis would be performed on the spot for the benefit of the mindless hordes on what passes for slashdot these days, who would mostly ignore it anyway if it disagreed with their preconceived notions of the majesty and infallibility of the State, you are delusional. Do the word 'perls before swine' ring any bells?
Bottom line, even if you are obsessed with safety and totalitarian enough to believe in ordering everyone else to implement your pet notions, there are thousands of better places to be a busybody do gooder where you save more lives per million of other people's money spent. If a billion dollars (and that is a ball park of the annual price tag) on cancer research couldn't save 200 lives I'd be really shocked. And yes it really does work that way, money seized and spent on this misguided project of government directed spending isn't available to be taxed and directly spent on research. Do the math. A billion dollars of research or save two hundred people who couldn't see the reverse lights or the new government mandated backup alarms and get out of the way. One or the other. We don't live in such prosperous times we can ignore economic reality any more, we live in an age of limits and can no longer afford to be stupid.
> But I suspect you already knew that and were just trolling.
No, the first post was simply being brief. THIS post is a troll. Please compare and contrast. Just so you will know the difference in the future.
Democrat delenda est
Yeah, you are right about the subways - few have elevators. Forgot about that. The buses all have lifts at least, but that's not the quick way to get around.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
We know many drivers are idiots (I wonder sometimes if there's an idiot out there with my name on him). So providing technology which could marginally reduce their lethality in spite of themselves, would help the others who share the environment with them and their multi-ton rolling missiles.
Even the best drivers are subject to momentary foibles as well. Which, in a perfect storm, could result in a tragedy. Any technology which could mitigate the effect of these foibles would serve to reduce human pain and misery. Everything of course is subject to cost/benefit analysis, but IMHO, a couple of hundred bucks imposed on the individual which saves a couple of hundred fatalities and reduces tens of thousands of injuries would be well worth it.
I have a car with a rear backup sensor. I feel like this is better than a camera, because rather than having to interpret what I see visually on a small screen, I get a simplified display of objects anywhere around the rear of the car along with an audio alarm as things get closer to the bumper.
So I don't feel like mandating cameras is a good idea, when there are other possible technologies that could work as well or better.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Most RV cameras are wide angle lenses, and being mounted at the very rear of the car, they are in a position where they have a much better view of what is about to T-bone you than the driver seat with its view obscured by the truck, wall, etc you are parked next to.
Yes, NYC is expensive - but someone driving and parking an F-150 every day in Manhattan isn't really worried financially, right? :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Preach!
Math, it really should be mandatory to vote.
Yes, them damn socialists are trying to tell us how to live. Her Do you know how much money has been laid out and wasted on this safety crap? Here e are a few more outrages that the leftist leaning panty waists are tryin' to ram down our throats:
1. Tail light brightness standards - Oh come on. Who has ever been injured by a tail light that was too dim.
2. Hood latches. Hood latches? Do you have any idea how much money is wasted on putting those secondary hood latches on every car? If one hood latch isn't enough, then lock the designer up and throw away the key!
3. Seat belts. I personally know 25 million people who were in a wreck, the car fell down a cliff, and they only survived because they were thrown from the vehicle. Seat belts are mandatory, and they don't do a darn thing except trap people. 5.And here is the biggest one of all. Baby seats. That's right folks. They didn't have baby seats when I was a young'un, and here I am. Total waste of money, coming out of MY pocket
Hang on - those damn kids are on the lawn again - gotta go......
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Absolutely there is some sociopathic marketing VP who's looking at it from this angle. But, sales and marketing people optimally want the situation to be win-win. They move product and make profit, and the consumer gets a very useful thing, making him more inclined to go back to said salesman/marketer. Win-win.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Conversely, the road to the promised land is paved with some nasty ones.
Put some more numbers to it: in the 80s it was calculated that those high rear taillights (in the middle of a car) would prevent 50% of accidents. Later they recalculated it's a lot closer to 5%. Rearview cameras will get dirty & will prevent some people from using their own eyes in some cases. Who benefits? Probably somebody has a ton of shitty old TFT resistive panels left to unload, or some other ulterior motive that will come out years from now.
$
The environment is dynamic. Taking a mental snapshot then backing up based on that snapshot will ignore targets which have both moved in, and moved out of your travel path. Having a device which relays in realtime, the changing environment, will be much more effective in avoiding those moving targets (e.g. dogs and children).
I've seen a video where a toddler stands in FRONT of a parked car and the front of the car is taller than the toddler so the driver couldn't see the toddler and ran over the toddler. The toddler's parents/guardians are mostly to be blamed in that incident. It was a moderately busy street not suitable for unsupervised toddlers.
The rear reversing sensors that come standard on many cars seem pretty good at detecting stuff. So why cameras for all cars? How many more would these cameras save compared to those sensors?
"In terms of absolute numbers of lives saved, it certainly isn't the highest," Mr. Ditlow said. "But in terms of emotional tragedy, backover deaths are some of the worst imaginable. When you have a parent that kills a child in an incident that's utterly avoidable, they don't ever forget it."
The Darwinists would be pretty happy:
And more than two-thirds of the time, a parent or other close relative is behind the wheel.
Maybe it's cheaper and just as effective to have these people and their victims appear in an ad telling parents and drivers to be more careful? e.g. "You don't want to be like me - someone who squished his own daughter".
The USA isn't as rich as it used to be, so it should seriously consider spending the money in more bang for buck stuff For instance fixing its education system - that would save more lives than these cameras.
So you have an excuse, and your commute is way shorter than average. What about vast majority of folks, who aren't like you?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Only 17,000 injuries? I think we're missing the real epidemic here: toilets. There are approximately 40,000 toilet related injuries that occur each year (supposedly), and much like the example in the summary it's mostly children and the elderly at risk.
When I was growing up, we had this happen to a family on the next street over. A two year old escaped the house unnoticed and thought it would be funny to hide behind daddy's car before daddy went to work. Daddy didn't see his son "hiding" behind the rear passenger side tire, because Daddy was not in the habit of making a complete circle around the vehicle in the driveway to check for debris and/or children prior to rolling out. Daddy was charged with accidental vehicular manslaughter. And his son was dead too. This technology didn't exist at the time, but that's one tragedy that could have been prevented right then and there.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
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.
It isn't the number of people that die that determines whether it is worthwhile, it is the cost/benefit ratio. Fortunately, TFA provides some of the needed information, but it doesn't seem very consistent.
"But regulators say that 95 to 112 deaths and as many as 8,374 injuries could be avoided each year by eliminating the wide blind spot behind a vehicle." (Compared to the 200/17000 numbers, it looks like they believe the cameras will about halve the number of accidents.)
"...regulators predicted that adding the cameras and viewing screens will cost the auto industry as much as $2.7 billion a year, or $160 to $200 a vehicle." Wikipedia says 5.5 million vehicles sold in USA in 2009. (I presume this is new sales only.) This would imply about $500 per vehicle to reach $2.7 billion.
"For the 2012 model year, 45 percent of vehicles offer a rearview camera as standard equipment." Is that 45% of vehicles sold, or 45% of models? If 45% of vehicles, then only 55% are going to have extra cost if the cameras are required.
Optimistic cost/benefit ratio: 112 deaths prevented per year, 55% of 5.5 million vehicles at $160 per vehicle = 484 million dollars per year = $4.3 million dollars to save one life and 75 injuries. (75=8374/112)
Pessimistic cost/benefit ratio: 95 deaths prevented per year at a cost of $2.7 billion per year = $28 million to save one life and a bunch of injuries.
(Note that the cost is up-front, but the benefit is spread out over the ~10 year lifetime of the vehicle, which makes the investment a little less attractive, but I'm not trying to account for this.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
No, but the math is done on cars bought per year, so the outlay is also per year. Just like the 200 deaths potentially saved.
You also run over less bikes that way. If you also kick the tires, look at the lights and (in winter) make sure your plates are clear...lot of hassle avoided simply by a quick loop around the vehicular before entry. Lazy man's circle-check.
When they submit legislation they should stand on hot coals... or be doing something else extremely unpleasant simply so they don't waste our time with stupid laws.
We already have too many laws. The problem with the united states is not a lack of laws. Politicians are apparently bored and need something to occupy their time.
Possibly wild bears could be randomly released into the capital building? That would thin out the really old ones that probably should have retired 20 years ago and the stupid ones probably won't last very long either.
In addition we can have lots of non-lethal pranks just to keep them on their toes. Possibly set up some trip wires... just to trip them. And then we can hire some ninjas to randomly switch their office furniture. Ideally the internal layout of the building should be completely changed at least once a year though probably not all at once. All maps of the structure should become obsolete at least once a month.
And while we're at completely remove the climate control system so it's hot in the summer and freezing in the winter.
All told congress should only convene and issue legislation when ACTUALLY required as opposed to "nothings on tv tonight so I'm passing a bill on rear view cameras for cars".
And be honest, if politicians had to operate in this environment you'd respect them a whole lot more then you do now. And think of all the complete wastes of oxygen that simply wouldn't make it through the first year.
Too bad it will never happen. it would be beautiful.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
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.
I was surprised that my midsize sedan has as poor rearward visibility as a large SUV:
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/car-safety/car-safety-reviews/mind-that-blind-spot-1005/best-and-worst/0304bli0_best-and-worst-rear-blind-zones.htm
I'm also amazed parallel parking, a car behind me can practically disappear in the blind spot, making it very difficult to judge distances. I retrofitted a reverse camera. $75 or so from Amazon.
What I find criminal is that school busses aren't equipped with reverse cameras. Due to dead-end streets many routes require a backup-turnaround, and busses have a much larger rear blindspot than a car. The safest approach in this scenario is to backup AFTER picking up students, and BEFORE dropping off students. However you never know when a late child might be running for the bus. In many districts if a bus has to backup on school property there must be a spotter. There's cameras recording the students actions inside, but a simple $100 system can look behind the bus.
I drive a very low, convertible sports car. my rear-view mirror is about 36 inches off of the ground. so a rearview camera would be incredibly stupid. but fine. I also don't have any place for a screen of any kind -- it's a very small sports car. but fine.
but does this mean that I can get rid of the stupid pedestrian brake light? the one that needed to be added to every car a little while back so that it could be at eye-level for pedestrians to know that I was a car? mine's about 30 inches off of the ground, and is about two inches higher than my actual brake lights. making it just as stupid as the camera. the camera that'll wind up being about 20 inches off the ground -- where my plate is.
or, and here's a thought, since pedestrians can't get hit by moving cars when they aren't behind moving cars, maybe, just maybe, pedestrians can not walk behind moving cars. just a thought.
since I learned to cross the street, I also learned to cross a parking lot. and one of those lessons was "if a car is running, don't walk anywhere near it". wasn't hard to learn. it was an extension of "the pedestrian has the right of away, but the pedestrian gets killed, so the pedestrian never takes the right of way" see how easy that is?
and what, you're going to mandate that shopaholic soccer moms in giant suvs with three children screaming in the back seat first look at the stupid screen?
another fun waste of freedom.
Moore's Law will sort this out. Cameras and display screens are rapidly getting cheaper. If the numbers look borderline now then they should look pretty good in a few years.
Most RV cameras are wide angle lenses, and being mounted at the very rear of the car, they are in a position where they have a much better view of what is about to T-bone you than the driver seat with its view obscured by the truck, wall, etc you are parked next to.
You assume I forward parked,
In reality I reverse park whenever possible because that gives me a full view of what is in front of me when I pull out.
BTW, most RV cameras cover about 60-110 deg directly behind the car. 3-7" screens cant display more then that without a fisheye effect which would obscure more then it reveals. In reality, you need at least a 180 deg angle of view to ensure you know anything that could potentially cross your path. Not to mention the fidelity lost in trying to compress the image down to 3".
Reversing cameras wont decrease deaths because deaths are due to carelessness and laziness (I.E. unable or unwilling to reverse park). All RV cameras will do is make lazy drivers even more lazy (and dangerous) by giving them a false sense of security preventing them from actually looking in the mirror or over their shoulder.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Put some more numbers to it:
in the 80s it was calculated that those high rear taillights (in the middle of a car) would prevent 50% of accidents. Later they recalculated it's a lot closer to 5%.
Rearview cameras will get dirty & will prevent some people from using their own eyes in some cases. Who benefits?
Probably somebody has a ton of shitty old TFT resistive panels left to unload, or some other ulterior motive that will come out years from now.
Another example of legislation without a factual basis was the "headlights on all the time" mandated in the 1990s. Someone did a study and found that drivers who turned their headlights on in the daytime were far less likely to get into accidents. They confused correlation with causation and arrived at the wrong conclusion, that it was the headlights preventing accidents. In reality, headlights didn't change the accident statistics at all, but cost us millions of barrels of oil powering them all. What they really learned was that a person who voluntarily takes actions for their own safety are far less likely to get in accidents. "Headlights on for safety" was only a side effect of a careful driver.
It's also why Volvos are such "safe" cars. Someone has to be pretty desperately concerned for their safety before buying something that ugly. :-)
However, in this case, I have to agree with the backup cameras directly adding to safety. Every new car I've sat in for the last few years has had high side and rear windows, and poor lines of sight to close-up obstacles. Our new car has a backup camera, and there is simply no comparison in terms of visibility. The lens doesn't show too much peripheral vision, however, so it also has ultrasonic detectors that pick up motion and warn of external objects approaching from the rear sides. These also add to safely backing out of perpendicular parking spots, which are especially problematic when stuck beside a giant blind spot created by an SUV, truck, or van. I can't tell how many actual accidents they've prevented in the past year, because they probably would have been avoided by traditional means (sight, brakes, honking, flipping of fingers, etc.) but I know I've had no accidents when using them.
I've also been involved in a dual rear-end collision in a parking lot. My little pickup met a Mercedes Benz at about 4-5 MPH. I had checked over my shoulder before moving, and was backing out using the mirror, and the car in the slot opposite mine was simultaneously backing out and was hidden from my line of sight below the level of the tailgate. We both were backing our tails out to the west, so each of us entered the other's mirror blind spot almost immediately. Turns out the final score was steel bumper: 0, engineered crumple zones: -$$$$. While no lives were threatened, a backup camera would have saved both of us from having to deal with a collision that cost far more than any camera system on the market.
John
Suppose that these cameras could prevent half of all backup deaths.
TFA says that 200 people are killed by backover accidents, so that's saving a hundred lives a year.
TFA also gives a range for the cost of these things. Let's take $200, since we all know government tends to underestimate cost.
Per Wikipedia, 5.5 million cars are sold this year. Multiplying, that means that mandating these cameras on all of them will cost about a billion dollars.
I guarantee you that you can save a lot more than a hundred lives if you spend a billion dollars on any number of other things (diabetes education, suicide prevention and mental illness care, cancer screenings for the poor, medical research in general, take your pick).
People back over other people because they aren't looking behind them.
looking around and behind them altogether if they think they can get away with only glancing at that little in-dash monitor. The result will be that they may think it is clear directly behind while failing to account for things coming up from the sides, or farther out from the camera's view.
I alternate my driving between a 1972 VW Super Beetle and a 1999 Subaru Outback Sport. Both are pretty bare bones, with nothing even as fancy as cruise control. Guess what? I've never had one single accident in the decades that I have been driving. Accidents can almost always be avoided by paying attention. Even if you're not at fault, chances are good that you could have outright avoided the situation had you been paying attention to your surroundings and trying to anticipate the nature of your environment.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I do need my big block powered Supercab long bed pickup to tow my boat though. Insurance costs make it more expensive to own two vehicles than the gas savings for my fairly short drive to work. Why should insuring two vehicles for liability only cost me any more than one? Why should insuring a dozen for liability only cost me any more than one? I can only drive one at a time so the risk is the same. If you ask me, for liability, the driver should be insured, not the vehicle. Then I'd get a little econobox to drive every day and the truck would only be used on summer weekends or when it snows.
To add to this... I have no problem backing up or seeing all around my truck. I have small convex mirrors on the side mirrors so blind spots are eliminated too. I also have no problem backing up precisely using only my mirrors and not turning around, since I have to do this up to several times a week all summer long... Into tight spaces and even around blind corners to get my boat in the driveway around some shrubberies or into tight spots at the ramp. If people are intelligent and learn their vehicles and how to drive them, there is no problem. Same goes for pedestrians, be aware of your surroundings and no problem.
looking around and behind them altogether if they think they can get away with only glancing at that little in-dash monitor. The result will be that they may think it is clear directly behind while failing to account for things coming up from the sides, or farther out from the camera's view.
Worse yet, some wont be just glancing at that little monitor, they'll be focused on it, completely oblivious to anything else.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
You don't get to ignore significant factors in an estimate, well you do, but it makes the estimate worthless and deceptive if used as an argument.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
but 9 out of ten times they just make the driver too fucking lazy to turn their head.
yes there are a minimal amount of times where you back over a toddler cause your too busy fucking off to pay attention to your surroundings while walking that 10 foot to the car, and being so god damned important that how dare you be bothered to make sure the coast is clear before rocketing off like the fucking thing was on autopilot the moment you get booth feet in the car.
But the flip side is that rear view camera is a crutch, all of them have a fairly pathetic FOV and since you have a tv camera in the back of your Yukon why bother looking at all.
mandate it all you want, it wont be installed on my 2 cars (which both sit so low a bicycler looks to be 2 foot above me) until I am reimbursed to, or in another decade or 2 when this fad of "im to fucking lazy to notice my surroundings and watch for that granny in a hoveround as I back out, nevermind my kid playing 10 foot from my bumper" is over
I was impressed with the camera on my parents Camry but the cameras still don't cover the entire car. The driver still needs to check the mirrors to make sure the lil'uns aren't coming down the sidewalk and are about to walk behind the car. It's an improvement, but the fear that people will solely rely on them is a problem. It's the same with the new sensors for blind spots on the side of the car...they can detect a cars presence, but are not as good at detecting motorcycles.
Have you ever actually checked how well you can see things directly in front and behind you of you? There's adults you wouldn't see in any mirror, much less kids.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
I mentioned that if you look at the big picture then it makes more sense to spend the same money elsewhere first (at least that's what I meant), and you answer with an anecdote.
I understand that this kind of accident happens and that it's dramatic every time it happens; it still holds that in comparison to other causes of child deaths it's very minor.
In other words, all I'm saying is "ok it happens but other things happen much more and things should be done against these in priority" and you answer me "no, it happened to my colleague". So I'm not sure what we're having here qualifies as dialog. Maybe I wasn't clear in my first comment; if so, I hope this is clearer: I think there are other ways to spend the same amount of money that will get us closer to the same objective of reducing child deaths.
I also feel we have a misunderstanding on the whole taxes thing, so to make it clear: I'm all for high taxes as long as they are well spent by the government. Of course "well spent" is highly subjective and also depends on the society in which you're living. In that precise case and from my point of view there are obvious answers like research, prevention and free and easy access to care for the main medical causes of child deaths. Plus the 100% free no brainer of restricting access to guns, since we're talking about the USA. Of course safety sometimes comes at the expense of freedom.
yet I have been driving for 17 years and have yet to hit anything or anyone (been hit by dolts like you many times, oh I glanced once, didnt 2+2 together and went for it) but cause god help me, I am a cautious driver I get to deal with you morons all the time ... that's why I have 3 dents in my current car and again never hit anything in 17 years
thanks a bunch douche, this is why we cant have nice things
Electronically limit reverse speed. Most of these accidents are probably caused by some moron gunning it backwards out of the driveway. Once they can't do that anymore, the accident rate has got to drop by at least half.
I don't trust those cameras because they make drivers lazy. They think they're getting complete information about what's behind them, but they aren't. Even if the view angle is 180 degrees, which it isn't, there's no way to represent that much information on a little screen in a way that adds to proprioreception.
By limiting reverse speed, we not only eliminate *most* accidents caused by normal reversing, we also stop people from deciding to tear off backwards on a one way street.
Yes some infants will still die. Some infants will always still die. You cannot save all the children all the time.
Right with you on this. If people paid more attention to driving there would be fewer accidents. All the technology in the world will not fix THAT problem.
YAB - http://blog.beemandave.com/
No law or device will fix stupid when someone is in a hurry and does not care to look carefully behind them while backing up slooowly. Many people are just too lazy to turn around and look what's happening behind their vehicle--they try to use only their mirrors to back up. This is very stupid behavior. People will buzz inches by bicycle riders on the street in excess of the speed limit. People will sit in the car while waiting for the garage door to open and just back out--I have seen this happen many times. Totally stupid behavior. ...a stupid law will not fix stupid people.
I have seen people texting, arguing, putting makeup on, or just plain zombeing out with loud thumping music while backing up--mind you not all at once. I have seen idiots back up very fast because they think it is impressive. Do you think a camera will solve this type of unsafe behavior?
Why oh why should I have to pay for something I do not want? Another auto industry lobbyist obviously scored a hit in Washington. This should do nothing but boost profits for the auto industry and vehicle camera manufacturers.
If they could design the camera to replace the rear view mirrors on both sides of the car they would save more than $200 in gas over the life of the car so even at that price they would pay for themselves. If they could eliminate the blind spot for changing lanes I would think they would save more than 200 people a year. Lets look at motherboards for computer. There have been a number of devices that one had to purchase that are now standard on a motherboard Sound cards and network adapters are just two. Both of them are basically free now. I would think the same for this camera's monitor as it will probably have other uses too. GPS system for instance. When a monitor is standard in every car, it could be used instead of the idiot lights we now use. It could now display low oil pressure stop car before you burn the engine up idiot. I believe there will be many more uses for that monitor than just the back up camera and it will save more money than we will pay for it.
About the cheapest pile of trash you can find for a new car in the US right now runs ~$12k. I'd say an extra $200 is EXTREMELY cheap. Quoting figures for outfitting existing cars is absolutely ridiculous since the NHTSA has grandfathered in vehicles for every standard they've ever passed besides the most egregious of issues. IE: your car can't spontaneously explode in a rear-end collision like the pre-fix pinto's.
Yes, I have, and it would have to be an *extremely* short adult (or alternately a very small child) to be below my sight lines. Not every truck has an 18" lift kit on it, and not everyone always drives with the tailgate up.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
In today's driving extremism, it would be nice to have a 360 view around your car for lane changes and awareness.
Some vehicles already have "blind spot monitors", which check 90-170 deg, relative bearing, and 190-270 deg, likewise. Others have "adaptive cruise control" and "collision moderation", using radar to check relative velocity of the vehicle ahead. These don't always exist in combination. Some are range sensing devices, and some doppler. Here's my wish list:
I'd like a good resolution 360 scan, with dopper capacity, like todays weather radars...
1) See a 360 view: I know limitations exist: "first reach targets" would conceal targets behind. Example: You're left lane, passing a truck in the middle lane, and have a hot-head passing the truck in the right lane. 360 radar won't see this, if the truck echo masks the passing car in the right lane. But it would assist in quick lane changes, in tight quarters, if used intelligently.
2) See the "burner" behind you: This would be the stray motorbike or car driving 150 mi/hr, where you thought the lane was clear. Doppler would highlight that and flag a warning. This should extend a km or so to alert, independent of range setting.
3) See what you are about to hit: Some car nav systems do this already. In a more general sense it should be heading/steering aware with a narrow beam spotting stopped or slow traffic directly ahead. It needs to be smart enough to avoid reflectivity from signs, trees, etc. on the side, based on vehicle velocity and rate of turn.
4) If "2" or "3" exist, hang up the cellphone and yell at you with a prerecorded message from Chef Gordan Ramsay: "Drive, and don't talk, you donkey!"
That would work for me. The nearest developing tech, for marine use, is Simard BR-24 4G, with 2.5 deg scan width in X-Band (9.41 GHz) at just 167mW. (Most marine radars are 4KW, and will burn your glasses off if sitting too close.) FCC requirements has vehicle radar running at a higher band and even lower power. Have to wait and see if someone get's the niche. (Wish I had the resources).
--Robert
But if a person couldn't be bothered to check behind the car before getting in the car, and/or can't be bothered to check the mirrors for a fully grown adult human or other larg objects before backing up,what makes you think that person will look at the camera image?
This mandate won't change anything but how a standard car is configured.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Sight lines are so bad in cities that often times at intersections or pulling out of driveways, we can't see if anyone is coming from the left or right until we move the front of our car into "danger" because we are seated many feet back from the front of the car. If we had cameras mounted on the front of the car facing left and right we could see before pulling out. Other cameras could completely eliminate blind spots, or aid in parking. The prices quoted in this article seem way too high. Real costs are surely in the low hundreds for a monitor and four to six camera views.
I was ignoring a lof things. It is called a back of the envelope calculation, to see if a proposal passes the smell test.
Right. And your calculation doesn't pass the smell test, because it ignores about 95% of the costs. Good try, though. Next time throw in juuuuust a little more thought, and your trolling won't be so obvious.
Whatever you do, don't ever make the mistake of taking what you posted seriously. I fear that some people actually believe bullshit like that.
Why didn't you count the vast majority of costs, and focus on only the human lives lost? Is it because your point is so completely wrong that you have to mislead people by leaving out the most important details? or is it because you have a genuine disdain for human life and take ever opportunity to disparage it?
It's also why Volvos are such "safe" cars. Someone has to be pretty desperately concerned for their safety before buying something that ugly.
Really? Are you sure about that? So, if I go look it up, Volvos won't historically be at the top of the curve in crash ratings? Are you sure, or are you just pulling shit out of your ass?
To be clear, I'm not sure. I'd have to go look it up. I'm just wondering if you are the kind of person who bases his beliefs and statements on reality, or whether you form opinions and then twist reality to fit them.
" (OK, there are accidents, but 9 times out of 10 it's because some idiot just drives out without checking over their shoulders and mirrors)."
Citation needed.
"That's a death rate of 1.1% of accidents. That's a pretty good survival rate for car accident."
so? lets make it better.
"Wouldn't this time/money be better spent on better driver education?"
nope.
" Bob has to list that as a car accident if he wants an X-Ray for his toe."
since backing up over a tow is highly unlikly to result in a visit to the Dr, do you ahve any non extreme examples?
Many accident are because you CAN"T see the person you are about to hit. There are big ass blind spots in almost every car.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/car-safety/car-safety-reviews/mind-that-blind-spot-1005/overview/index.htm
and more info:
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811144.pdf
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm not clear on your point. Do you want me to own two vehicles, instead of the one I own now? One small car to take me back and forth to work, plus a larger one for utility purposes? And then also buy a larger house to garage them both? I haven't done the math, but I'm assuming you have -- how much less energy does it take to manufacture two vehicles, plus a double-size garage, versus just having one vehicle and a single-car garage? I'm sure you can tell me, since obviously you know.
Well, 200 kids a year are killde becasue they can not be seen.
"The Darwinists would be pretty happy:"
A) There isn't any such thing as a Darwinists . It's a term used to set up ad hom attacks against Darwin tin a vain and omronic attempt to deride evolution
B) No one is happy about it.
C) You lack of understanding evolution is appalling.
"Maybe it's cheaper and just as effective to have these people and their victims appear in an ad telling parents and drivers to be more careful? e.g. "You don't want to be like me - someone who squished his own daughter"."
In what way does that magically gift the driver the ability to see through a car? Because people whoa re talking all the safety precaution they can also back up over children.
"The USA isn't as rich as it used to be, so it should seriously consider spending the money in more bang for buck stuff For instance fixing its education system - that would save more lives than these cameras."
While true, we need to makes some changes to the educational system, the government doesn't pay for this, the consumer will.
PLEASE TRY to think through the problem.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Our passat has front/reverse ultrasonic and our SUV a reversing camera but no ultrasonic.
I prefer the passat because I get audio feedback while I concentrate on three mirrors, rather than no audio 3 mirrors and a video feed.
Nirvana would be a audio connected to 3D object recognition overlaid on video.
46137
Let's say you have young children.
Would you spend say 100 dollars on something that might be of some help to avoid you killing one of them? Even if the odds weren't all that high that you would kill them?
I might want to, but for making laws, we should look at cost per life. However, GGP overlooks everything but deaths, so his post is worse than useless.
Car seats. Not all that many children were killed by auto accidents. Yet we require them to be belted in. No one alive today who is older than 30 grew up using a car seat.
I'm 31 and grew up with a car seat. I grew up in Europe, which might explain the difference.
are you a dip shit?
If not, then why the hell do you think there is just ONE issue and ONE approach? This is a pretty easy way to save some lives.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The smiley face was to indicate it was a joke. Perhaps I needed a separate line to say "THIS IS A JOKE! DO NOT TAKE THIS FOR FACT." Apparently it requires a whole post.
THE LINE ABOUT VOLVOS IN THE POST ABOVE THIS WAS A JOKE.
But seriously, they're fscking ugly cars.
IF YOU ARE A VOLVO OWNER, THE ABOVE LINE WAS ALSO A JOKE.
The rest of us still think they're fugly.
John
I have had a car with a rear cam for a long time, and I never had to wipe mud or junk from it
Lucky you? I have a GMC Terrain, and I need to clean the camera pretty much all the time. Then again I live somewhere, where we have winter(Canada). Which means that heavy slush, sand, dirt, grime, and in general crap on the roads is a fact of life.
Om, nomnomnom...
Well you would only have to pay attention the the rear-view cam when backing up.
We already have vehicles with backup sensors that chirp based on objects in the proximity of the bumper. Seems those could work just as well, and don't require the driver to actively look or do something non-intuitive like stare at the dash to backup. The little 2" square displays in the rear view mirror aren't much better, as many of the studies say the driver just glanced in the rearview mirror and never actually turned their head around to look.
For something that might prevent 100 deaths (a lofty claim of half, btw), this is estimated to cost 2.7 billion. Why not just create a charity fund and pay the victims families 27 million each?
Anyone else suspect the non-profit that did the study and is pushing this, is funded by some company that makes the camera systems?
"That's a death rate of 1.1% of accidents. That's a pretty good survival rate for car accident."
so? lets make it better.
So you'd focus on 200 deaths instead of the thousands of deaths caused by drunk driving, speeding and driver error?
Are you a member of government or just trolling? This seems to be the height of inefficiency as I can assure you, drink driving will kill more then 200 kids per year.
Many accident are because you CAN"T see the person you are about to hit. There are big ass blind spots in almost every car.
If you dont know how to compensate for this, you shouldn't be driving. The only blind spot is directly below the rear window and if you haven't noticed anything behind there before getting in the car, again, you shouldn't be driving.
"Wouldn't this time/money be better spent on better driver education?"
nope.
Explain? if you want drivers to stop running over things, they need to start looking where they are going. There isn't a technological solution for this, it needs to be taught. Most of these incidents will be solved if people reversed in rather then out of a park (which is how proper instructors teach you). If you drive out forward, you can see everything in front of you.
I cant wait for your explanation that better trained drivers aren't better drivers, it should be hilarious because I've got a continent of proof sitting in Europe (why do you think a lot of the F1 drivers are Finns, where you start learning to drive at 12).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Mud etc is all irrelevant. People are willing to spend about 6 million to save their life (in small risk reduction cost, and 200/year counts I think).
I don't know how many cars are sold a year, but this sounds like an economic disaster at $20o/car. That number sounds way too high though. I can buy a digital camera for u dear $100, with a better sensor and display then this should need, the only difference being a cable. I'd be shocked if sufficient camera/display systems couldn't be built into cara for under $50/each.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
For context to the non-Australians, he's talking about speeding fines for <15km/h (<10mph) over - more than that and it's pretty easy to rack up enough points to lose your license fairly quickly (not to mention the 'hooning' laws). Based on my experience living in America and travelling quite a bit through Europe, 15km/h or 10mph over doesn't even qualify as "speeding" in most states and countries there.
There are few places (I certainly haven't visited any, but they might exist) in the world more strict on speeding that Australia. In some states you will be fined $100+ for going 3km/h over the limit. Of course, the downside is that with such a laser focus on speeding, pretty much everything else is completely ignored.
...Apparently a few sentences got cut off at the beginning of that post. Odd. :(
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
The camera will only activate when you engage reverse gear, and there's no reason it can't have its own washer jet and/or wipers like the windscreen and headlights have. Some implementations i've seen also overlay guidelines on the image to show where your car is heading based on the current position of the steering wheel.
One of the biggest problems however, is the extremely poor rear visibility in some vehicles, combined with poor seating positions. In the car i have now, i have a pretty decent view behind, but there is a triangular blind spot of anything thats below the level of the trunk and fairly close to the car... Some cars i've driven lately have a much larger trunk and a much higher rear window so that your effectively looking up in the air.
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On the other hand, kids of that age should not be out on the street on their own. They should be supervised by their parents or another responsible adult. While i certainly wouldn't want to run over a small child, and like you take precautions not to, it would still ultimately be negligence on the part of the parents if it happened.
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Granted, for those situations where you back up in a residential area or parking spot, these don't apply, but people tend to use the screen to replace their mirrors:
Have you tried focusing your eyes on anything 15" away from you and then again 100 foot in front of you 4 times a minute? How long do you think you spend focusing your eyes on average? That's over 10% of the time you are effectively blind, unless you are too young to drive or have eyes that focus faster than the vast majority of drivers. Mirrors don't have this problem, since you're focusing on the object way behind your car, not on the mirror surface. screens are close to your eyes and require a lot of work for the muscles in your eyes to focus.
Camera's, unless full HD and equipped with "retina" monitors offer less detail than a rear view mirror. That means you have to look longer to conclude what you are seeing, or to assess you don't get to see it any clearer and ignore the fact you don't get your data.
In unlit road situations, any light source inside the car will deteriorate your night vision, making it harder for you to see what's happening in front of you. This means you can't use it as a rear view mirror when driving forwards. Regardless, many people leave it on and get horrible night vision, causing accidents. The same applies for personal navigation devices.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
It should be required first for poor-visibility vehicles. Ones where the back is high, or opaque, like SUVs, vans, trucks, and RVs. Ones where the C pillar is unusually large, creating a big blind spot. Ones where there's some other visibility issue, like a big spoiler.
If visibility is reasonable, a close-range obstacle detection system should be provided to cover the remaining low blind spot. Many vehicles already have that for parking assistance, so that's not a big problem.
Most back-over accidents involve either poor-visibility vehicles or very small (1-2 years) children.
Thanks for the insult - I'll answer nonetheless (also, you forgot to add a trailing "~" to your lines).
I agree with the general idea that one should not consider that "less important" issues are not important: this is just an easy pretext to discard everything because there's always something more important.
What I think is that if people have to spend money to save lives they should rather do it in efficient ways. My impression here is that this is not an efficient way, and that the same money could be spent to save more lives; additionally, I'm wondering whether the same effect could be achieved by spending less money (radar vs camera). Of course my opinion can change, but it is rarely achieved by insulting me.
In Europe, there are regulations, which get adjusted every few years, that mandate car manufacturers to limit the blind spots for their vehicles to "smaller than regulation" areas around the vehicle. Some countries go beyond that and have stricter demands than EU-wide. This means that a manufacturer can't just fabricate any vehicle, put some "regulation size rear view mirrors" on and have it approved for road use. You have to be able to see outside the vehicle, behind the vehicle and to the side to a certain amount of it before it gets approval. Mandating workarounds like a camera instead of mandating the proper design sounds short sighted (pun intended).
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Many people don't reverse park because that makes it more difficult to access the rear of the car, which is especially likely to be a problem when you visit say a supermarket.
In general in car parks i will look for double ranked spaces where both sides are empty, so i can drive in forwards and drive out the other side, but if someone subsequently parks very close behind it can make it difficult to put my shopping in. I also tend to park further away from the store where its quieter, because the inconvenience of a slightly longer walk is outweighed by less effort parking.
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He is talking about social darwinism, which is an actual school of thought. you might want to read the short story "The march of the morons' to see what would happen if you baby proof the world, or perhaps idiocracy. in either case while one doesn't want to see kids die one can't escape the simple fact that while the stupid have 4 or 5 kids the smart have one if they have any.
As for TFA all this will do is jack up the price, you MAY save 2 or even 5% if you are lucky, but most of the time sadly its people not paying attention to what they are doing that causes accidents. I don't know how many times I've seen people with their head down fooling with the stereo, messing with the AC, screwing with their makeup, anything but actually watching what they are doing with that 2000 POUND VEHICLE. in this case better driver education would probably save more lives than a camera they'll probably glance at for half a second and then promptly ignore.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Stop giving away driving licenses to kids that can't drive.
It might also reduce drunk driving to stop prohibiting alcohol to older teens.
For context to the non-Australians, he's talking about speeding fines for <15km/h (<10mph) over - more than that and it's pretty easy to rack up enough points to lose your license fairly quickly
Disclosure, I live in WA.
You get 12 demerit points before you lose your license.
0-9 KM over = 0 points
9-19 KM over = 2 points
19-29 KM over = 3 points
29-39 KM over = 5 points
40 KM over = 7 points.
So a single speeding fine will not result in a loss of license. You can get 6 x18 KM speeding fines and still not lose your license and N-1 8 KM speeding fines.
Even once you lose your 12 points, you can apply for "double or nothing" which means you keep your license but agree if you are caught speeding in the next 12 months you lose it for twice as long. Even when this fails, as long as your employer is willing to say you need you license for work, you can get an exemption license (E-plates).
This is to say nothing of swapping points, basically you just say your friend was driving the car, not you. Your friend does the same (says you were driving the car, not him). This can tie up punishment for months until the courts look at the actual photo, you lose some demerits (after 3 years IIRC) or you find someone willing to take the points for you.
DUI is pretty much the only way to lose your license once you're over 25, no double or nothing for DUI's. Pretty much the only traffic infraction that has an instant suspension.
Police dont apply them to anyone over 25. It'll be political suicide for the pollys who bought them in.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Aah seriously though, this isn't generally a problem unless you're in a big-ass SUV. I have much bigger problems with blind spots toward the front of my car. I've found myself wishing I could see through the supporting frame several times recently. That wouldn't be too hard to do with a camera either. Though it's a little harder to do it and not have it look like ass.
Also the problem will probably go away on its own anyway, as our resources continue to dwindle and no one but the very wealthy will be able to own or operate a personal vehicle anymore. Sorry about raping your planet, future generations, but driving that Hummer sure was fun!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Many people don't reverse park because that makes it more difficult to access the rear of the car, which is especially likely to be a problem when you visit say a supermarket.
That is a fair point, and I have heard some professional driving instructors suggesting such an exception to the general rule.
I respectfully disagree with them. I think safety is more important than convenience, and a supermarket car park is exactly the kind of place where driving out forwards is significantly safer than reversing.
In any case, IME the loading problem is mostly a moot point. You can get your shopping to your car boot just fine in most supermarket car parks even if you do back up close to a fence and there are other cars on both sides. I genuinely can't remember the last time it was a problem for me.
(I acknowledge that it might be a problem for some people with physical limitations that make it difficult to lift shopping bags for any distance at all, but there is usually reserved parking with extra space around the vehicle for such people, and many supermarkets now offer carry-to-car services to those who need them. And of course anyone with that level of physical disability is probably going to struggle to reverse out of a space safely anyway, so I don't think we can really treat them the same as everyone else when considering best practice for drivers in general.)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Clearly there are some advantages to living in the Bogan state. :)
Sadly the rest of Oz is not so generous (except maybe the NT?).
1. Add a reversing alarm beep like lorries have so people know to get out of the way. 2. Limit the top speed in reverse gear so that people have time to get out of the way. You don't need to reverse at 30 mph down your driveway.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Or just install a rear-facing camera at the same time as the rest of the in-bus video, plug it into the same DVR box as the other cameras, and add a monitor that is powered on by the reverse lights.
As a bonus, video will automatically be taken of cars that pass school stopped buses.
It's not the gear that is expensive, really, but just the person-time it takes to install it all and make it work.
Kid-proof tablet..
I'm 24 and grew up without a car seat in a Soviet car in Eastern Europe. I also started riding "shotgun" much earlier than it was allowed by law (IIRC you had to be 12 to be in the front seat) because being in the back seat would make me throw up. On the other hand I learned from early age to use seatbelts (you didn't have to do it in the back seat), to the point that riding in a car without the seatbelt just feels "wrong".
I respectfully disagree with them. I think safety is more important than convenience, and a supermarket car park is exactly the kind of place where driving out forwards is significantly safer than reversing.
The more likely problem with reversing into a parking space is that you have to pass the parking space to reverse into it. So, if the parking lot is almost full and there is a line of cars behind you, when you pass the spot, the guy behind you can just drive into it. Or, it could also be that the guy will be so close to you (since you know, being 10cm from the car in front means you will arrive to your destination a fraction of a second faster) that you won't be able to reverse without hitting him (and he, of course has no way to go because the guy behind him is just as close). So, almost full parking lot - front park. A bit emptier parking lot - reverse park.
You guys are strict.
I've been stopped for going 52Km/h over the limit in Ohio (87 in a 55), and just paid a fine and a new insurance premium.
IIRC, I was 21 at the time.
Kid-proof tablet..
Sorry, the Rear Sensor on my minivan is total junk, and that's on a good day. On bad days it dies and then goes into false alarms. My building has a funny parking layout where I basically have to back "into" my building every morning and cut a hard turn to get out. So not only have I endured 500+ false positives, (and lots of Put Your Seatbelt On beeps), but when it snows that blocks the sensor, which then panics and almost CAUSES an accident because it makes it hard to think straight. I'm already within two feet every morning from logistics. I basically "threaten" to back straight into my house wall. Silence. I make the hard turn to get out. BeeBeeBeeBeeBeeOMFGOMFGBEEEBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!
Nope. Not havin' that.
Meanwhile, did no one notice the "Camera" part of "Rear View Cameras"? Really?! So How long before a "Mandated Rear View Camera" records the *Driver*? Why is EVERY modern problem "solved" by a Camera, (with of course total abuse of Due Process.)
Bonus Tip: Wouldn't every picture in my rearview camera ... wait for it ... be COPYRIGHTED to me?!
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It also protects the non-stupid from accidents caused by the stupid.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
I have a Fiat Fiorino with no windows in the back. Just for my safety I've put a rear parking sensor that warns you with beeps if you have anything near you. It's a dumb distance sensor, but it works great, there is no need for a rear camera, yeah it would be great - but a sensor is better you can get a sense of distance from the beep intervals, even if you don't know what is there. With a camera you don't have a depth field.
I've been driving for over 30 years, and have yet to back up into someone. Why should I have to pay for your inability to drive???
.. and somehow I end up paying more???
.. pay for it. If a car dealer wants to offer it as standard equipment, go for it.
Of course, this is from a country that now has ordered a private business to give a product away for free. That is, ordered insurance companies to cover birth control without any co-pay. Why no co-pay? Because it's so cheap to begin with ($20-$50/month). When do I get my free drugs for conditions that aren't voluntary, like my glaucoma meds that cost me over $100/month with insurance??? But get some special interest group together (like maybe people who make backup cameras and birth control pills???), and suddenly a government mandate shows up.
I'm really getting tired of the federal government deciding what is best for others, and making me pay for it. Sure, it only costs $200. Now, add on anti-lock brakes, 5mph bumpers (which don't work), and a host of other things that the government has mandated 'for your own good', and the cost of just the government mandates for a car probably easily adds another 3 or 4 thousand dollars to the price. Pretty soon those little lights on mirrors that detect someone in your blind spot will be required. Isn't it interesting that people will buy those things that want them anyway, but for some reason the government decides that people that don't want to pay for them have to have them anyway
Enough already. I'll put up with the pollution stuff, since there is an effect on everyone. But seat belts, safety mirrors, and the rest?? If you want it
But the government requiring backup cameras is just going too far. If you are so stupid that you can't look behind you and make sure where your kids are, buy one. If a parent is so stupid they let their kids run around parking lots or down streets without watching them, maybe evolution does work.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Also a valid point, but again I think it's probably fair to say it's happened to me about half a dozen times in my entire driving career. If there's someone that close behind me who's being really being so aggressive that I can't come to a halt before passing the space (so those behind me have to as well) and then quickly turn forward and then back the other way to reverse in without them trying to drive through me to take my space, then I'd probably rather move along and leave them be, even if it means looking around for another space.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I agree that people toe-in there mirrors too much - I have mine set so that I can see a slither of body work. However, it's dangerous to think that you do not have a blind spot - an entire car can fit into it if they are two lanes to the right of you, and slightly behind. Usually you can see the car if you physically turn your head to the right, but with largish central-pillars you can completely miss this.
The way to deal with it is to always ensure you keeping track of cars in your mirrors, so that you can predict when people will go into that blind spot. But sometimes you can lose count, and other times you will be concentrating on something else. For that reason I ALWAYS use my signals on the motorway, and keep an eye out the corner of my eye whenever I move out.
Where is captain obvious when you need him?
What good is a video camera and display in a car if you cant even use a mirror properly?
Trucks of course are another story, in the EU lots of (if not all) trucks have a camera on their trailer end.
I am the first with this post subject, so either i'm missing something or everyone ELSE here is missing something.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
I think the bigger problem, instead of people not using the cameras, will be people thinking that they don't need to look around just because they have a camera... So, they'll be staring intently at the rear-facing camera, when a kid from off to the side somewhere runs out behind the car.
Even people who are currently very good at looking behind/beside them might get a false sense of security from having the camera. "Hey, I've got one of these new reverse cams, I don't need to look anywhere but the screen while reversing."
If this law is implemented, it'll be interesting to see what effect it has on the "collisions while reversing" statistic. My guess is that it'll stay the same (people who don't want to pay attention now, will never pay attention) or get slightly worse (false sense of security actually decreasing alertness during reversing).
Either way, the politicians win by getting to tell everyone they are thinking of the children, and whoever makes/installs these cameras wins by having forced purchases. The people who lose are 100% of car owners, and possibly even those same children.
If they are really serious just make it mandatory to back into a parking spot. Lot cheaper for the driver and more money for the local by-law if they catch you not doing it.
It could now display low oil pressure stop car before you burn the engine up idiot.
My car just has an oil pressure gauge on the dashboard. And a coolant temperature gauge. And a fuel gauge.
I don't see why a monitor is necessary to display oil pressure or some other parameter - just have a gauge. If the parameter is binary, then use a light to indicate that it's good/bad.
IIRC, one of the reasons for disallowing children in the front seats is that seatbelts adjusted for adults can be dangerous to children.
And, in the UK, this is the only exception to the "seatbelt while driving" rule for drivers. You are legally allowed to unclip your seatbelt so that you can turn around while reversing the car.
If you need a camera, you aren't driving well-enough. Like if you need speed-camera warnings, or you need lane-advice, or you need ABS, or you need reversing radar, or you need tyres rated over the maximum speed limit, etc.
My "inability" to drive? Based on the fact that I support vehicles with high tech driver aids? lol!
Now, let's get to the real question: Why should I have to wait for you to back over someone's kid before it occurs to you that it would actually be better if you could see what is behind you? Further, why would you resist an inexpensive technical innovation that empowers you?
Oh, I see what your problem is. Comprehension. Let me spell it out for you: Even if we were to stipulate that a driver might know where their kids are; that doesn't mean they know where all kids are, or where all pets are, or where all old ladies that have fallen on the ground behind the vehicle are, etc..
So here's my answer for you: You need to be made to pay for this because you have publicly demonstrated that you fail to make correct decisions on your own -- not just any old decision, but decisions that affect the safety of others. Thanks. You've single-handedly justified why safety equipment is often mandated, and not optional.
Seat belts have an effect on everyone -- society ends up paying for your injuries in various forms and by various means, so the more severe they are, the more everyone else pays. They also serve to keep others in the car safer, even if you choose not to wear them.
Mmmm-hmmm, because all kids are dependably watched 24/7 by their parents, and always obey them, and always do the right thing, yes? When has that ever been true in human history? If it's true at your house, all I can say is I pity your children, but hey, at least you're already invested in cameras, right?.
And by the way, evolution works, all right, but the truth is that evolution is a very crude process that optimizes for survival, not for good. Einstein was a mind-somewhere-else, self-involved human being. Evolution is very unkind to such folks. It does not follow that it would be a good thing if he, or any other daydreaming or distracted kid, were run over by the likes of you.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
In most industrial sites I go to(here in South Africa), reverse parking is mandatory. Not just from the safety aspect, but from the point of view that if the plant explodes you might get out faster(something makes me doubt this, but well...). Under normal circumstances, 100% here park forwards...
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
This is the problem. People back over other people because they aren't looking behind them (OK, there are accidents, but 9 times out of 10 it's because some idiot just drives out without checking over their shoulders and mirrors).
I'd love to know what you base that information on.
That's a death rate of 1.1% of accidents. That's a pretty good survival rate for car accident.
What about the serious or permanent injury rate? A family friend drove over his daughter who was playing on the ground behind his truck in their driveway, which she knew she was not allowed to do, but was doing so anyway. She missed a year of school while recovering, and still walks with a limp. Their marriage barely survived, and the father still has difficulty talking about it.
In my neighborhood, the little brats assume cars can always see them no matter what. If a ball rolls in front of your car, they'll run out to get it and assume you'll stop. I've even had them play chicken with my car, requiring me to come to a complete stop less than a foot away from them. If I'm backing out of my driveway, I try to watch all directions, but since you can only look in one given direction at a time it's a challenging task, and even if you get out and physically check the space behind your car before you back up, nothing says a kid doesn't go back there while you're still getting back into your car or while you're watching that you don't clip the idiot who parked over the edge of your driveway (i.e. there are other road hazards you sometimes have to watch out for as well).
On our most recent car purchase, we wanted to get a backup camera. The model car we wanted didn't come with the option, we would have had to upgrade to the next class up (about $2500 more). Also it was a premium option, the backup camera itself was $400 (cheap, some places want up to $1,000), and it required a $2,000 navigation system upgrade (the navigation system provides the screen for the backup camera, you see). After taxes, we're tacking almost an extra $5,000 onto a $17,000 car - a roughly 30% premium for about $50 in parts.
These things aren't expensive, except that car makers know people will pay a huge premium for them, and they can tie several other upgrades together to force your hand if you want the safety feature.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Great.. another expense to the vehicle because people can't pay attention to where the hell they're going. Both drivers and pedestrians.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
NHTSA proposed this years ago, simply that turning on the windshield wipers would turn on the headlights, so as to improve being seen while driving in the rain.
This would have cost about a dollar, for the relay required. Never happened.
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
This is silly, and why I will probably never stop driving my '93 Corolla, there's no passenger's side airbag, no side curtain airbag, no OBD2 sensor, no stability control, none of that crap. You know where Toyota put that money into? A kick-ass engine that is still going after 206k miles. I also had a 2008 Chevy Aveo for a little while with all the modern mandated safety 'features' and the cheap brakes crapped out and the rotors needed to be replaced 3 times, but the passenger airbag was still there! Along with that stupid light on the dash to make sure it doesn't go off if there's a little kid in the seat! Went back to the '93 Corolla immediately after that and haven't looked back.
Why the hell can't *I* choose the safety features of *my* own new car?
Because it's inconvenient for everyone when you autodarwinate. If you want to drive any car you want, take it to a track, that's what they're for.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The rear reversing sensors that come standard on many cars seem pretty good at detecting stuff. So why cameras for all cars? How many more would these cameras save compared to those sensors?
My father-in-law's truck has one, and our mailbox trips it as he's backing out of our driveway. Also I think they only pick up things at or above a certain height, a kid sitting on the ground behind the vehicle won't trip it. These cameras aren't expensive except that they're currently considered premium, and car manufacturers charge a huge markup on them.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Actually I suspect that there would be healthy sales of such a vehicle, it's just that the financials work out poorly. There is just a certain minimum cost for the design and manufacture of a vehicle, and the price of such a vehicle gets too close to larger better equipped vehicles. (The TATA Nano has this problem in India--for just a bit more you get a much better car.) In the US the Nissan Versa is the cheapest car but for a bit more you can get a lot more car.
It's a slice of the market that automakers rather just leave alone.
You would have to be shorter than my 5 year in order to not be above the rear window line in my car... Perhaps mandating lower rear windows is a better idea...
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
There's also 13,000 injuries to go with, and quite often those carry their own hideous expenses. Factor that in, and I could see the camera thing being cost effective from a dollars saved versus value of life perspective. Are there other ways to spend that money that might be more effective? Probably...
This is my sig.
"While no lives were threatened, a backup camera would have saved both of us from having to deal with a collision that cost far more than any camera system on the market."
Any camera system?
Wait until Monster comes out with their version!
Monster Lens!
Monster Camera Photon Sensors!
Monster LCD/Plasma/OLED UltraSlim iDisplay!
And best of all, Monster CABLES connecting them all!
While this is a nice idea for urban areas, the majority of the US is still rural. There are places where people probably never in their lives have to "back into a parking place." Why are we going to force them to pay for this technology that they do not need and do not want?
Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?
The touchstone of CS car reviews are their obsession rear visibility. If they reviewed a car with no roof, rear fenders, or trunk lid, they would probably term the rear visibility as 'adequate'. Given this, I am certain either a well-heeled benefactor or senior staffer must of backed over a child. But since even 'free' cell phones come with cameras now and most cars feature a tv set in the dash - oh, sorry: information panel - then yes this should be a standard.
If driving backwards is the real problem, then the natural thing to do: Remove that option from the transmission system. Cars can only go forward.
Ok, that might cause problems with parking lots, but that can be fixed with different parking lot designs.
Anyway, I assume that the camera will not really help not to overrun people. the best would be a system which detects person in danger and stops the car.
Holy non-sequitur Batman. Actually, insurance companies generally like giving out contraception because it saves them money overall. Giving someone contraception is cheaper than covering them through pregnancy and raising children. All this "mandate" does is prevent businesses from asking for a plan for their employees that stops the insurance companies from doing something they already want to do.
Well, for one thing, because there's no way you can get all the idiots off the road. Americans treat driving as a birthright, no matter how bad they are at it. Either have extensive, mandatory driver's training and strict road tests to keep the morons out from behind the wheel, or build some basic safety measures into every car.
Now as others have pointed out, this issue boils down to sight lines. Even if you look for them there are places where children can stand around a vehicle where they simply cannot be seen by the driver, period. Camera and display technology has gotten so cheap, that it doesn't make sense not to do this. $200 is almost nothing on the price of a new car. It's 2% of the cost on a $10K econobox. Do they even make cars that cheap any more?
And a funny thing happens when you make something like this mandatory -- it gets cheaper! Economies of scale and such.
I really think you're tilting at windmills here, Mr. Quixote.
Program Intellivision!
So with 15 million annual sales of cars and light 'trucks' and.. being optimistic.. $100 added cost, the nannies are going to burden the entire eekonomy with $1.5 BILLION in additional expense because 17,000 people were not more careful either walking behind a vehicle or backing the car out? Whom ever is proposing this deserves to be backed up and run over. Perhaps if people parents in particular too more care we wouldn't have this 'problem'
To put this "problem" in better light: Estimates are there are a combined 255 MILLION cars and light trucks in the US. there are 17,000 accidents involving backups each year. That means that 99.33% of vehicles are NOT involved in any back up incident.
New slogan: do it for the 0.6%!
This is about sight lines. The problem it's trying to solve is backing up over someone who's too short & too close to be seen over the back of the car even if you *do* look in the mirror.
I have an easier solution to this problem. If you're that short, and behind a running vehicle, get out of the way!
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The USA isn't as rich as it used to be[...]
In the aggregate, the USA is richer than ever.
The average American isn't as rich as he/she used to be. This is because income inequality has skyrocketed over the past 30 years. It turns out that opening up a global race-to-the-bottom in working conditions is not compatible with having a secure middle class.
Pedophiles also think of the children, so it's not necessarily a good thing to do so.
Here in the Netherlands there are parking spots designed in a way that is awfull for reverse parking. They are on a one-way road and angled so it's easy to park forward. Terrible designs.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
I'll think of the children when their parents pay for it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Eventually it will: driverless cars.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Typically, one is looking over their shoulder behind them while backing up, so they can't be looking at a screen anyways. I can see that for doing things like finely positioning your car during parallel parking or maybe hooking up a trailer to your vehicle it would be useful, but I really don't see how this will generally tend to improve public safety.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Ok, so a child runs out behind your car and you knock them over, killing or severely injuring them. Do you hop out, shout at the parents about "Darwin Awards" and carry on with your day? If you do, you're a sociopath and probably shouldn't be put in a position of authority over anyone. I know one person who tried to kill themself four times because they hit a child, despite it not being their fault. I can't fault your logical argument, but the world isn't always logical.
;)
Offtopic; I like your sig. It's like an EULA; Complete rubbish. If the discussion were a court case, the verdict would be "No contest" and the other party would win. So yes, by you not refuting any points, made they win the argument. At least as far as your part in it is concerned.
No, I don't expect a reply.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Either have extensive, mandatory driver's training and strict road tests to keep the morons out from behind the wheel
Yes, Please.
I'm all for backup cameras and such too, I like technology... But let's face it there's only one way to actually reduce the number of accidents on the road.
2. Hood latches. Hood latches? Do you have any idea how much money is wasted on putting those secondary hood latches on every car? If one hood latch isn't enough, then lock the designer up and throw away the key!
Saab has reverse opening hoods. They swing forward to open. They are required to install a second hood latch because "otherwise the hood could open while driving". The wind of driving would close the hood. (I am not sure about newer models, this was a 99)
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
I can't see through solid bodywork to know how close I've got to that wall/post/child behind my car.
If I see a child approaching my planned route, with parents or not, I stop and take my car out of reverse. Children are stupid, and I must presume their parents are too without further information. I wait until they've passed before moving on.
Yeah, this post is kind of a karma whore. Still, it's good advice.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
But here we are in 21st century America, where a no brainer like a requirement for backup cameras becomes a political issue like taxes. You've said your part, maybe next up will likely be someone saying that if people can't control their children, then don't make ME pay for it! I think that if we tried to mandate headlights today, someone would be complaining about "Those Damn socialists telling us how we're supposed to outfit our cars!"
I don't think people would object so much if RV cameras were simply mandated as required in all new models. What's bothering people is the suggested mandate to require them in all vehicles, including existing ones. I can't think of any safety feature mandated in the past that was done this way. Headlights, seat-belts, airbags, etc. were all added as requirements going forward. When the cost is hidden in the price of a new vehicle, it's not a big deal to most people (and the cost is generally tiny compared to the actual vehicle cost anyway). When you tell someone driving a car that bought for $500 because that's all the can afford they have to add something costing $159-$203 to it, what do you expect them to do? Jump for joy?
I also don't want to see it mandated this way because ultimately, after numerous people raise hell about it, congress will decide to do a program to cover all or part of the costs for the retrofits, costing taxpayers more money than this will actually save. Require it going forward on all new models, but screw requiring it to be retrofit to every car on the road today.
I nominate having cameras mounted on the side of the car near the headlights. I own a Honda Fit, and I have a terrible time trying to see oncoming traffic if an SUV is in the way. Having side-viewing cameras would really help me with peering around corners.
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
you might want to read the short story "The march of the morons' to see what would happen if you baby proof the world
In the same sense that you might want to read "Stranger in a Strange Land" to see what would happen if we sent humans to live on Mars. It's in a book; it must be true!
Having a backup sensor is not the same as seeing what's behind you. The reason being blind is a "disability" is that being able to see is a LOT more effective than hearing to tell what's around you and where.
Mandating automated collision avoidance technology would make much more sense. You can ignore a video screen just as easily as a rear view mirror or a back window. Make it an intentional override to back over something. This would also solve many front and side collision problems as well.
Can we please quit with this nonsense that the problem with American education is that we don't spend enough money on it?
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Especially if I move forward / backward over you a few times to make sure you can't sue me.
I'd rather be sued (I do have insurance, who cares if you sue me?) than spend the rest of my life in prison for murder.
Troubling that they modded you "insightful" rather than the "funny" you were after. Look out, folks, murderers have mod points today!
Free Martian Whores!
Here in the UK, drivers are taught to reverse from the road into a driveway (or from a major road into a minor one when manoeuvring) and then drive out forwards. This means you're going the more dangerous way around (backwards) into the quieter area rather than the busier one, you have a better view of the busier area to choose when to complete your move, and usually you can concentrate on looking one way into a driveway/road you're reversing into instead of both.
Definitely this. Other benefits:
- You have to drive past the space to back in, which lets you eyeball it first
- It's actually *easier* to back into a space in tight quarters, due to the fact that your manoeuvring wheels are out in the open instead of confined.
If you need a camera, you aren't driving well-enough.
Or you're driving an art-major-designed American car with a fashionable gunslit for a rear window and a trunk line so high you'd be lucky to see anything shorter than the CN tower.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I've driven a Prius with a backup camera for three years now. The view is generally good in all conditions. The only real problem is when it rains heavily, you can get a single raindrop hanging from the lens (the lens is tiny) and blocking much of the view.
But then, the rear-view mirror still works.
And if it's raining that heavily, it's quite unlikely that there will be anyone hanging around out behind the car...
The problem is that more safety features lead to riskier behaviour. There were many test done where participants were given a car on a track with and without ABS and times. Universally, the times were shorter when the drivers were told ABS was engaged, weather it was actually working or not. So, that camera will most likely lead to less people turning around and looking.
How about after the blame, start taking licenses away? Getting rid of bad drivers will save a hall of a lot more people than a camera.
We know many drivers are idiots (I wonder sometimes if there's an idiot out there with my name on him). So providing technology which could marginally reduce their lethality in spite of themselves, would help the others who share the environment with them and their multi-ton rolling missiles.
Throwing more technology at the problem is a terrible way to deal with the problem of stupid drivers. If someone has proven themselves to be a dangerous driver, the correct course of action is to get them off of the public roads.
You can park for free in Manhatten. It ain't easy, but I did it. It just takes a while to find street parking.
The Darwinists would be pretty happy:
Tha doesn't make sense. If a parent runs over their two or three year old kid, it's hardly the kid that's being stupid.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
My personal favorite to date: Saw a man driving down the freeway playing a horn. I can't remember if it was a trumpet or what, I'd have to look back at where I logged that feat. Either way, he had one hand thru the wheel spokes and one on the base of the horn. Ridiculous.
On the other hand, kids of that age should not be out on the street on their own. They should be supervised by their parents or another responsible adult. While i certainly wouldn't want to run over a small child, and like you take precautions not to, it would still ultimately be negligence on the part of the parents if it happened.
Yes, we should obviously wrap children in cotton wool and not let them out of the house until they're eighteen, that will make for a much healthier society.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Cars have been around more than 80 years, this has had to have been an ongoing issue. I'd like to know the span of this research and figures from previous years in relation to vehicles on the road then and now. I'd bet it's no more prevalent than it ever has been. So why this now? Unless someones constituency has a hand in the manufacture of these.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Will this be like current emissions on pre-catalytic converter vehicles? Or will they be required to be retro-fitted with them?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
A fair proportion of drivers actually do this, but you see a disturbing number of people who will just drive straight forward into a space in a car park by the shops, only to reverse back out later into a "road" where there are often other vehicles manoeuvring, pedestrians walking past close to vehicles where they can be hard to see, people wheeling stuff around on their way to their car, kids running off, and so on.
I would say that the vast majority of drivers here go forward into supermarket driving spaces, and for a very good reason: it's a lot easier to load your shopping into a hatchback or other vehicle with a swing up back if it's facing out into the road and not squashed up against another car with no room to get a shopping trolley in between.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Absolutely, sometimes you have no choice but to reverse into a tight space anyway, just because of the physics of how steering works. I don't know whether that or the safety benefit was the original reason the manoeuvres learned for a driving test were standardised as they are today. Fortunately both indications point in the same direction...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I drive a sedan and it has quite a large blind spot. Almost all fatalities in the backup accidents are small children, who you can't expect to know any better.
I wish I had a backup camera in my car. I may install one myself.
Free Martian Whores!
LOL, yes you can - on the side streets in the residential parts. Not in midtown. I presume you were visiting someone?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
All this "mandate" does is prevent businesses from asking for a plan for their employees that stops the insurance companies from doing something they already want to do.
So, all the mandate does is stomp all over the business owner's conscience and morals. Ahh? I see how that's better.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I'm closer to 40 than 30 and grew up riding in a car seat. Maybe your parents didn't love you enough. Maybe it's because you argued with them on the cost effectiveness of buying vegetables you didn't want to eat.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Hardly. It allows employees to make choices about their own lives in an area where their employer has absolutely no business mucking about. This is about access to healthcare, pure and simple. I mean, what's next? Your boss handing you a paycheck with an asterisk saying "but don't spend it on condoms! I don't pay you to spend money on that." How is that really any different?
Program Intellivision!
After this mandate, soon they will mandate DVR of the camera, and then...well, next natural thing would be mandating front cameras with recorders.
Insurance and gov would love that...easy to catch you speeding!!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Funny, I heard the same arguments for when our damned gov (Blank-stare...err Blanco) re-instated the mandatory helmet law here in LA.
You know, with all those savings on injuries and all...I'd have expected my motorcycle insurance to go down. I didn't.
I don't think we saw it drop when seatbelts were made mandatory.
Frankly, I wear both (ok I did sometimes go without helmet in summer)....but if someone wants to take themselves out of the gene pool, that's ok by me...perhaps one reason we're seeing so many idiots running around today is that we've been interfering with natures way of putting chlorine into the gene pool....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yes it's not the same. The camera only works if the driver looks at the video screen before reversing.
Whereas when the sensors do their job properly, the driver will hear the beeping whether or not the driver looks.
You make it sounds like it is an innate human right to have someone else pick up the tab for your healthcare....
Ok, if I get to do that, do I get to mandate you quit smoking, stop eating junkfood and feeding it to your increasingly obese offspring?
No, I am not here to be my brothers keeper.....the gov should only be here to make sure opportunity is there, but if you fail...well, you should be free to fail, and if you're not prepared enough to take care of yourself, then...maybe you should be free to die?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Or you could just go outside with your child and teach them not to go in front of nor behind cars, only letting them out alone when you are sure they understand, which I seem to find happens at about age 4. Either way works.
A backup camera may have helped, or he may not have been able to stop in time, and would have had to watch his child as he crushed it. Either way, the whole thing could have been prevented with proper supervision of the 3 year old by someone that wasn't leaving, and/or proper education of the 3 year old that you do not run behind vehicles.
The airbags are dangerous for children too.
Nevermind, that's what I get for reading comments in reverse
Employer-covered health care is part of your compensation. This draws a line saying where the employer's discretion ends and the employee's discretion begins in terms of how it's spent. Every argument you can make about protecting the employer's moral stance can be made for protecting the employee's as well.
Program Intellivision!
You negotiate for you bill rate, and part of that bill rate is what you put aside for your healthcare. A high deductible emergency insurance policy (used to be termed major medical), and sock away as much as you can pre-tax into a HSA.
Then, your employer...has nothing to say about it.
Employer medical compensation, is relatively new....and a mistake IMHO. Once you got bean counters into the mix...health care costs skyrocketed....etc.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Car seats. Not all that many children were killed by auto accidents. Yet we require them to be belted in. No one alive today who is older than 30 grew up using a car seat.
I'm not sure what your point is for that one. The child seat laws are kind of ridiculous. With a baby, there is really no way to put them in a regular seatbelt, so a carseat makes sense there... but they are allowed to ride in trains or buses with just an adult holding them, so it doesn't really make sense. With a small child, the seatbelt will hurt them without a booster seat. In my state, though, kids are required to use a booster seat until age 8, which is silly, they are big enough to fit a regular seatbelt before then, and it isn't like they suddenly grow on their 8th birthday.
It takes a special kind of callous to say I'd rather kill someone than spend a few hundred dollars to try to avoid killing them.
I don't think anyone is saying that; the point is there are other, better ways to try to avoid killing someone.
Wait, so preventing 5% of accidents isn't worth the minor cost of a light?
I buy in bulk. A lot of the stuff I buy literally will not fit between two cars in adjacent parking spaces. I'd hurt myself if I tried to carry a 50lb bag of rice the length of a car, and they don't make special parking spaces for small Asian women.
I have had times where I do the double ranked spaces thing and people park so close that I can't get to my trunk. In those cases, I've put the stuff inside the car rather than in the trunk. But I've also had times when people park so close on the sides that I can't get larger stuff in (or, what happens more often, that I can't get my kids in, because I usually park way off in nomans land when the kids aren't with me). These two events haven't lined up yet, but if I parked in that direction often, I imagine it would.
Whatever you do, don't ever make the mistake of taking what you posted seriously. I fear that some people actually believe bullshit like that.
A good number of the expenses you mention would only be saved if the addition of rear-cameras actually had a measurable impact on safety.
To my knowledge, it hasn't been studied.
Required reading for internet skeptics
could be less stupid and not walk behind or in front of, a moving vehicle
No the problem is tree-hugging Soccer-Moms driving SUVs big enough to pull a semi trailer so they don't have to bend over and show their butts while buckling Junior into his car seat. Of course these behemoths are safe to drive as long as you don't mind crushing anybody else like a bug which is easy because there is squat for visibility.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I'm waiting for the laws to change to allow cameras to be substituted for side view mirrors, those Dumbo ears hanging out in the slipstream make a really big aerodynamic hit and you still get huge blindspots.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
How was this modded interesting? How is backing out over someone's toe acceptable?
Your line of reasoning is weird and hypocritical. What is worse is that it ignores the contrary scenario: people who just let things go that you would consider unacceptable.
And that invalidates your premise completely.
They are built into the bumpers, and beep when you approach an obstacle, slowly at first, and faster as you get nearer. They are automatically engaged when engaging reverse.
These are a less expensive alternative to cameras.
As much as it pains me to read /. comments these days and wade through the usual girlfriendless know-it-alls who live in their mom's basement who think they're an expert on parenting, and the anti-"nanny state" market fundamentalists who think everything should be left to the whims of the market, I feel the need to get a few things straight:
1 - Kids are unpredictable and are not like pets who can be trained to obey instructions every single time. Get a GF, impregnate her, wait for it to pop out, and then come back to me with your expert opinion. In the meantime, shut it.
2 - There are a million situations that you have not ever conceived where a small child might, for one reason or another, end up behind a vehicle while it's backing out. Just because your limited life experience shields you from the experience doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
3 - Anyone who posts the "just look where you're going" argument deserves to be modded "overrated" into oblivion because they're not paying attention to the deadly combination of small children and large blind spots, something that has become a much bigger problem because of the design of modern vehicles that have much higher read ends than they did in the 70s. These cameras are designed to eliminate those blind spots.
4 - Those speculating about the lack of visibility from the camera need to STFU and leave it to the people who have actually used them and have indicated that they have fish-eye lenses that have a wide field of vision. You're like the people who condemn films and books without having watched or read them.
5 - It's okay for government to step in and insist on safety measures. The industry has a long history of fighting against them as well as environmental measures. Mandatory seat belts were going to bankrupt Detroit (and besides, shouldn't seat belts be a personal choice issue?*). Air bags were going to put too much expense on the industry. Crash safety standards were going to be an unwarranted government interference in the free market where people should expect to die if they get into a crash; the automakers actually thought that they had no duty to protect the people using their products. But Detroit did not go bankrupt because of mandatory safety measures, which A cost a pittance in the grand scheme of things and B were the same for everybody. Detroit just went bankrupt because they thought it was better to buy a congressman than to fix their business model by producing cars that could be competitive with imports.
6 - The cost of flat panel displays and small cameras has plummeted. Every phone has one FFS. Everybody can well afford this. Fact.
7 - The number of lives lost in this tragic way is not "insignificant". One life lost is one too many. Anybody who says that the preventable death of a small child is "insignificant" should be thoroughly ashamed of himself and modded "troll" for the rest of his sorry life.
* No. It shouldn't be a personal choice issue. If you're too stupid to fasten your seat belt then it's okay for the government to make you do it A for your own good, B for your children's own good, and C to save the government the $10,000 taxpayer expense that goes with every road death.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Why the hell can't *I* choose the safety features of *my* own new car?
That'd be fine if you were an automotive safety engineer and knew WTF you were talking about, but most people don't fall into that category and need experts to do the regulating to protect them.
Maybe I'd rather spend that extra money on a car with traction control, or maybe I have a very limited budget, but just want a basic no-frills new car that won't give me any trouble for the next few years. This just smacks of regulators trying to justify their jobs by creating regulations for the sake of regulations.
So you want a car that'll be reliable but a death trap if you do get into a crash (possibly with someone else who doesn't have traction control and skids into a collision course with you through no fault of your own)? There's no accounting for taste I suppose.
Cars are really, really safe now.
And people are still getting killed on roads. But you know who you can thank for the modern safety features of cars? Regulators. And Ralph Nader. Seriously.
Do you really think that Ford would stop putting seatbelts in cars if the government didn't tell them they had to?
They wouldn't have done so in the first place if they hadn't been mandated. Now that the public is used to them (thanks to the regulators) you'd better believe that they wouldn't dare take them out.
The car company that kills fewer of it's customers than its rivals can sell more cars based on this fact. The car company that is consistently killing its customers will likely be out of business soon.
SAAB must be the most successful car company in the world then.
Oh wait...
I'm not saying there's no place for regulation,
Yes you are.
but this is getting ridiculous.
No it isn't. It's just a logical extension of the seat belt laws, air bags, crash safety standards etc. Yes cars are safe, but why stop there? Why not make them even safer? Why reach a certain arbitrary level of safety (that has not eliminated all road deaths) and stop there?
Maybe next they'll say you can't have a black car because they're harder to see at night, after that, they'll say all cars have to be CalTrans Orange because they're safer.
No. "They" are not going to ban black cars. "They" are not going to mandate that all cars are CalTrans Orange. Seriously.
Regulators regulate, regardless of the necessity of regulation.
No they don't, they regulate out of the necessity of the regulation.
A regulator that doesn't regulate is out of a job.
And rightly so.
Seriously.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Next to the port authority, as well as a few other places. I would call that mid town... But I am not a New Yorker, so I may be wrong.
I have small kids. Personally, I'd rather watch and educate my own kids than pay $100.
And we all know that once you tell your kids not to run behind the car, they will never, ever, ever, run behind a car. Children might be chasing a ball, or might otherwise have a lapse of attention. Adults do it, Are you telling me that you have the foolproof method of insuring they don't?
Car seats. Not all that many children were killed by auto accidents. Yet we require them to be belted in. No one alive today who is older than 30 grew up using a car seat.
I'm not sure what your point is for that one. The child seat laws are kind of ridiculous.
The point is, if a person made it to adulthoood without being killed in a car accident, and s/he never rode in a car seat, it must be okay. It's not my point, I just think it is the way a lot of people think.
It takes a special kind of callous to say I'd rather kill someone than spend a few hundred dollars to try to avoid killing them.
I don't think anyone is saying that; the point is there are other, better ways to try to avoid killing someone.
Respectfully disagree. Another poster who disagrees with me is proposing that a law requiring these backup cameras is not worth the cost. So he is placing a value of 100 dollars as more than a child's life is worth. I just don't buy the cost in total argument, I'm talking about the cost to me or you. That is because you can take any safety related item that is required on a car, and say Ohhhh no! Its too expensive!. This is not some sort of huge expense that is going to keep people from buying a car, or send the economy into the toilet. Hell, in order to get Easy Monthly Payments on a car, people take longer period loans out that cost a lot more to the final price than this.
My real point is, if a person decides that a hundred dollars price increase for a very practical item with multiple uses is not worth one of those more important uses, I'll call them callus.
If people don't like that, they can back over me some time.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
That is definitely midtown, and I'm trying to figure out what bus lane you were in! LOL :)
The irony is that, having lived there, I'm probably less familiar with the Times Square area than most tourists - I avoided it at all costs and while I used Port Authority a lot, I always came in from underneath.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
And we all know that once you tell your kids not to run behind the car, they will never, ever, ever, run behind a car.
That is not what I said. I said WATCH AND educate. You have to properly supervise your kid until you are sure they won't run in front of/behind a car, ball or no. And that requires several years of education for the average child. If your child is mentally retarded to the point where they are doing that into adulthood, then you supervise them in adulthood too, or pay someone else to do so.
My method is, if a child is at risk of running into the path of the car, I have them within arms reach whenever they are near enough to any cars/streets to run in the path before I can get to them. It may not be fool proof, but it has always worked so far, even when I was putting groceries in my trunk and a car suddenly jumped a curb and rammed into my car, totaling it (I grabbed the kid and jumped out of the way).
Another poster who disagrees with me is proposing that a law requiring these backup cameras is not worth the cost. So he is placing a value of 100 dollars as more than a child's life is worth.
Nope, that's not how it works. Only if these cameras GUARANTEED survival of a child would the poster be putting 100 dollars above a child's life.
Yeah, but no amount of technology will make them better drivers anyway.
...self-driving cars could remove the 'drivers' from the equation entirely...
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
Either way, the whole thing could have been prevented with proper supervision of the 3 year old by someone that wasn't leaving, and/or proper education of the 3 year old that you do not run behind vehicles.
So who's fault was it? Was it the father, because he wasn't properly supervising th echild from inside the car? was it the Mother, a big sister or brother? The child himself?
I do not know if you have children or not, but short of locking them up 24/7, can you ensure that they will never ever get away from you? You will never, ever be distracted? Hell, if everyone drove with forethought and was always thinking, we wouldn't need one piece of safety equipment on vehicles. But everyone can be distracted, and accidents are going to happen.
Who knows if the camera would have prevented the death? But I'm a little reluctant to make the punishment for a 3 year old who darts out behind a car the death penalty.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I don't see why a monitor is necessary to display oil pressure or some other parameter - just have a gauge. If the parameter is binary, then use a light to indicate that it's good/bad.
The cheap cars have an "oil light" instead of a gauge. The light turns on before complete engine seizure, but after the engine is effectively destroyed.
I can only assume that this is a cost cutting measure, since the light uses almost as much dashboard real estate as a dial. I would hope that manufacturers would be willing to add a better sensor and software gauge, but I can't say what the cost delta is between the 3 options.
So who's fault was it? Was it the father, because he wasn't properly supervising th echild from inside the car? was it the Mother, a big sister or brother? The child himself?
It was the fault of both the parents who failed to educate the child about not running in the path of cars, the fault of the father for not ensuring the child was properly supervised before attempting to leave, and the fault of whomever was suppose to be supervising the child at the moment.
I do not know if you have children or not, but short of locking them up 24/7, can you ensure that they will never ever get away from you? You will never, ever be distracted? Hell, if everyone drove with forethought and was always thinking, we wouldn't need one piece of safety equipment on vehicles. But everyone can be distracted, and accidents are going to happen.
I have 4 kids. And yes, I can manage to never let them let them run out the door when their father is backing up his car. If I didn't have this ability, I would have locks that are unlockable by anyone young enough to run out the door and into the path of cars like that. I double check the position of all my kids before moving my car. (What we do is we all come and say goodbye to the leaving parent, and we communicate with the staying parent where the kids are going to be after the other parent leaves. By having the front curtains open, the kids are either at the window waving the leaving parent, or haven't had a chance to leave the living room yet, and so all are visible.) I manage to not be distracted when it counts; my kids are more important than anything else I may have on my mind.
Accidents are going to happen, but a kid running out the door and behind a car is a preventable accident. It just takes a little more effort than many people are willing to put in.
Oh, and I never said the guy should get the death penalty. I'm not saying the guy should be punished at all. Really, the fact that it happened is a worse punishment than anything that could be done to him. I'm just saying exactly what I said: this already could have been prevented, and if it wasn't going to be prevented, a camera probably would have made it worse for the guy.
Nope, that's not how it works. Only if these cameras GUARANTEED survival of a child would the poster be putting 100 dollars above a child's life.
There is no guarantee that ANY safety device will save anyone's life. So the logic is to oppose all safety devices? You've descended into silly to defend your point. Have fun, if you want to argue intelligently, fine. Your point? Not so much.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Oh, and I never said the guy should get the death penalty.
I'm talking about the child. He did get the death penalty. But he'll never do that again. TTFN.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I'm all for rear-view backup cams. I have one on my car. I would never tell anyone they have to have one by law. That's not the government's business to get involved in. They should keep their damn noses out.
...quicker, easier, more seductive the darkside is...but more powerful, it is not.
Why are you speeding? Speeding is bad.
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
Let me get this straight, you are denying what every single study of the last twenty years has shown, that people with above 140 IQ have less than 2 kids while those less than 100 have on average 4? Hell can you not even use your eyes, haven't you noticed we have gone from shows like Cosmos to having a nation that knows more about who Snooki and the Kardashians are banging than they know about their own elected officials? If you don't realize Idiocracy is the future you obviously haven't turned on any of the top 20 reality shows, they are all either "Oww my balls!" or "Hands off my man bitch!".
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I think in case of my car, the gauge was cheaper. It is just a pressure gauge and an oil line coming from the engine. To have a light would require some sort of electronic pressure sensor and a relay (or a sensor big enough to handle the current going to the light). Well, or maybe the cost was similar so the manufacturer decided to put the gauge in.
What I would have also liked is an ammeter or at least a voltmeter to see the condition of the battery (charging/discharging and how fast).
That's true. And if its display is a Denon in-dash stereo, well, that'll break the piggy bank for sure.
John
I can't help but think that proximity sensors (beeps faster when items are closer) would be just as effective at preventing fatalities, and far cheaper. Audible alerts don't even need you to pay attention... they GRAB attention.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
That has probably partly to do with ease of loading shopping into the boot (trunk)? I always reverse into a parking spot for fuel saving reasons but I didn't know about this safety point of view of children running around in car parks - a very good point. I have always forward parked when going to supermarkets for ease of access to the boot and my car engine stays warm for a very long time. Now that I know your point, I now will reverse park in supermarket car parks from now on, especially that my car has extremely poor rear-view visibility exactly as you described (Opel Astra 98-04 model year) so tick me off as educated.
1. Everyone else is, if I don't, I'll get run over.
2. Speed limits posted are WAY lower than they should be with a modern car.
3. I'm in a hurry.
4. It is fun, I didn't buy a sports car to put around town in at 35mph.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I think the problem is you just don't understand my point. NO safety device is as safe as not participating in the dangerous activity. Car seats can make a child a little less likely to get hurt in a car accident, but it's not guaranteed. The only guarantee is to not let your child ride in a car, but for most people, the risk of car accident is worth transporting their child long distances quickly. Hind-cameras may help a person be a little less likely to back over a child, but the only guarantee a child won't be backed over is to not let the child go behind cars. Is the benefit of not having to watch and educate your child to ensure it does not go behind cars worth it to you?
Well, I'm not so sure if that is a punishment. Would it have been better for him to survive, but be in immense pain, maybe disabled in some way for life, always knowing Daddy did that to him? Death isn't always bad, seems to me it is often the best outcome for the person that died, it only sucks for the people that care about the person that died.
Btw, not wanting something to be mandated by law is quite different than opposing. If you want to spend $100 on a camera, that's great for you, I do not oppose that, in fact I support your right to do so. Heck I'm not saying I don't want one - they would be quite helpful when parking and pulling out, even if I'm sure my kids won't be behind my car. However, I should not be required by law to buy one. More and more laws are popping up to resolve problems that could be solved with less lazy parenting, and they affect my life and my wallet - that is what I am opposed to.
Where I live, with the salt, snow, slush, and road grime, a return trip to work gurantees that the rear license plate is not decypherable from the layer of salt, mud and whatever it is that covers the letters.
Where would the cam be mounted so its lens would not suffer the same fate.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
You fail to point out why several MILLION people have to pay because less than 1/10 of 1 percent of drivers every year run over their own kids.....
Go spend your own fucking money....
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
You fail to point out why several MILLION people have to pay because less than 1/10 of 1 percent of drivers every year run over their own kids because they aren't watching them-- which is what is usually the problem. Or little Johnny is riding his bike down the sidewalk and isn't paying attention and gets run over by someone backing out of a drive way, which the camera won't see either and because I'm already watching three mirrors and looking both ways for oncoming traffic and didn't see him because my neighbor won't trim their shrubs. And now I have to also watch a camera?? Give me a fucking break, this will be about as effective as 5pmh bumpers were in reducing crash costs.
Do I want safety belts?? Yes I do. I also wear a helmet when I ride my motorcycle. But it's MY choice. I have no issues with safety equipment being available for me to purchase so I can decide what I want to spend MY money on. I do have an issue when the government decides they know that is best for me in everything I do.
Go spend your own fucking money....
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
See those little circles on bumpers since about - 2001! They are ultrasonic sensors and work well. Helped me when a butthead darted in back of my caddy. They are less than $100. Even after market is around $100. It's getting very hard to buy just a car. They all come with way too much crap on them. More crap, more to break, and they do break. Even on the "invincible" toyotas.