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Department of Transportation Makes Rear View Cameras Mandatory

Posted by Unknown on from the because-using-your-mirrors-is-hard dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Department of Transportation issued a new rule (PDF) on Monday requiring car manufacturers to include rearview cameras in all cars manufactured after May 1, 2018. The rule applies to all cars weighing less than 10,000 pounds, including buses and trucks, but does not include motorcycles and trailers. '[The cameras] must give drivers a field of vision measuring at least 10 by 20 feet directly behind the vehicle. The system must also meet other requirements including dashboard image size, lighting conditions and display time.' An estimated 13 to 15 deaths and 1,125 injuries may be prevented with the implementation of this new requirement."

2 of 518 comments (clear)

  1. Good.... by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They can include a dash cam and side view cameras as well along with an interface that allows me to copy filmed material to an SD card or something... That would have saved me twice from getting stuck with being 50 percent at fault (both times the other driver ignored a red light).

    --
    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow
  2. Re:13 deaths? by plover · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Umm... this law is a direct result of that testing process you referred to in the phrase "time-tested". Time has shown that there are about 300 deaths per year due to backing over people. Time has also shown backup cameras to be highly effective at preventing these deaths. Backup cameras fix the "bug" (the blind spot behind and below the trunk of the car.)

    If you think this makes a car too expensive, what price do you put on accidentally running over a human being? Let's say a dead person costs $6 million. (That was the price a few years ago from my state, who figured out the amount they'd spend on an unsafe road to fix the problem after a fatality.) If you were to spread the price of 300 dead people (6*300 = 1.8 billion dollars) and divide by the number of cars sold in the US per year (estimating 20 million) that works out to $90 per car sold. Multiply that by an average 10 year lifetime of a car and it works out to $900 per car. If a camera costs less than that, it's cheaper for society to require them to fix the problem.

    Mathematically, it's cheaper to require the cameras than to live with the deaths they could prevent.

    --
    John