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Will Cameras Replace Sideview Mirrors On Cars In 2018?
cartechboy (2660665) writes "Just the other day we read about how the Department of Transportation will require all manufacturers to include rearview cameras on all new cars produced after May 1, 2018. But there's something else auto manufacturers are pushing for, the ability to replace sideview mirrors with cameras in 2018. Tesla in particular is pushing for this to happen as traditional mirrors are bulky, and not very aerodynamic. That lump of plastic can cause surprising amounts of drag on an otherwise smooth car body. Camera units are much smaller and can be made streamlined, or even mounted nearly flush with the body, thus reducing aerodynamic drag. The idea has been around since the 1990s, and many concept cars have used cameras instead of sideview mirrors for years. But how will NHTSA respond? Is it finally time to ditch the sideview mirror?"
nope!
When you see the cost of replacing a mirror, it'd be cheaper to have a camera and a 7" screen inside.
On the other hand, night vision would suffer from having a screen on.
And I know more than one person who has saved their cars' doors by having the mirror remind them how close they really were to that post...
I usually only use and rear-view mirror to lookout for cops. If I'm reversing, I always throw my arm over the passenger headrest and twist around to see where I'm going. Cameras only help if a kid is playing possum behind your car; most kids are running around, so you need to have your full peripheral engaged. And I live in San Francisco, where more pedestrians have death wishes (like walking across a 4-lane high with your head down and your nose 1/2" from your iPhone screen), so you can't afford to pretend to be a fighter pilot--we're simply not trained to make use of a electronic display and maintain environmental awareness.
If I'm turning or merging lanes I always quickly turn my head, although I guess the side mirrors are good for preparing for a merge. Cameras would be kind useless unless the display is placed where I can see it--at least with only minor head movements--at the same time as I'm also looking with my own two eyeballs where I'm going.
What about ditching the windshield and replacing it with a 4k HD screen? Then you can embed the driver lower-down and deep inside a protective hardened shell. A no-glass car all around.
It might happen, if they can implement it in a way the duplicates the functionality and ease of use of a mirror. The reason it might happen: reduction in drag to improve the manufacturer's chances of meeting the EPA Corporate Average Fuel Economy requirements.
Even if you put the screen up by the window, with a mirror you can always move your head a bit to get a bit more visual context. With a camera and screen, that doesn't work. Unless they also put in head tracking, or use a 3d screen.
...until you get that electric short, and are blind in your side and/or rear view. It's called redundancy. You can't just have it all-electrical. Otherwise, you are asking for trouble.
Part of it is we think anything electronic will be better than having a human be required to...say...check their fucking mirrors? Or, in the case of the rear camera, make sure their brat isn't wandering around the vehicle before deciding to slam it in reverse(though, in that case, someone that dumb shouldn't be having offspring)? It's a combination of not setting boundaries to what you do in a 2-3 ton vehicle(smart phone, navigation system, entertainment system...eating!); and just getting lazy behind the wheel. Instead of creating the equivalent of the foam safety system in Demolition Man, how about we hold people to a higher driving standard?
So why do I need a camera? This is a classic case of over-engineering a simple, solved problem. Rear and side view mirrors have an extremely low failure rate, and require no power.
I always wondered why aircraft don't have embedded cameras all around. One to observe the landing gear, one pointed at the tail rudder, one for each engine, one for the ailerons/flaps etc. No more guessing what is going on based on instrumentation and sending a crewman to look out the window to see if he can spot the problem. Easier to detect icing, snow load on the wing while on the runway, etc.
In a tight economy, side cameras will only sell if they are a. manditory on all new models, or. b. not marked up at the same exorbitant rate as side mirrors. If the industry cintents itself with a replacement price that's not much more than for conventional mirrors, this could work, but what I expect is a scenario more like this.
1. Car companies decide that the lower profile possible means fewer side viewers will be hit in accidents, so they will see fewer replacements.
2. Since they won't see as much sales volume, the individual markup 'obviously needs' to be higher.
3. SUV makers, disappointed by low sales due to high gas costs, wiill lobby congress to except SUVs from the camera requirement (since they are sort of trucks - trucks need more mirrors and bigger ones, and you can't replace a bigger mirror with a little ole' camera, blah blah....).
4. The SUV exclusion will make initial purchase price look better to all those buyers who don't consider total cost of ownership.
5. Thus resulting in more fossil fuel consumption, AGW, and so on as America gets yet another reason not to adopt a superior technology.
Who is John Cabal?
A car is a place I value simplicity and reliability over features. If a camera fails on the road, people can die.
I love the subtexts of this question...for the above sentence to make sense all three items below must be true:
> There is an open debate in car design/safety as to wether cameras would be better than mirrors
> There is an organized effort among many stakeholders that all agree cameras are better than mirrors
> They have been trying to ditch the sideview mirror for a long time..."finally"
Lastly...if cameras increase safety...why not have both????
Thank you Dave Raggett
The only reason you have to move your head around with a side mirror is because they are placed very close to where your peripheral vision ends. Consequently, if you're sitting facing forward, for a mirror to show the region between where the rearview mirror's view ends (almost straight back) to where your peripheral vision picks up (almost straight to the side), it has to have a very large field of view.
With a camera, you have the option of mounting it at the front corners of the car instead of by the driver, The display can still be by the driver, but the camera can be way in front. It can then show the same area using a much smaller field of view. The blind spot will still be there, but it'll be pushed out to 2-3 lanes away, making it irrelevant.
That's all I'm looking at, anyway.
The advantage of side view mirrors from a situational awareness perspective is that you can check the entire side of your car from front to back very quickly because the whole view is there. Blind spot indicators solve the problem of blind spots (mostly..). Side view mirrors may take away from aerodynamics but they're a very convenient place to look.
A camera image could be nice (night vision, variable view angle, etc), but it seems a downgrade from a safety perspective to use a center console display because it causes you to look away from the side of the car.
Maybe they'd mount mirror-size displays in the dash against the doors? Sounds kind of expensive for any usable resolution and brightness and maybe even distracting, especially at night. Perhaps the displays could have a secondary function or overlay (distance to largest and maybe bonus points for being hackable to display some other display.
Displaying a heads-up type display on the windshield? Some kind of perspective-corrected or floats-outside-the-car-like-a-real-mirror image on the side windows (useless if the windows are rolled down, though).
A rearview mirror option might not be a bad idea because it would then be a complete "behind you" image, but how big could it be without making the rearview mirror into a head-injury risk?
Oh, my, two more things to fail at the most inopportune moments. So is this going to increase the cost of the cars too?
On the other hand, the benefit is a better wind profile so better gas mileage. Should that be kilometerage by now? *sign*
I assume submarines have replaced the captain looking thru the periscope with his eyes to a camera mounted there and a Star-Trek-style viewscreen viewable to everyone in the control room. If they haven't they should. You can add infrared sensors and stuff to the video. And no more red light so as to not damage the captain's night vision.
Probably, But they haven't replaced the bullets a soldier uses with smart ordinance that can find it's target on its own.
Not because it technically isn't possible, rather because it isn't 100% reliable in a situation where less than 110% reliability can easily result in a fatality.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It will add $150 to the cost of the car, but when it fails the dealership will charge $500 for the same part plus labor to replace it.
I agree that field of vision is not an issue (or at least one that can be easily fixed). However depth of vision is a problem. Mirrors preserve depth perception 2D screens do not. Not being able to tell how close a car is in a wing mirror when overtaking is dangerous and will lead to accidents. You can't even judge from image size since camera's fields of view and screen sizes will vary between car models.
Just as soon as camera/screen pairs have the parallax of a mirror and the dynamic range approaching anywhere near reality.
In other words, not for a long time.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I think they should do both and get the best of both worlds.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
And no more red light so as to not damage the captain's night vision.
Actually, red light is perfect as it is not nearly as harmful to night vision as hard white light.
Not that it's necessarily the best for every single application, but I find a 15cm square fresnel lens stuck to my rear windscreen gives a much better picture than any camera system I have ever used:
The dynamic range is practically the same as through the glass, so no squinting at nearly-black screens in summer time or having eyes burned out at night.
The picture is on the actual windscreen, so I don't need to take my eyes off the "road" when reversing, or the rearview mirror to see what's behind me.
The focus is significantly far that I don't have to wait a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to a dashboard-mounted screen. Not a problem for me yet, but human lenses do harden with age.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I think the safety of the drivers of those Volvos, Infiniti, Mercedes etc is bit more important than your want to avoid speeding tickets.
It doesn't really interfere with that...it is more a background noise. I'm still more concerned with sharing the road with people who need a gadget to tell them they are tailgating.
A camera would be more useful than a mirror for an accident data recorder.
FTFY.
Have gnu, will travel.
Volvo blind spot system is optical, not radar. The radar panel is on the front grill for collision avoidance and distance sensing cruise control, which does not use lasers. The parking sensors are ultrasonic.
And you know you can mute bands on the V1, right?
My Monster's OEM mirrors did the same thing yours are doing.
I replaced them with these (although, if you want to look "mod" enough, you could add, rather than replace):
http://www.constructorsrg.com/mirrors/hindsight_ls.html
I'd really like to know how they would address the removal of ice/snow/slush that we see in the winter in Canada/Northern US. And how much light would the screen emit at night, potentially blinding the driver. So many questions, so little answers.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
This idea is dumb and you should feel dumb for even considering it.
Every time i see dead simple reliable things replaced by complicated but (semi) advanced tech, i smile a bit on the inside. Why? because that's progress! If it's not broken, fix it until it is. If it works, make it more complicated until it doesn't.
I can see a lot of advantages to this. It may actually be cheaper than the current mechanical mirrors since the mirrors in many cars are motorized and have a built-in defroster. They tend to get broken off as well.
The only problem I have had with backup cameras is that when rain and dirt get on them they are useless, but it should be relatively easy to design the shroud around the camera lens to keep the rain and dirt off of it and to help prevent condensation without adding significant cost.
Other advantages to having the LCD are things like if you click your turn signal it could flash red to immediately notify you that it's not safe to change lanes and things like that.
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I disagree. Mirrors often have motors and defrosters in them, plus people tend to bump into them and they get broken off. A camera has no moving parts and should be far more reliable. The backup camera on my Prius never had a problem yet I've had my side view mirror hit twice (didn't break), once by a motorcyclist lane splitting and another time by a delivery truck that got too close. Cameras tend to be very reliable as are LCD displays (especially with LED backlighting).
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Have you priced a new mirror on many cars? It's a hell of a lot more than $10, especially if it's motorized and has a defroster in it. The higher end ones also darken at night.
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Pros:
Almost nobody adjusts their mirrors correctly, and they almost always leave big blind spots.
The cameras can offer perfect placement for blindspot visibility.
On motorcycles they can be next to useless (my elbows look great, thanks for asking)
It will probably be coupled with a collision warning / lane departure system.
Neutrals:
You know they are going to make them record video which can be recovered in the event of a crash.
Cons:
It better be high def.
It better offer enhanced (contrast improvement) night mode (IR capable) in a non night-vision ruining way (Red & black at night)
It better offer some way to judge distance.
The screens better be glare proof.
The lens better keep itself clean.
Corollary to Hanlon's razor: Any significantly advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
Using a screen less than 3 feet away from your eyes to "glance" on will make your eyes change focus to "close range". Especially people over 35 will need significant time to readjust their focus on that screen and then back on the road in front of them. Traditional mirrors let you focus on more or less the same distance behind you as they are focused in front of you. This will in practice cost you about half a second of time more to look at the screen compared to a mirror, older people even more. Time you could spend hitting the brakes because something in front of you happened while you were looking at the rear view mirror. This is one of the reasons why looking at your phone while driving is much more dangerous than looking at something outside the car. Yes, manufacturers could put a lens in front of the screen so your eyes wouldn't have to adjust focus, but unfortunately that won't work since the distance to the object is also determined by the amount you have to cross your eyes to get a single image, so it will take more time to watch the screen still and you will get tired because of the unnatural combination of eye cross and distance.
A screen plus camera with "retina" resolution and enough contrast and brightness to not blind you at night and still give you enough brightness on a sunny summer day will cost thousands of dollars now in OEM contracts of millions of units at best. The best military airplane stuff you can buy right now in camera equipment might be good enough (they are classified, so it's hard to make a guess). The best available Professional HD TV cameras just don't have the night vision and require neutral density filters to dim them, so at least commercially, the technology just isn't available for purchase yet. Chances that cameras get the dynamic range and at a price where it's useful to replace a mirror on a car in 4 years are extremely small. Screens are better in that regard, with OLED technology we get the resolution and won't blind ourselves at night, but sunny day brightness is still way behind.
Humans have 3D vision and even use that in looking in their side mirrors in their cars. With current 3D technology in screens, we can't really do that without wearing special glasses and even then, it's only working if we don't move our head or eyes. The nature of driving a car is that you move your head and eyes a lot, so unless they come up with a new technology, it won't be a proper replacement for our current biological 3D capabilities.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
This would definitely give designers more freedom with car shapes. Side view cameras would help my Honda CR-Z with it's huge blind spots. The side windows look big on the outside but are tiny portals on the inside, they are basically useless windows for looks only. I still love the car but it needs more than just a rear view camera and wide side view mirrors.
Dash designs will have to be rethought to accommodate the extra displays.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
In a convertible with plenty of daylight, you run the risk of having the display being washed out by sunlight.
Wouldn't all these screens (2 side views and a rear-view) ruin one's night vision? Running the console lights at a bright setting already diminishes your night vision, and now we'll have two screens doing the same thing.
I guess having these cameras will also keep people from, i dunno actually turning their head and verifying there isn't something there when they change lanes...
As a motorcycle rider, I always try to view the driver of the car in his side mirror. If I can see him, he should, in theory, be able to see me. With the side mirrors removed, how am I going to tell if I'm out of the cars black spot?
One good thing about the cameras is that it will make it harder for those motorcycle traffic cops to deliberately place themselves in a blind spot to "keep an eye" on your driving. Not that I'm doing anything wrong but it makes me very nervous when I see a motorcycle come up behind then disappear except when I look over my shoulder - I think "what if I have to take evasive action?".
Mirrors = Real time view.
Cameras = not real time, time lag to display, terrible AGC with sunlight.
In the time an image takes to display on a screen, depending on speed, you could have moved quite some distance that could affect whether a manoeuvre is safe or not.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I've been driving for over 50 years and I have never seen a vehicle with a sideview mirror. It's no wonder we're going to have to require backup cameras on every vehicle what with all you idoits aiming your mirrors to see sideways.
I was reared on a farm and learned to drive on tractors and large trucks. In a farm truck, when you look in the center mounted rear view mirror all you see is the livestock staring back at you from the bed of the truck, or the bed of the truck itself if you're hauling grain. You learn to backup using the outside rearview mirrors. They're aimed down the side of the vehicle and give you at least the idea of where the rear wheels are even if you don't actually see them. You draw an immaginary line for those wheels to follow and stear the truck along it. But you never look back, only in the mirror. With a 30 foot long vehicle the front end can swing 20 feet to either side while you're lining the backend up to a loading dock or the barn door. After you run over a few outbuildings and your favorite motorcycle because you weren't looking where the front end was going you learn to pay attention to both ends. You NEVER face backward to back up a vehicle.
So what's with this thing about sideview mirrors? Yes, I know about those little round convex stick on things that let you see the people who insist on driving in your blind spot and who deserve to get run over when somebody bigger than them changes lanes. I have them. They came with the aftermarket turn signals mounted on my mirrors. The only thing I hate worse than having to share the road with idiot drivers is having to fill out insurance claims after I run over one of them. Would I like to have a camera to replace the blind spot mirrors. NO. What I'd like is some type of short range collision avoidance system that, when I turn on my blinker, it checks for a clear path, and gives me a verbal OK or tells me to WAIT. I don't need anything that distracts my eyes while I'm trying to navigate a path between vehicles moving at different speeds of upwards of 80 miles an hour.
They're talking about additional, side-view cameras, plus the recently-mandatory rear-view, as an alternative to side view mirrors, which have a number of downsides. No one is talking about taking away the ability to see beside your car.
The motors and defrosters can fail, but the mirror can still be adjusted and cleaned by hand. Once the camera fails, you're blind. Seems like a camera would be equally if not more vulnerable to ice buildup and more delicate to clean. For winter drivers, they cameras will also need to withstand months of being splattered with salt (or whatever other chemicals are used) and sand. I think I'll take my chances with the mirror.
The fact that we have differences of opinion is all the more reason for the government to butt out and let the manufacturers and consumers decide.
I'm surprised how low-tech these solutions are. They appear to be going for the "classic solution" of simply piping a camera's view to a screen, perhaps with some overlays.
I recall seeing a demo many years ago of a robot vision system. If you're not familiar with the term, it uses a number of low-res cameras (all cameras were when the demo was made) pointing in different directions, and fused the imagery together in 3D software to produce a view from any location looking at any location. The idea was to put these in armoured vehicles and allow the guys inside to look anywhere.
This seems like a much better solution here. Instead of simply replacing the mirror with a high-def camera, replace it with a dozen VGA cameras around the car. Fuse the imagery back together and then overlay it on a 3D model of the car as seen from above. Now you get a birds-eye view from the front looking down showing you all the traffic in the area.
... the loaner model (2013) had a rearview camera. I couldn't see a damned thing on that little screen when I was backing up, especially at night.
What happens when mud or snow spatters over the camera lens?
You have a washer that cleans it or you clean it yourself. Should think that would be obvious. My sideview mirrors get snow on them too and I either have to turn on my mirror heaters or clean them off manually. Really no different with cameras.
I assume submarines have replaced the captain looking thru the periscope with his eyes to a camera mounted there and a Star-Trek-style viewscreen viewable to everyone in the control room. If they haven't they should.
It wasn't until recently that CCDs and image analysis software both got good enough to make that worthwhile. The human eye is an astoundingly delicate instrument, capable of detecting single photons. It doesn't have any tunability to speak of, but we can mimic that with lenses. But now you can reasonably have a high-resolution camera that has broader color response than we do.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The side view cameras are on cars already. Half the comments here act like this is science fiction.
My 2014 Honda Odyssey has a camera on the passenger side mirror and also has the back up camera. When I turn on my right hand turn signal, my large display in my center console shows the video feed. I also can turn on the camera anytime with a click of the button. The video feed has "perceived" distance lines on it so you have some idea how far an object is away.
The downfall to cameras is mother nature. Sun glare, water and mud on the lens, and snow build up. I wish they had a wiper on the rear camera, it always has water on it. The side mirror just has issues when the sun angle is just right, seems like that has less problem with water because of the angle. The fear of ice build up or snow could be fixed by heating the camera like most side mirrors do these days
Nice thing about the cameras is lack of blind spots. I can see things with the back up camera that I can not see with a rear view mirror since it is low to the ground.
The motors and defrosters can fail, but the mirror can still be adjusted and cleaned by hand
Cleaned yes, adjusted not really. You can push on it until it skips gears, and then it will often pop right past where you wanted it.
Once the camera fails, you're blind.
Sure, and once the mirror falls off, you're blind. I've had that happen while driving down the road. I've also knocked it off (again, not the whole assembly, just the mirror part) driving when dodging to avoid a truck (a dodge, actually) and the mirror smacked a trashcan which was left out in the road excessively far by one of the many assholes who lives on my road. They all seem to be clustered up together, you can tell the assholes by the ones who want to move to the country and then live right next to everybody like they were still in the city.
Seems like a camera would be equally if not more vulnerable to ice buildup and more delicate to clean.
Why does it seem that way? Have you actually thought about this at all?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I constantly see the focus on improving the car. Making it safer, adding more air bags, ABS brakes, avoidance features. All to address what has become a simple fact of people not being good drivers. Its like handing out flake vests because we have too many shooters out there. Maybe at some point the government could focus on improving driving skills and teaching people to actually drive their vehicle and use the tools like side mirrors already on their vehicles? Does anyone thing camera's will be any more effective? I think not.
Your error is that you think it's easier to improve human behavior (across a diverse population of millions of people) than to improve technology. It's not.
Keep in mind that the average person has a median IQ of 100. And half the population is even dumber than that. Keep in mind that human drivers will inevitably be distracted by various events and emotions during the time that they are driving, so even an otherwise intelligent and conscientious driver is going to have weak moments now and again – and it only takes a brief lapse of concentration to risk an accident.
The truth is that driving is just too hard a task for most humans to perform reliably and consistently. In the next 10-30 years, manual driving will be replaced by self-driving cars. And some day we will look back on the era of manual driving the same way we now look upon previous eras without antibiotics or sanitation.
There is already one production car (sort of) that does away with the side mirrors: the Volkswagen XL1.
(I say "sort of" because they're only making 250 of them, and they are not available in the United States, probably due to the mirror regulations.)
and how good are they going to be in sunlight?
My biggest gripe is the use nowadays of the fucking backup radar systems that never seem to turn off.
THey keep setting off false signals on my radar detector while trying to find cops in speed traps. It seems the Audi's are the worst offenders.
Wasn't there laws and regs against having radar in a car? Does it have to be always on, how about only when they are backing upâ¦.not needed when driving forward.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Mirrors are cheap and reliable. Cameras aren't. When someone keys/paints over/block your camera, or if it breaks down, then what? A: Enormous repair bills!
So, you want to pay, um, $400 every other year, or $800 for both, as the cameras break, or get broken, or the software goes buggy, or one of the vulnerabilities are found, and someone hacks your rear vision?
And for the moron who says get rid of all mirrors, I want your car taken away from you, and you banned from driving for the rest of your life.
mark "for our next trick, we'll do the same for the fools doing their makeup while driving"
You don't even need stitching. Use a lens that captures extreme wide field, then geometrically correct that to be linear. One hires camera, one lens, no panning or multiple sources required.
My current backup camera (aftermarket add on to a 2002 Avalanche) is wide angle, and when I'm close to something like a car behind me, the distortion is profound. I'd be a lot happier if that was corrected.
I do some other camera tricks -- exit from my property involves blindly backing out into an alleyway through a gated fence. I have a small building which has one wall parallel to the alleyway and another parallel to the driveway, so I mounted cameras pointing up and down the alley under the eaves, combined their live output into a left-right presentation, then transmit that at the corner of the building. Then inside the truck, I have a remote receiver which feeds one of the monitor inputs, and so when I get near the building (within about 30 feet), my backup camera (almost entirely useless at this time because it points across the alley instead of up and down it) automatically switches to overlapping views up and down the alleyway. This prevents some clown from fogging down the alleyway and t-boning us as we pull out. I always turn on my 4-ways when I back out too... I figure that's about as good as it's going to get.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
They are for different use. The mirror is to see behind you while traveling forward, and the backup camera is to allow you to see into the blind spots while in reverse.
And this is why they are being mandated, in the hopes that they can reduce the ~200 deaths in the US each year because the driver couldn't see what was behind their huge SUV.
Your not suppose to be using a mirror to backup the vehicle anyway, your suppose to look over your shoulder. The problem I have with _EVERY SINGLE_ backup camera I have used, is that the screens are in the dash/mirror/etc, and the field of view is tuned for the ~6 feet directly behind the car. So, it adds another place you have to look. Ideally they would mount them in the back seat/back of the car/whatever so you can see behind you. Turning your whole body is a _LOT_ slower than turning your head or just your eyes, so often your forced to make a decision, do I look at what is immediately behind me, or do I go for the wider view to see if I'm going to be aligned correctly, or if there are approaching cars/whatever.
Furthermore they are nearly useless in bad weather because moisture on the lense fuzzes everything, and they suck at night because the night vision blows out anywhere the reverse lights hit, and darkens everything else to black.
Plus, a lot of them are on tiny screens if the car doesn't have a nav system, which makes it _REALLY_ hard to see anything.
I'm actually convinced that having the backup cameras has allowed some car manufactures to decide to design their cars without regard to the size of the rear view blind spot because they can say its now covered by the backup camera. For example the toyota tundra has a _MASSIVE_ tailgate which literally can hide an entire car.
So, you're one of those conventional types with the driver's seat mounted so you face forward? Lame.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The monitor can automatically dim to compensate for ambient lighting conditions.
Furthermore, it can keep headlights behind you from blowing your night vision using dynamic range control.
I have two monitors in the cab of my truck -- one is a GPS and the other is for the cameras; both monitors dim based on ambient light. It's not exactly a high tech thing. And the IR view at night is spectacular (high IR... not heat detection, just IR LED illumination to which the camera is very sensitive.) I have never found my night vision to be compromised; quite the contrary.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
IR/color backup camera w/distance projection: $14.09
Monitor: $31.64
Those include all the cables and mounts you need. So for about $45.00, you're up and running. I can't imagine a sideview camera would be any more expensive than a rearview. If you broke the mount off, that's bodywork, but hey, don't do that. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The fact that you drive your bike in traffic indicates you are insensitive to safety issues in the first place. Bicycles do not belong in traffic. Ever. You don't have the acceleration to go with the flow. You are one steering wheel or brake or accelerator twitch from being crushed any time you are near the much heavier vehicles. You are vulnerable to sudden and complete vision loss from splashes, much more so than a car or truck, and once that happens, again unlike a car or truck, you have zero protection from the vehicles you can no longer see. And so on.
Until or unless your region implements dedicated bicycle paths that don't intersect vehicular traffic-ways -- and you use them -- you're playing Russian roulette.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Here's one that does both.
Although those front semi-fenders would make awesome camera mount points.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It would be trivial to disable pan/tilt when in gear or in motion; they don't, ergo, they are *designed* to be used while driving. Further, there are very good reasons to do so, for instance when some idiot is gifting you from behind with high beams right in your eyes, a quick pan down solves the problem. Because while it may be inconvenient to lose the mirror image, it's far worse to be blinded. Another reason for adjustment is when changing from multilane to single lane roads; the best drivers use side mirrors differently in those two cases. Another reason is coming up an on-ramp into traffic at an angle; if the driver's side mirror is adjusted at that time, you can get a clear view of what's coming up in the merge lane. If you don't make that adjustment, you will see little or none of that until it's too late to be of use. But as soon as you have completed the merge, the mirror should be re-adjusted -- while you are driving.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Just give me a minimap of my surroundings, preferably in a HUD.
While you're at it, mark cars with active cellphone connections (conversations) in red.... don't care if they're hand-held or not.
Let us hope sideview mirrors are not replaced. The Mark 1 eyeball is still the best. The backup camera on my Lexus is essentially useless, especially at night. Looking out windows, into rear and side mirrors keeps a driver involved. Relying on a screen is folly.
They make monitors in the rearview mirror form factor that are specifically designed to replace the rear view mirror. You *really* don't want to have to look down to see behind you. You need at least your peripheral vision on the road at all times you are in motion.
I've also seen custom cars with the monitor embedded in the hood, under heated plex. It's an interesting idea, but has some drawbacks. Earlier yet, some cars had gauges there like this one. It's pretty common in custom work.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I only have one usable eye, you insensitive clod
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Human reaction time for *reflex* is about 30 ms. Considered complex reaction time is far longer (and unless you're a pro driver, almost everything you do is almost certain to be considered, not reflex.). Video (NTSC, non-interlace) frame rates are ~16 ms. HD progressive scans are similar, ~16 ms. There's nothing stopping anyone from going to higher frame rates, either. Well within mundane tech bounds.
Modern camera AGC covers from bright sunlight to ~1 lux night vision, far better and faster than your eye can do it. There is a dynamic range issue, but that's largely not relevant to driving conditions. The human eye's dynamic range isn't all that great without iris involvement, and suffers from slow recovery overload when large changes are encountered -- cameras can do much better. They can also mute headlight glare so that it doesn't affect your vision at all, which your naked eye will react to in a mirror by stopping down and limiting you to daylight equivalent ranges when it's actually pitch dark out.
Finally, if you are performing maneuvers that go from safe to unsafe in critical 16 ms increments, you'd better be a pro driver on a racetrack -- and you're probably going to crash anyway, because your reaction time is considerably longer -- about double that. Not even counting the time it takes to focus your attention on the mirror/monitor from the main road picture.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
60 mi/h = 5280 feet * 60 = 316800 ft/h
316800 / 3600 = 88 ft/second
88 * .016 = 1.408 ft
That's it - you travel 1.4 feet in the time it takes for a complete display redraw if you're going 60 mph.
At 120 mph, you travel 2.8 feet in the same time.
Further, if you're dealing with a vehicle approaching you from the rear or side, the speed isn't the road speed (say, 60 mph), the speed is the delta between your two speeds. IOW, if you are going 60, and a vehicle is approaching you from the rear at 65, the delta is only 5 mph, and so the distance travelled during a complete screen redisplay is *much* less than 1.4 feet. If the approach is from the side, it's the rate of sideways closure vectorially added to the |delta| between your forward speeds.
Don't think it's significant in real world terms, so cameras/monitors are fine WRT this issue.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Man, after reading all that all I can say is that I really hope that they come out with consumer level self-driving cars in a short period of time. We're getting close.
Part of the reson actually ties into drone operations - they've found that drone operators often don't perform their best because flying a drone is normally too easy - the 'pilot' doesn't have enough to do to keep his attention up, slowing any reactions. So they've been shutting off some of the automations.
Much past 'adaptive cruise control' I'm thinking that I might as well be in a fully automatic car so I can read a book or something after telling the car where I want to go.
I don't read AC A human right
Everyone over 40 to ensure they are capable of using the cameras
There are two things I see as issues.
1) For us old timers who have been driving a while, we are trained to turn left and right to see when we need to make changes and see other cars. Now taking your eyes off the road ahead of you to look down at a screen will take some getting used to.
2) For anyone who lives in foul weather climates and already has a backup camera knows they gum up when there is snow, sleet, rain on the road. Every backup camera has issues with this and I have to clean them off every time I get into the car as an added task when driving. Adding more cameras will just add to the task.
Rear view mirrors are for what's behind you.
Embedded cams designed into the specific model car replacing side view mirrors solve the problem of blind-spots. The screen placement is an issue, probably would take some getting used to.
My big concern is the perception=motion link. There is no perception without motion. Physically moving around inside the car to see everything through the side view mirrors is an import aspect of how we interact with our vehicles. Those of us that drive safely, that is. You're always going to have unsafe drivers that don't take driving as seriously as a person driving a 4,000+ lb. vehicle should.
The other major concern I have is the lack of any standardization and variation in parts and modules for easy replacement. There needs to be a standard so that something as safety system critical as side view safety cam system module replacement is both inexpensive and simple, as you do not want anybody driving around in a vehicle that has no side view mirrors and a failed cam system.
Side mirrors are useful nor only as mirrors, but they give optical illusion of car being wider than it is. If I have to drive close to the car with mirror I aim to avoid snagging the mirror, but if there are no mirrors, the error margin is much smaller.