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Comment by toxik | Hacker News Reader

They are required by law in no small part because car manufacturers want it to be. Compliance is a moat.

Rearview cameras are effective: https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/bibliography/ref/2130

I agree with having simpler SKUs, but rearview camera is not where to start

The problem isn't that they're effective. It's that they're a regulatory solution to the complaints that the same demographics had 20yr ago (it's too easy to back a big fashionable in the 00s SUV over a kid) and as a result of it now all cars have crap rear visibility because there's no reason to be good when you have the camera.

The primary factor that correlates with reverse cameras reducing backup accidents is age - people over 70 have higher backup accidents rates without cameras/sensors. FTA:

> When averaged between the 2 automakers, effects were significantly larger for drivers 70 and older (38% reduction) than for drivers younger than 70 (1% increase); effects were significant for older but not younger drivers.

A big SUV is probably an exacerbating factor, though.

Also, for any kind of car, rear cameras and sensors decrease impacts while parallel parking. I see far fewer damaged bumpers on newer cars these days.

Visibility has gotten worse in many vehicles as a crash safety thing. Rear visibility is so blocked because the "beltline" of cars has moved up as crash standards get more stringent. A car that has a small rear window and high 'beltline' will do better in a crash.

TBH, I'm hoping we have front-view cameras that maybe kick in at under 20kph or something.

Front visibility is famously poor on SUVs and trucks, and even aside from pedestrians, I suspect there are a lot of small but very expensive bumper taps because you mis-judged the distance to the crap at the back wall of your garage.

Funny story about this.

There was a woman who backed over her own kid in the driveway. For some reason, she was not imprisoned for vehicular manslaughter. So instead of not being in prison, she spent the next half decade lobbying congress to make backup cameras mandatory. And it happened. So now everyone's car costs $3k more.

It would have been cheaper to put her imprison than impose a $3k cost per every car sold in America since 2018.

Lots more people need to be imprisoned for manslaughter, and lots of people need their license taken away for "backing crashes".

https://www.cars.com/articles/lawmakers-to-jump-start-backup...

> A 2012 Harris poll suggests that the public agress with the mandate despite the technology’s costs. NHTSA says adding a backup camera to a car without an existing display screen will cost around $159 to $203 per vehicle, shrinking to between $58 and $88 for vehicles that already use display screens. The Harris poll found that consumers care more about safety features like backup cameras than they do about multimedia systems.

I'm not sure where you're getting your $3k backup cameras from; the camera is a $30 part, and pretty much every new car has a screen in it already.

People don't understand and appreciate additional costs until they actually have to pay them. You can see this play out over and over again with additional tax increases jn response for new and improved public services - or customers asking businesses to do a "Made in America" product line, but then not putting their money where their mouth is and actually paying the upcharge for a MiA product.

ill never appreciated paying an additional costs

I’d say 99% of drivers care about backup cameras more than about how hard it’s to replace spark plugs.

>So now everyone's car costs $3k more.

$3000 for a backup camera, okay.

The screen and the camera is $3k

There's no reason for the screen other than the camera, therefore the camera is $3k

Source? A cell phone can be made much cheaper and has all the required parts.

You know prison sentences won't save any children, right?

And taking away licenses is acting too late.

You do not think a mother killing her own child is punishment enough? It's very unlikely she intentionally planned to kill her child in this manner to cover it up as an accident.

Besides backup cameras have use beyond just making sure a child is not behind you, such as assisting with parking, or seeing if there is oncoming traffic when there is a larger vehicle parked next to you.

A similar argument could be made for any safety feature that adds cost to vehicles--literally, all of them. If a death is preventable and adds on a relatively inconsequential amount to the cost of a vehicle, then it is the morally correct choice optimize for safety.

The logic doesn’t scale. You can’t impose arbitrary and subjectives thresholds to gloss over this fact. The obvious conclusion is that safety is one of many moral factors to balance.

I’m sure that factors in, but let’s not pretend that safety is also major contributor

I often wonder what it's like to think everything is some grand corporate conspiracy.

I often wonder what it's like to put words into other people's mouths.

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