U.S. requires new cars to have backup cameras
money.cnn.com
money.cnn.com
Driving a box truck with no rear visibility makes me uncomfortable and I'll use a spotter to reverse. If you can't (or won't) look and see behind you, you should NOT be driving in that direction. Will cameras fix this problem?
The article states that "There are nearly 210 backover deaths each year." I wonder how the overall safety of a vehicle and its driver will be impacted by the addition of a possibly distracting LCD in the front seat. Maybe fewer collisions while reversing, but how many additional distracted driving cases while driving forward and playing with the car computer?
It may be that by having drivers take their eyes off the mirrors when backing up (because they're now looking at the camera display on the dash), they won't be alert to vehicles approaching from the sides. It seems to me that this could increase the likelihood of pulling out in front of someone, and increasing that kind of crash.
As with red-light cameras, it seems like there might be unintended consequences that someone should look at.
I don't understand the response "to make sure people are responsibly operating their vehicle." Have you met people?
Newer cars are kind of a pain in the butt to see out of the back. Why? Because of the roof strength requirements. The columns supporting the roof are bigger, limiting visibility.
Maybe we should make sure that people are responsibly operating their vehicle and not flip over their cars. Except that the whole point of safety is to prepare for the unexpected, to engineer to make sure people can walk away from a crash. Just last week someone rolled over right in front of me, it wasn't her fault, someone turned in front of her and hit the front of her car funny and she swerved flipping over.
She got out of the car scared, but not hurt. Because of those pillars. Those pillars make it harder to see kids running around behind your car. The camera addresses that issue, which wasn't as much of a problem in the past when that woman would likely be a pancake because her car rolled.
People are crazy, especially the guy turning out into oncoming traffic and you can't fix that as easily as you can installing a camera into a car.
Partly, but mainly because of what the designers like to call 'high waistline' which gives the shape 'energy and aggression'. There is no reason a Ford Focus should have a tiny rear window mounted high at 40 degrees inclination other than style.
Plus adhesive attachment of windows cuts a further ~10% of the glass area.
I saw a 1990s Volvo 740 yesterday: absolutely enormous slab windows gasket-mounted into the frame.
Reversing cameras always send their output to the big screen on the center console, which is bad for three reasons:
1. It's low down, so you lose part of your peripheral vision which ends up just picking up the car's interior.
2. When you're reversing on a road, but facing forwards to look at the screen, you can't see out the side windows to check for approaching cars heading towards your rear.
3. Your peripheral vision is further affected by your focus on a narrow, highly detailed area - that 9" screen showing a wide-angle view. Your brain concentrates just on that 'important' area. It's entirely different to looking out the back window when everything is at the same scale, peripheral and central. You end up being forced to trust the screen completely, which just isn't sensible.
Having tried a few on rental cars, I'm very uncomfortable with the constant attention swapping you end up doing between the screen and the rear window.
These cameras can only be beneficial to people backing out of driveways (which is the point of the law), but they're not a panacea and I'm not convinced they're a substitute for an alert driver using mirrors and windows. A useful additional tool, for sure, but will they be used that way? An audible proximity alarm feels like a more reasonable thing to mandate to me.
The newer Acura MDXs have a dedicated screen built into the rear-view mirror hanging from the windshield. It looks like a normal mirror until you put it in reverse, and then you can see the output from the backup camera in the left side of the mirror. It's better than most, but still doesn't solve #2 and #3 from your points.
Basically, be smart and only use it if/when necessary. Use it only as a tool and not the tool.
Absolutely. I was trying to get that across. I worry a bit that the regulation will make people think of cameras as all they need to look at.
This way, the government can pat itself on the back, knowing it wouldn't get resistance from the auto industry since, as you said, they're already trickling the tech down.
Why would an auto-industry group applaud the move? They're the bastards who have the power to install rear cameras on 100% of new vehicles. It's all a show.
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As an aside: I own a vehicle with a rear camera, and it's an amazing feature. About a month ago, I told a friend "If I were one to support arbitrary government power, I would say we need a law requiring these!". I guess that's the world we live in. The only vehicles that have comparable visibility were old Broncos and large trucks. New cars, with their low-visibility rear windows and high backends, seem to be designed with the intention of getting more people into accidents.
Maybe others don't feel this way, thoughts?
No matter how responsible and safe you are, you are only human.
This ruling really just makes cars heavier, and as a result, less efficient. It's the reason a modern Insight is less efficient than a CRX from 20 years ago.
Are you any less likely to get into an accident with that CRX than a new Insight? Probably not. As long as humans are behind the wheel, they're the ones that need to be trained better, not the cars.
It's useless.
Is using technology to prevent kids deaths pointless?
Amazon puts the _shipping_ weight of a camera at one pound.
A soccer mom will make her car more inefficient every time she orders McDonalds for the whole family.
Adding a backup camera, wiring, and video screen is going to add a small amount of weight, I'd guess around 15 lbs and that's including any additional mounting material for the camera. It's going to have an insignificant effect there.
One trend that's making this less pointless is the increasingly tiny back glass on modern cars. In order to give larger trunks and a more streamlined shape the back window is shrinking making it harder to see out of. (In a lot of cars I see)
Now, with regulations like this, closer to 3000 pounds is the norm.
Every pound adds up.
All the safety regulations that have led to this increased weight aren't pointless, but one wonders if it's really worth MANDATING everyone to tote around an additional ONE THOUSAND POUNDS.
It wasn't all that much more, if at all, common than it is now. Sure, some subcompacts were under 2,000 pounds -- just as they are now.
> Now, with regulations like this, closer to 3000 pounds is the norm.
Regulations don't require 3000 pound+ cars, consumer preferences do. The Smart Fortwo meets all applicable US regulations and has a curb weight of 1,600 pounds, a little less than the 1980s Le Car. Neither are exactly rare in their time, but both are notable among contemporaries in the US market for being small.
Are you less likely to survive an accident in a modern car? Yes, you are. Depending on who you ask airbags by themselves save 5,000-20,000 people per year.
>Many vehicles, including luxury models, already carry rear-facing cameras, and an auto industry group applauded the move.
I agree that's not a lot compared to the total number (34,080 deaths in 2012). It would be interesting to see the cost per life, how much does the camera increase the car price?
Drivers tend to massively overestimate how much they can see behind them.
I would be interested to know if these advocacy groups received donations from any camera manufacturers.
Mine (A MB GLK) works very well. It's never been too dirty to see, and it has a great overlay showing range to objects and current trajectory.
Maybe this summer it will be better, but its been crap all fall, winter and now spring (in Iowa).
I don't know about the US, but here in New Zealand these deaths are more prevalent in lower socio-economic areas, that presumably don't buy as many new cars - these changes will takes years to filter through to the people that they might benefit most.
For example, the Nissan Leaf (like many other cars) has funny-shaped headlights to prevent excess cabin noise and drag from the side mirrors: http://www.nissanusa.com/buildyournissan/vehicle-images/2013...
Tesla's early promotional materials for the Model X show side cameras instead of mirrors (http://www.teslamotors.com/modelx ). But apparently they have given up on the regulations changing, because their newer design prototypes have side mirrors (http://green.autoblog.com/2013/01/14/tesla-model-x-makes-aut... )
Almost every car I have owned some electrical device was broken or failed. The time to get it fixed and the cost usually meant I didn't bother. Same would happen with the side cameras and many people would just live without it even though it may be illegal.
A physically broken mirror can be seen and the Police can write you a safety violation so you have to get it fixed.
I don't think mirros are such a bane on aerodynamics, even F1 cars still use fairly large mirrors. http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/72607000/jpg/_72607984...
Turn on the front-facing camera on your smartphone and place it face up on your desk. Note that no matter where you move your head, you always see the same patch of ceiling (or your face, if you are over it). Mirrors don't work that way.
Aesthetics, aerodynamics, and cabin noise are poor reasons to do away with mirrors.
There are 210 deaths/yr by backing over, assume these prevent all 210 (they won't, certainly not until most of the old cars are off the road), this means each life is worth $3.3M, minimum.
Cool.
But is there a way to invest $700M/yr that will save more than 210 lives/year?
And this technology is only estimated to prevent 33% of them (60-70)?
I guess every little 0.2% safety improvement is good if it's free... but I'm not sure this is the most cost effective way to increase car safety.
(Roll cages; higher standards for airbags and various types of collision for occupants; crumple zones for pedestrians; self-driving cars (if you're going to go full-sensor anyway, why involve a human at all).)
Thanks, soccer moms.
"While the administration delayed the rule, more children died in backover accidents"
Literally a "Think of the children!" argument--which makes sense, because most of those deaths are caused by parents hitting their own kids.
"Soccer mom" is a common phrase used in the US to identify a particular blob of demographic. I'm sure that whatever magical progressive part of the country you're in has stay-at-home dads and everyone uses public transportation, but out in the rest of the US (especially in suburbs) this phrase fits.
It's also a demographic that is well-known for its political advocacy or at least perceived clout: consider all of the terrorist fear-mongering by politicians, and at whom that is directed.
As for paranoia, well, you must not be keeping up with the news. Insurance companies already offer GPS and other trackers for your car to lower premiums, and any number of alphabet soup agencies mine compromised systems for data regularly (as has been made quite obvious).