Posted on 04/01/2014 6:07:22 AM PDT by mykroar
WASHINGTON – Years late, the Transportation Department issued a rule Monday that will require rearview technology in many new vehicles -- an effort to reduce deaths and serious injuries caused by backup accidents.
The final rule issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will require new vehicles under 10,000 pounds and built beginning May 1, 2018, to meet the new rear-visibility standards. The rule includes buses and trucks; motorcycles and trailers are exempt.
The rearview 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
If you like them then you should definitely be able to have one on any car you buy.
I do not like them and I do not want one.
I respect your right to choose whether to have an expensive additional maintenance hassle on your car - why don’t you respect my right to choose not to have it on mine?
I agree 100%.
In fact, I consider anti-lock brakes to be of dubious value. It has eliminated the necessity of learning how to properly modulate a brake pedal.
Hell I want window cranks back.
Exactly, it encourages laziness.
The real proble with these cameras is that they provide a very narrow field of vision, and even possible improvements like putting wide angle fisheye lenses in them will only provide marginal improvements.
We had a rental car for two weeks with one. It’s very easy to become trusting of and addicted to the convienience of it to the exclusion of other options (physically turning your body around, using the rear views when backing), creating an even more dangerous situation because you’re paying attention to what is directly behind you and arent paying attention to things that might be approaching (rapidly) perpendicularly/from the side.
For predictable results, see the scene in Office Space where Tom, in a carbon monoxide haze, backs his car out onto the street and immediately gets t-boned by a pickup truck at speed. That almost happened to us, twice, when we had the camera equipped rental mentioned above.
So would you be opposed to regulations that would require car manufacturers to install any safety device at all?
How about regulations requiring certain braking systems on 18,000 pound trucks?
How about regulations making sure that canned goods are treated in such a way as to prevent botulism?
How about regulations that would make it difficult for China to import their poisoned food products.
Most federal regulations are stupid and intrusive, however regulations that are designed to insure the safety of the general public are a legitimate federal function. The back up camera is a regulation that is designed to protect other people from your negligence or to protect you from theirs. It is no different that a requirement for side mirrors on trucks or back up warning lights.
I almost got run over yesterday by some idiot that tried backing up without looking while I was walking behind him. His back up lights came on right before he gunned the engine and I was able to jump out of the way. If I was a little kid, I’d be dead.
“And the next time you back over your dog or child or grandchild, you may wish you had one.”
Or...you could just practice good driving skills and forego all that death and destruction stuff.
I had a Ford Expedition with one and both my now ex-wife and current girlfriend backed up and hit stuff. The ex hit her own real estate open house sign and the girlfriend hit the garbage can.
Personally I find them annoying and a distraction, but then I learned to back up with all 3 of my mirrors.
My Cadillac has one along with front sensing bumper and my company car has one too. And as some on pointed out earlier they ain’t worth spit when the weather turns bad!
Agree. I can’t stand ABS.
“Hell I want window cranks back.”
Me too. Once a car is ten years old the costliest maintenance is window motor/assembly replacement.
Revise your calc. The article says only 15 lives saved eafh year.
Take away automatic transmissions and the world will be a safer place because most people would be rendered unable to drive.
Agree, but I will add when you are talking about a nation of 300 million and this just saves one life, it's very likely to actually CAUSE the death of more than one person either directly or indirectly. Unintended consequences can't be avoided.
It’s silly to argue against his, there’s been a long history of government mandates to improve vehicle safety and they have saved thousands of lives, and avoided debilitating injuries and economic loss. Seat belts, anti-lock brakes, airbags, occupant weighing systems to control airbag deployment when a child is in the seat, tire pressure monitoring systems, and now back-up cameras have been mandated when the technology has proven effective and affordable. Cameras have become cheap thanks to having one embedded in every cellphone, and increasingly cars have video display screens for other purposes that back-up images can be displayed on.
Is it another example of nanny state-ism? Of course. But the fedederal gummint owns/maintains the highway system and they figure this give them the right to regulate commerce in regard to how they are used. There is some logic to that, and we’ve got much bigger problems to spend time worrying about. Buy stock in companies that make automotive systems and enjoy the benefits of one segment of US manufacturing that is experiencing some growth and profitability due to these mandated safety features.
There’s a point of diminishing returns with all these things, where the coat/benefit ratio approaches zero and even flips into the negative (meaning that the “solution” causes more problems than it solves.
My personal experience with these things are that they’re dangerous. They instill a sense of confidence that fosters laziness and results in poor situational awareness involving 2-3 ton (roughly) machines.
Given how many of them are already out there, I’d really like to see numbers on crashes/injuries/deaths caused by their (exclusive) use.
Aww! The government is worried about my safety! That’s so sweet! And I didn’t even get them anything except this huge tax payment!
If you need a camera to back up your car, (and apparently, you think you do) you need to park that bad boy and go get yourself a driver’s ed refresher course.
This ‘safety regulation’ is nothing but a pathetic attempt to justify manufacturers locking customers into their proprietary dash screen systems that are so integrated into the car’s computer that they cannot be changed. Thus, your car is outdated inside in 2 years vs being user upgradeable for decades. Smart consumers used to be able to opt out of the idiocy. Now the government has stepped in and mandated we participate in it. Just like health care. Yay government! Yay safety!
Sure. The feds can demand it. Someone else is paying for it.
I think they should mandate turn signals on cars. Oh wait, they do, it’s just here in Kentucky they NEVER use them.
automakers wanting to get rid of side-view mirrors if the cameras serve the same function.
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There are some articles that state that so probably is correct. Many cars have
side view indicators now but I think they are taking about another device incorporated
with the rear view device.
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