Please support this rule change

Re: This board is not public property...

I don't believe they should be made mandatory on all vehicles, but they should be standard equipment on all vehicles that have large blind spots due to the design of the vehicle.

There are many "systems" on modern vehicles that are not necessary or mandated to the functional operation of the vehicle (side curtain air bags, ABS, VSC, etc), but they are standard equipment on most vehicles because of the additional safety measures they provide. Back-up cameras should be included in this list of standard safety features!

P.S. I'm glad this thread was brought back and this discussion allowed to continue.

 

any safety measure that has been proposed, instituted or discussed has had some friction when getting adopted. and they ALL cost money.

the only real question is

1)could the feature possibly or likely save a life?
2) does the safety feature address a current problem we face today?

i find it hard to believe that any sane person here or anywhere else could say no to either of those questions.

finally is the possibility that the issue in question #2 could be reduced by say 5% or maybe 10% worth the additional cost of implementing that solution? asking a parent of someone who has had this happen to them is obviously not where we want to go with this but this begs a third question

3) how many of us here PERSONALLY knows someone that this has happened to? i know two people. both co-workers. one was back in the early 90's, another was two summers ago. watching them go thru the experience was heart-wrenching. i have a 3½ year old. i admit i probably go overboard to make sure i know exactly where he is.

if this is made mandatory, the per unit cost will drop when the volume hits the tens of million. i think its a worthwhile investment in our neverending quest to make our toys "idiot-proof"

on another note; the fact that i can make this post means that many actions have been reconsidered. to equate this post to "Prius accident threads" would be like equating a discussion of the i-phone to the nutritional value of fruits and vegetables

 

i would like to hear the mods reasoning before casting my vote. perhaps we need a place for accident and safety discussion. 'macabre forum'?

 

I personally don't know anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one due to a backing accident, however, many years ago, my mom backed over our dog with her Plymouth Fury III. Of course he was sleeping behind the rear tire of the car, so a back-up camera would not have helped in that situation anyway. I still think it would be a welcome addition to many vehicles today!

 

I may be the only conservative Prius driver in the world that feels that the Government should not have to protect us at every point of our lives?

If I had my choice most of the changes to cars over the last 40 years would be consumer driven and not mandated by the government. Why does every car need air bags? Why does every car need heavy bars in the side doors? Side marker lights? Ect? Got to be a ton more. I think the worst thing requirement over the years has to be the silly third brake light.

Some of these things are good, like seat belts, but overall these laws make it very hard to find a car under 3,000 pounds or under $15,000 dollars now.

I have no problem driving my 1949 Willys Jeepster around and I sure would not junk it because it does not have all the safety features mandated my the Government. It certainly would not keep me from driving a classic VW bug or 66 Mustang.

The Prius does come with a back-up camera now if they consumer wants to pay extra for it. If this important and enough people wanted it than the car makers will put it in to sell cars.

We don't need a bunch more silly laws.

TED

 

I think the mirrors on this car are fine. Sure there's a blind spot in the back down low, but every car has that. No fault of the mirrors IMO.

 

I've driven one of those, and it was downright dangerous. I had to literally stand on the brakes about half a block early, and they were newly done. I feel safer in traffic on a bicycle. I don't want the government 'controlling' me, but I much prefer driving a safe vehicle, and I'd rather know that most other people are, too.

 

You are not... its just that most on here are not very vocal.

 

So what is the other option? Seriously, you are only covering the stuff that is obvious. There are quite a few things required under the hood for safety as well. For example, the master brake cylinder must provide two independent lines to each set of diagonal wheels. Also there are provisions to minimize gas fires.

If the Government does not set the standard, then anarchy is the fall back option. This is just as true for cars as passenger aircraft. The debate is where does safety engineering become show instead of substance. The vast, vast majority of the safety requirements are solid, proven and having a government to establish and enforce them needs to be managed, not eliminated.

 

I'm really sorry to hear about that accident; it must have been horrific and that father will likely carry that memory with him for the rest of his life.

But who's to say he wouldn't have run over his child even if a backup camera was installed?

Who is to say the illumination would have been good enough for him to see his child/he would have looked at the backup camera image/the force of habit we all experience in automobiles wouldn't have found him beginning to back up AS he looked at the backup camera image and processed what was behind him?

Just because a car has a backup camera doesn't mean he wouldn't have killed his child. I don't buy the, "but if only one life is saved, it's worth it" argument.

Also, a lot of cheaper new cars do not have a MFD and are engineered to lowest possible cost. This proposed rule would impact folks with lower incomes more than those who can afford $22,000-$34,000 for a Prius: People who are trying to get into reliable transportation by buying, say, that stripped down Yaris with the manual trans and hand crank windows.

And please don't say that the government could subsidize the cost. Please.

 

blame the car for the sins of the father.



it's a parents responsibility to know where the kids are.

 

I will buy the argument if the cost per lives saved falls below a certain threshold. But that does require bringing realistic cost and benefit figures to the debate.

I guess I've seen too much of the behavior of certain foreign manufacturing practices, and of consumer buying habits (both domestic, and foreign on their own soil) to have any confidence that this could provide me adequate safety on the road.

 

PG-
There was a lot of similar debate about airbags, ABS, etc. What is clear is that vehicle fatalities have been dropping. 1995 had 1.73 deaths per 100mil miles down to 1.13 by 2009. That's a lot of lives saved. This is the total effect of 100s of different efforts, but improved safety measures in cars is a key one. Backup cameras are super cheap to build into a vehicle. Definitely under a 100 dollars. Certainly the cost is comparable to installing noisemakers (of doubtful utility). It is also know that this is a very common accident, unlike hybrids hitting the blind.

Now what is clear is the number one killer of young adults are vehicles. We lose about as many people a year as all the US lives lost in the Vietnam War (40,000 !!) This kind of carnage is unacceptable. For all the understandable protesting of the cost and killing of overseas wars, this death rate should be protested 10 times more. While there is a point of wasted effort on safety overkill, the statistics indicate that this type of accident is worthy of further measures.

 

The government can mandate that all car built for use in the US have a backup camera...unless drivers know how to use them, or even bother to use them, people are going to die from being run over by poor drivers. It's a govn't mandate that has given us the TPMS in our tires, has this given us less blown out tires, or less flat tires along the roadways, I think NOT. You can not design any car to make up for a poor driver.

 

we could save the most lives if people drove the speed limit, didn't tailgate or weave in and out. and as a side benefit, we would consume less oil. the downside of all these safety features is that they make people feel like they can drive however they want and the car will protect them.

 

It's done all the time. The airbags that deploy and save my kid from the drunk driver that runs into them is the difference between a funeral and a hospital trip.

 

I see what you're saying, but this isn't anything like airbags or seat belts. How many people are killed in this manner? I'm sure there are lots of other ancillary scenarios which might be addressed by technological solutions, but these to me are on the periphery of the problem.

I'll bet more deaths and injuries are caused by jacked up 4x4s violating bumper height laws and overriding the bumpers of car in front during a rear ender. Personally, I think it'd be great if present laws were enforced before we add new ones.

Also, on another note, how many deaths are caused by hybrids backing into someone? I don't know the answer, I'm curious.

In the case which started this post, though, the ICE was, I suspect, running, so there was engine noise similar to a non-hybrid vehicle.

Maybe the better answer would be to install an interlock that forces the ICE to run in reverse?

 

1. Bob provided a link to a sad story. Nevertheless I don't think that this proposed regulation is cost-effective. The cited Newsday article suggests that regulation will add $159 - $203 to the price of a new vehicle.

There are ~17 million annual new car sales in the US.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/US-auto-sales-plunge.aspx

Let's assume that the 292 annual deaths would be totally eliminated if all cars have this backup camera. Let's also assume that vehicle life is 10 years, so we have to wait 10 years for all cars to have the camera.

The total cost to auto consumers over ten years would be:

$180 per car x 17 million annual sales x 10 years = $30,600,000,000 or $30.6 billion.

Assume that this investment is 100% effective, thus saving 2,920 lives over the period of time that the cars are in service. The cost to save each life is $10.5 million. I would say that other societal investments could be made that would provide a better return. In fact, some accidents will occur anyway, despite the availability of the backup camera.

2. I have a backup camera on my 2007 Prius, and mostly ignore it. However, I understand that many owners find it useful, and it makes sense for this to be an optional feature. I find the aftermarket backup sensors on my 2004 Prius to be more effective.

 

The case which started this post concerns a BMW SUV. Please re-read the post.
Your post does point out a concern raised in this thread I started about this thread, eg., that some would assume a Prius was involved due to the pic Bob included.

 

This exceeds my upper limit, which is ($GDP)/(annual deaths) = $14 Trillion / 2.4 million = $5.8 Million per life saved, if we were willing to dedicate our entire GDP to trying to save lives.

Because we have other purposes in life than solely preventing death, we cannot channel the whole GDP to just this one cause, so the real threshold must be lower.