ALL cars made on May 1, 2018 to be sold in the US will have back up cameras...

From a fatal, backup accident investigation:

This was from an NHTSA special study about backup accidents. Notice those little disks in the rear bumper?

Now I was pretty unhappy with the cabin, backup-beeper. So I bought and installed this:

I thought,'Ok, now to test it.' Only to discover American pedestrians will step behind a car with a beeping and lit backup light!

Now I have been unhappy with rear-view and side mirrors for some time. If this becomes a mechanism to replace them with cameras, I'm a happy camper. It is time we get rid of the drag and frequent, parking lot damage and worse, the absence of camera monitoring computers to let us know there is a car in that next lane.

Monday noon I was returning to work in the left of two, left turn lanes. The car to my right decided to change lanes in the middle of the turn . . . INTO MY LANE!

No my friend, I am an advocate of these black-up cameras not just to save the 200 kids and elderly (I'm 64 and my wife is older) but to get the d*mn technology in the cabin. It may not happen over night but it is time to move from these crappy mirrors to something that helps the driver instead of giving the illusion of safety.

Bob Wilson

 

But if the mirrors don't see everything - will the camera?

 

If I designed them, YES!

The microcontrollers monitoring the cameras would trigger a 'steering wheel shaker' . . . and in some cases . . . 'fire the squib.' Then it would flash the "Check Driver" light and the recorded images would be Open-Source available to the police and lawyers.

Bob Wilson

 

I've noticed that drops of rain can mess up the pic, but a quick wipe with a tissue usually fixes that; I still haven't tried Rain-X to see if that works - it certainly does for all the other glass in "ChuggyPig" (Steel-Wool (0000) and Rain-X work really well (saw it on youtube)

 

Good thing that never happens to windshields, rear windows, and side mirrors. Yeap, they are absolutely perfect . . . and bury 200 kids and old folks every year, including this year. Yes, absolutely perfection personified.

BTW, you may want to get rid of this new-fangled Prius and go back to those wonderful, gas-only or diesel-only cars. Yeap, . . . or how about a horse. Good old reliable horse . . . shoes . . . no bare feet. No reason to adopt new technology like modern medicine, education.

Seriously, think about it . . . we're Prius people. We are the ones who adopt new technology except for the ones who now drive plug-ins and EVs.

Bob Wilson

 

As others have pointed out, cameras are really really inexpensive. Not saying this is bad at the moment, but expect it to expand. Instead of a seat belt sensor, a camera will decide if you are wearing a seat belt. Eyes off the road? A camera will warn you. Dosing off, same thing. Have a high performance car and want to push it? Traffic sign recognition. That's only proposed in Europe at the moment. Traffic sign recognition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Good idea, I'll give it a whirl, thanks.

 

There's usually a story in the news in Australia about once every two months about a kid who has been seriously injured or killed by a parent reversing over them in their own driveway.

I've been here five years, so I reckon I've seen this story about 30 times.

Of those 30 times, the statistics for the type of car that reversed over the kid are as follows:

Sedans (saloons): 0​

Hatchbacks: 0​

Coupes: 0​

Station wagons (estates): 0​

SUVs: 30​

There's a pattern there. I'm struggling to put my finger on exactly what it is, but there is a pattern.

I live in a country with a very low population. Most fatal car accidents make it on to the news. I don't have figures to hand, but I would not be surprised if more kids were killed here by being reversed over by SUVs than are killed in any other type of car accident.

So.... I recognise that there is a need for reversing cameras (or actually driving carefully, but that's never going to happen when you can so easily blame a manufacturer) in some cars. But not all.

There are two obvious options here, but both appear to be in the NHTSA's blind spot:

• Option 1: Make reversing cameras compulsory for all SUVs.
• Option 2: Include rear visibility in a car's safety tests. If a car doesn't achieve a certain grade, make reversing cameras compulsory for that car. (Obviously, with the exception of a few coupes, the bulk of cars that fail this test will be SUVs and trucks.)

I wonder why the NHTSA, the agency for safety in a country whose car companies make all of their money out of huge SUVs and huge trucks, wouldn't want to do something like this?

Some people buy SUVs because they need them for driving off-road, and this must account for ... oooh .... a good 1% of the market. Many people buy SUVs for the school run because they think - among other things - that a big, heavy SUV will protect their precious children, and that they should, therefore, have the biggest, heaviest, highest car on the road, because that will preserve their children. Obviously it will kill other people's children in other, smaller cars, but really, what does that matter? Those children are the children of other people.

This "Keep your kids safe! Put them in a huge heavy vehicle!" message has been one of the primary forces driving SUV sales. If the NHTSA were to make reversing cameras compulsory only for the vehicles that actually need them, this would undermine that message. It would show - rightly - that by buying a big SUV, you are far more likely to run over and kill your children than you otherwise would be. And that might make people start buying normal-sized cars. And that would mean they'd buy more foreign cars.

So it's better to deflect attention from the real problem and make reversing cameras compulsory for everyone. We'll ignore the problems of rain and dirty lenses and video freezing and the different blind spots you get with a camera and the fact that people will stop using their mirrors or turning around to actually look properly out of the back of their car.

So, yes, making cameras compulsory for all vehicles rather than those that need them is pointless and wasteful and dangerous and irresponsible and encourages poor driving. But it covers up the real problem, and allows American manufacturers to carry on making all their money out of really stupid cars. And that's what's important.

 

What happens on May 2?

I hope they're still mandatory......

 

I knew Autoline Daily would poo-poo the backup cameras so I posted this:

Source: AD #1346 – NHTSA Mandates Backup Cameras, New Mercedes Sprinter Van, Driving a CNG Ford F-150 – Autoline Daily

Bob Wilson

 

I have a car with the back up camera and my son has a car with the back up sensors, i prefer the sensors, they seem to me to work better at warning you. The camera distracts you from looking all around you as you are focused on the screen. If anything they should add both.

 

Gave ChuggyPig a good Spring-Clean today, included vacuuming carpets, going through the local car-wash, a good coat of Simoniz Original Wax, and the steel-wool/Rain-X treatment on the glass (just Rain-X on the rear-camera lens) (…all we need now is some more rain…)

 

Where's Burt Lancaster's THE RAIN MAKER when you really want/need precipitation?

 

...or a hose.

 

Well, living here in the NE, the locals have a saying "...if you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes!"

DROID4 ?

 

In Oregon, we get five to six feet of rain per year.

So, often my camera is fairly useless. Add to that, the fact that I drive dirt roads --- and mud and dust compound the problem.

Yes, wiping off the camera does help/cure this issue, but I am also not going to wipe down the lens several times per day. Especially in a driving downpour. So, not being an engineer, I am not sure if a "built-in" solution to this is possible.

I do find the camera useful and I am glad I have it when I am trying to back up "right next" to an object, but most of the time I ignore the camera. I even forgot I have it most of the time.

Sight lines through the back of the hatch are good and I have no trouble with normal backing by just turning my head around.

And, just to rant a bit -- I do find the "pillar" (I think that's the term) that runs from the left side of the windshield up to the roof -- you know, the thing that holds the roof up on the front driver's side -- to be overly large and it does interfere with my vision.

 

...talking of sight-lines to the rear, I've found that the horizontal division between the top and bottom of the rear window, to be just thick enough and situated in the exact position so that from my position (I'm a 5'5" shorty) it perfectly obstructs the headlights of any following vehicle (I passed on the other 2009 which had the auto-dimming rear-view mirror, and the NAV/Blu-tooth package) in favour of ChuggyPig (touring package, 16" wheels, fogs, HIDs, etc).

 

I think it's called the "A Pillar"

 

I'm 6'1", and also enjoy the occasional headlight block.

^ Yes