Please support this rule change

Maybe we should just require all cars to have back up beepers like forklifts. Or may just a loud recorded voice saying "Get out of my way, I'm backing up". Or maybe we should just outlaw the reverse gear in transmissions and make people only go forward? Or just outlaw all cars and make people only take public transportation since we all know personal cars are very unsafe.

I still cannot understand why we still allow motorcycles on the road. We should outlaw all of them.

TED

 

There are two separate points intermixed.

Point One - Should there be regulations and government enforcement of safety technology in cars and other vehicles? To me this is a no brainer. Of Course.

Point Two - What should be the criteria for a safety technology being regulated? Intense discussion area. Both extremes are wrong. Where does backup technology fall between the extremes?

I do not believe the cost numbers indicated. In volume production, such simple cameras and displays are on toys. Also on the horizon are radar and other ultrasonic sensors that could alarm the driver if an object is close behind the vehicle in reverse.

What can be very crappy is the user interface. That's probably what bothers most posters here, including me. A lot of the "safety" implementations are gigantic distractions instead of safety enhancers. TMPS does not need to be another idiot light. There are way too many of those that I do not understand. I do not need a big light telling me the passenger airbag is off in my face on every drive. I do not need a reverse beep blaring. etc. That's where the real overhaul is needed.

 

ok, i gotta take some issue with this. i understand your intent here, but vehicles don't usually kill people unless there is a driver in them that has messed up. this is one of those statements that sound like the vehicle became alive and homicidal.

a few months ago i posted some of my concerns over all of the technology going into the vehicles these days. I won't repeat all that, but i think sometimes we try to substitute technology for teaching people how to be good drivers.

 

OK, maybe it would have been more accurate to say 'motor vehicle accidents' are the number one killer instead of 'vehicles'. But you get the idea. It's not just the drivers - the design of roads and vehicles are often not as safe as they could be. Perhaps a 'technology' you might approve of is a big spike (foam, of course) on the steering wheel, reminding people to drive carefully.

 

That never made sense to me, either. Why does it beep inside, but not outside? If a driver needs that much of a reminder to know he's in reverse, that's a problem. Maybe the airbags should be on the outside, too.

 

What amazes me most about this whole discussion is that most (if not every) instance of this "backing over a kid" situation is done with a gas car - A car that makes the sound that so many people would have us believe makes cars much safer (relative to an EV). So we should put lots of money and effort into making quiet cars sound like gas cars... but they still run over people. So then we add cameras to the gas cars... but just having the camera there doesn't keep us from running over people (while I do use and enjoying having my back-up camera, I only use it when it seems to make sense to me). In the end, it ALL comes down to driver education and awareness. Why are we not putting HUGE effort into making sure that the people behind the wheel are as capable as possible? Why do we put so much money and effort into the misguided process of creating devices to save us from ourselves, when it will be FAR more reliable, effective and cheaper to educate drivers?

 

I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I USED to own a smart. I'm still on the largest smart forum (talk about a oxymoron!) and we have the same issues with members posting pics and storys about smarts involved in accidents. seems that no matter what we do, there are those that cry censorship or being insensitive to the families of those involved in the accidents.

while I'm a relative newcomer here (we've had our Prius for 10 days), I would like to have the opportunity to read stories of accidents involving the Prius but I don't know that I need to see pics. simply post the link with some basic info (when and where) and leave it at that. maybe even have the threads set up with a 'no reply' option, so it would be for info only. we can discuss all we want, but in the end, all is left are hard feelings and the families of the accident victims are no better off.

I hope "Bob" is either back or considers returning as after reading about him, he's apparently been a great contributor to PC and as a new Prius owner, I would hate to miss out on his knowledge and wisdom and maybe even wit.

 

good one!!!! :amen:

 

A driver that needs that much of a reminder needs a glass belly button so he can see where he is going.

 

You could make the extraction from the posting, but I certainly don't support the idea that most of the problems are in the vehicle. The 40,000 deaths a year is so large that the any problem, solvable by technology or not, needs to be intensely examined to find the best course of action to address. A 1% improvement is a lot of funerals eliminated.

Bad drivers are unquestionable the biggest factor by far, but not the only factor. Backing up 100% safely is rather difficult for some. An 80 year old may be able to drive ahead fine, but might back up by "winging it" since turning the head around enough for a complete scan is no longer possible. In that case, whether it is the driver or the vehicle limitation becomes debatable.

 

Camera? Why not go back there and look with your eyes?

Instead of a camera, how about a switch in the center of the car's
hatch/trunk that has to be physically depressed before the car can be
either started or put in reverse.

The goal of course would be getting the driver to the back of the car to
DIRECTLY observe what is back there... no "field of view" issues.

Another thought:

An interesting wrinkle in the Gen II reverse camera involves an after-
market EV mode switch button:

* Once in Ready, if you put the car in Reverse you get the rearward
camera view on the MFD screen.
If you then engage EV mode, the MFD switches to the Energy Monitor
screen on the MFD and you lose the rearward view as you back-up

* Once in Ready, if you first put the car in EV Mode first and then into
Reverse, you get the rearward camera view on the MFD as you back-up.

 

Many of these are children whose judgment and sometimes mobility simply cannot be compared to able-bodied adults.

If mere education of drivers was so reliable and effective, annual motor vehicle mortality wouldn't be in the mid five figure range.

Without the existing technical aids, I suspect it would be exceeding six figures.

 

Here is the 'poster child' for high mount third brake lights. GM found it reasonable to design a car (for at least a decade) with brake lights so low no one could see them in any sort of stop and go traffic. Worse, they built a flexible plastic shelf just above them which holds snow so that it droops over the brake lights and obstructs them even in non stop and go conditions. (we wired a 'third brake light into ours via a Uhaul light adaptor, well before government mandates, the car was designed to be rear ended)

http://www.tims-site.com/Photos/malibu06.jpg
http://www.stationwagon.com/gallery/pictures/1973_Chevy_Chevelle_Malibu.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/%2780_Chevrolet_Malibu_Wagon_%28Rear%2C_Auto_classique%29.JPG/800px-%2780_Chevrolet_Malibu_Wagon_%28Rear%2C_Auto_classique%29.JPG

The problem is, for almost any Government Mandate you think of, we can point out a 'poster child' car that manufacturers thought was reasonable to sell an unsuspecting public.

Automotive lighting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Re: Camera? Why not go back there and look with your eyes?

When trying to back or rock out of a snow drift, there might be a few problems with that solution. Eventually, I think proximity sensors will help. However, it has been pointed out previously, that a good many drivers will then completely depend on these instead of any safer option.

 

The numbers that I cited relate to price to the automotive consumer, not cost to the auto manufacturer. Further, the requirements for automobile electronics are far different than for toys. For example, one would probably expect auto electronics to survive temperature extremes found in an Alaskan winter and an Arizona summer, as well as mechanical shocks associated with a mobile environment over a ten-year vehicle life. You probably don't expect that of an electronics toy or other inexpensive consumer item.

Suppose the consumer price was only 10% of what had been indicated. Now each saved life costs ~$1 million. Is that a reasonable tradeoff justifying a federal government mandate?

Less expensive alternatives to backup cameras already exist. For example, I cited the ultrasonic backup sensors installed aftermarket on my 2004, which I personally find to be more effective than the backup camera on my 2007 since that provides an aural signal, thus allowing my vision to remain undistracted when checking the three mirrors, turning to look behind me, etc.

Note that when Toyota decontented the lower option levels of the 2010 Prius in an effort to keep the price down, one feature that was removed was the backup camera and MFD, even though both were highly popular with many 2G owners. As an cost-savings alternative, Toyota could have installed steel wheels instead of aluminum. Presumably the company felt that appearance and performance features are more important than safety features to the new Prius prospects that Toyota wanted to attract.

Nothing prevents a concerned consumer from buying a vehicle with a backup camera, if s/he wishes to do so. I am just questioning whether the benefit of that feature justifies a federal regulation.

 

it would be nice if they at least offered any safety feature as a stand alone option on all models. it was standard on my 08 base model.

 

Since I've worked production electronics for decades, I'm pretty aware of cost and prices. Cars certainly are more demanding, but the vast volumes makes a huge difference. It's to the point where the wiring and connectors are more expensive than the silicon. That is the part I have a good feel for.

That said, I agree that there is a tradeoff point of too little returns for mandating every car. There is also another tradeoff. Is this the best method of backup safety? I don't know the answer there either.

Presently, I don't think the cost is the major limitation, its the overall effectiveness that has not been proven (or disproven) to make it a safety requirement.

 

Excuse me, does anyone have some spare cotton-wool? apparently we all need wrapping up.
Backup cameras are a waste of money and wont fix inattention.

 

All backup camera's are good for is removing the "I couldn't see him!" excuse... but the same could be said about the mirrors on a car.

Personally, I find the back up camera to be incredibly useful. When I'm sitting in a parking lot with a monster SUV, truck, or "mini"van on either side of me, I can't see anything from the driver's seat. I don't know if there's a teenager speeding down the isle looking for a parking spot. I don't know if there's a kid running back to his car 2 spots away. Or when I'm backing out of my driveway now (there's close to 6 feet of snow piled on either side of my drive right now), I have no clue what's coming... someone could be walking their dog and neither of us would have a clue until the dog was dead. That's where a backup camera with a fish eye lens comes in. It helps a TON to see a few feet around those massive vehicles and give me an idea if backing up is incredibly dangerous to myself or others. It doesn't take the place of looking around... but it does help a ton, and it's one of the spots I make sure to check every time I'm backing out with an obstructed view. I know I've stopped at least a few times because of the camera, and that's all the incentive I need to get one in every car I own from here on out. Even if all it does is stop a parking lot fender bender... it will have paid for itself in saved car repairs.

 

Over the weekend I had to reverse out of a packed parking lot (no room to turn round) with no street lights or moonlight. Just the Prius reversing light. It was not easy. Cars parked all over the place (and a nice black colour) and only the one reversing light. My previous car had two reversing lights (one each side) which did a great job of lighting up the view when going backwards. Maybe more reversing lights would be a cheaper idea rather than mandatory backup cameras?