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

Me too

 

(jet) aircraft use Rain-X (or something similar) along with air bled from the engine, but there being little or no slipstream at the rear, perhaps a washer system which blows air instead of water might be useful...

DROID4 ?

 

I already have sensors to the rear. They're called mirrors. And what about simply LOOKING for things behind your car as you walk to it? These are already there, have no further costs, and add zero complexity.

I see the problem as distracted driving. The screen will be one more item to overlook or ignore while eating, makeup, phone calls, texting, fooling with the radio, or yelling at the kids/spouse.

Another gov't encroachment, added to the thousands of others.

 

A couple years ago I read in the newspaper about an accident in a town in Germany where I used to live. The driver of a parallel parked car in a very tight parking space returned to her car. While she was opening the door, buckling up, starting the engine, and shifting into reverse, a small child walked behind the car where she could not be seen by the driver. When the driver backed up a little, the child was caught between the two cars.

Such accidents are so extremely tragic, that to some of us a little camera on the back of the car seems in comparison a tiny price to pay, even if it prevents a only few such accidents.

 

But these extremely rare accidents can occur with or without a reversing camera.

Let's hypothesize with the following. The above example you give had a car with a reversing camera and the lady was watching the camera as she reversed close to the car behind, whilst swinging out the front end of the car at the same time (as you do to get out of a tight parallel space). As she was concentrating on the rear camera view she failed to notice a small child had suddenly walked next to the front wheels below her line of sight.

A rear camera could be useful but the problem is that humans have two eyes and the car has four sides. In that split second it takes for you to look in one direction, a hazard could appear in another.

I have a better idea. Educate children from a very early age to stand well away from a car and if they're too young to understand, then they should be in the care of an adult.

 

Yes, in comparison to other types of accidents these are extremely rare, and tests have already shown that they will continue to occur even with rear view cameras. But these are also extremely tragic accidents, and tests have already shown that rear view cameras will significantly reduce them. Even if it saves "only" fifty of the two hundred children lost each year, for me it is still worth it.

(I'm not trying to convince you or anyone else. And I don't need to, because the law was already voted on and passed by a majority of our representatives long ago. I am merely offering an explanation of my opinion.)

I have little doubt that that or something similar will also happen. However, based on my own experience, I think that is the exception rather than the rule. I have been using my rear view camera for more than six years. I quickly learned that the rear view camera does not replace the mirrors or obviate looking to the sides and back.

When I back up, first I check the rear camera monitor, then I proceed generally in the same manner as without a camera; depending on the situation looking directly over my shoulder and to the sides or scanning the mirrors and sides. Except that often I substitute a glance in the rear view mirror with a glance to the rear view monitor. Much of the time the camera provides a better view with more information, in the same time that it would take to check the rear view mirror.

Yes, absolute agreement here. In such cases a simple camera is of little help. (I anticipate multi-view monitors in the future)

Yes that is a better idea. In a perfect world, that would be more effective.


To summarize my opinion:
It's better than nothing.
The data says it's the most cost effective.
My heart says it's worth it.

 

Fred, your hearts in the right place but I still think this reversing camera thing is a mountain out of a mole hill.

Sure one death is one too many, but where shall we stop? Let's reduce cars speed to avoid deaths? Those German autobahns should be reduced to 80 kmh eh? That would save a few deaths. Heck, let's make it 60 kmh to be extra sure.

I appreciate the circumstances of reversing over someone behind the car can be dreadful and it's usually the young and innocent. But there has to be an element of responsibility too. Why was a 3 year old running behind a reversing car in the first place? What was to stop them running into the road?

I know there are two camps or two differing views. One camp thinks that legislating for every eventuality is the way forward, however rare or emotive. The other camp is that accidents can and do happen and there's a price balance between these and a personal responsibility. Sure I'd hate any child to get run over. But it isn't the car, it might be the driver, but it also ultimately might be the person who should have been in charge of the young child. You wouldn't let a 3 year old run around unaccompanied near an open swimming pool or garden pond or even a full bath/tub, so why should letting them run behind a car be any different?

I think we agree to disagree

 

Agree or disagree, who makes a better argument...all of this is really just empty chatter because it is law now. Get over it.

 

As Grumpy says, your heart is clearly in the right place, and I think the argument that it's worth spending money to save one or two lives is a strong one. But I think there are safety arguments against compulsory reversing cameras too.

People will rely more and more on their reversing cameras, and won't use their mirrors or look over their shoulders. And because of the position of reversing cameras, toddlers will still be in blind spots. Different blind spots, but blind spots nonetheless. And because people will place so much faith in the infallibility of their cameras, they'll assume they're safer than they would be without one, and they'll reverse with less care: there's a strong chance that compulsory cameras will cost as many lives as they save.

On top of that, there are the design consequences of compulsory cameras. Designers will feel that they're no longer constricted by the need for decent rear visibility, so they'll start doing silly things that look nice from the outside but that make rear visibility hopeless (in the style of a Lamborghini Countach or a Range Rover Evoque). That means you're going to get more and more cars with crap rear visibility, and we'll see more people pulling out in front of us on motorways, or coming out of oblique junctions completely blind.

And dirt on a pinhole camera can cause huge blind spots and weird distortions, as Melbourne Channel Nine News viewers know.

 

We either rely on the govt or we rely on on the individual...self reliance, or trust in others for all of our life events.

Is it so wrong these days to expect the individual to accept responsibility for their actions?

The govt that can give everything can take anything. Are you the kind of person that can accept that kind of govt?

Even the self-reliant hippie commune types understand the basic nature of man, if not the scope of the problem.

 

IMO, not accepting responsibility is akin to relinquishing your freedom.


BTW, I "rain-x'd" my lens, and we are supposed to receive over an inch of rain starting this afternoon. I'll report on whether it reduces/eliminates the blurriness due to collecting water.

 

Oh, I forgot to mention - We got a deluge after ChuggyPig's Spring-Clean & Brush-up (typical New England weather) - All glass (including rear-camera lens) Rain-Xed - seemed to do the trick (still haven't used the windshield wipers yet) - only reversed once, and all was clear! (YMMV) - Wil

 

All these arguments against back up cameras have been past used in one form or another by consumers and manufactures alike to fight requirements by the governments to add safety features (passive or active) to vehicles that have saved thousands upon thousands of lives. Like some mentioned in the other thread, child seats, seat belts, airbags, impact bumpers, crumple zones, side impact protection, safety glass, ABS, ect...

Then these same consumers jump all over GM for faulty ignition switches responsible for killing 13 people in the last ten years, but dream of the day when "technology" provides self driving cars.

Back-up cameras are now law and I think it's a good one. They will further reduce property damage, personal injuries and yes deaths...even for those that think they are smarter and drive better than the other idiots.

 

Rain-X on glass is really most effective on glass that has wind flowing over it. On non-windy glass the water will still bead but not be blown away. It will sit on the back glass and gather dirt. The fine mist of droplets that accumulate on the glass, coupled with the road grunge, make it difficult for water drops to reach a critical mass to trickle down.

Rain-X is so awesome, when I had a heavy truck with new tires I could drive down the road at 50-60mph in drenching rain that had other people pulling off the road...with my wipers off!

Yes, the backup camera is law. There are plenty of laws for all types to love or hate. Whether each law is just depends on how you feel about laws in general, the personal responsibility a particular law assigns/excuses, and whether you have an ox to gore in the fight.

Personally, I feel all the good laws have already been made and now the lawmakers are simply making laws to give themselves something to do between paychecks. But that's only one man's opinion.

 

Hear hear. Maybe with one or two exceptions, but generally I think they're now looking for something to legislate.

 

GC, can I get to your Tour de France party via Yorkshire Airlines?

 

Seems totally reasonable to me.

Like the pilot said at the end. "If it's outside Yorkshire, it's not worth bloody visiting". Sounds about right to me

Culture of Yorkshire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

This proposal by Tesla is even worse, replacing side rear view mirrors with cameras rather than the addition of rear view camera to the regular mirrors.

 

lol I actually like that idea. The car will be more streamlined, the monitors could be incorporated on the inside near where the mirrors were. You're less likely to end up with a big bill when you clip mirrors with a passing car on a tight road. Saying that, that was always my way of judging distance. If you clip the other cars mirror, you were too close