Rearview Camera Mandate by 2014

Federal Government to require rearview cameras in all new cars by 2014:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/28/regulators-to-require-rearview-cameras-in-all-new-cars-by-2014/

The next day they announced they are delaying those rules:

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/02/29/rearview-video-camera-rules-delayed/

Text from the 1st article: In a draft paper, regulators said it would cost automakers between $160 and $200 to install the cameras and viewing screens in each new vehicle -- as much as $2.7 billion per year overall.

Can we PLEASE find a government regulator who can at least admit that it isn't going to cost the automakers a dime to install these cameras? IT WILL COST THE US CUSTOMERS $2.7 BILLION PER YEAR. I just can't stand government twits who act as if the customers of any product they regulate don't have to pay jack for what they are regulating . . .

Morons...

Just what is this going to fix? I can't see how using a 3" wide screen is going to magically be better than me turning my head around.

Oh wait: I'm not driving a land yacht, while drinking a latte and smokin' a butt. Yet I get treated as such...

MrMopar, it'd be nice of someone recognized that it's always one of two persons who pay for everything. It's either the taxpayer, or the consumer. Which in the end is generally the same person, welfare, retirement and youths notwithstanding.

It's easy to shake a finger at the government officials and say "You bastards are doing something costly and unnecessary" The truth is that there is a lobbyist somewhere who has been paying out to finance campaigns in exchange for making backup cameras standard. Blame the system and the financiers, not the officials who need a constant flow of cash to stay in office.

Once again a government reaction to a problem, the assumption being that the carless person will now become careful because they have a screen to look at. I have driven a few cars (rentals) with cameras and candidly the "fish-eye" distorted vision made it useless.

The real problem was the 7 passenger SUV with a high belt-line, small rear window and several blind spots. I am amazed more people are not run over. Tragic story in Ohio, recently a 2 year was run over in her driveway but no one asked why a 2 year was outside in the driveway without supervision.

So some "well-intentioned" politician jumps on this, spurred on by industry looking to make money for problem that could be fixed by people paying attention.

Once again technology will save us from our own stupidity...

Stupid mandate. What a waste of time, money and resources.

I'd rather see them mandate more effective driver education by 2014, but W.T.F. do I know?

The people I know with the backup cameras seem to become worse drivers. They now look at the screen instead of turning their head. The camera can't detect what is coming from either side!

Only good use I have heard of one is my boss uses his to line up to his trailer. Camera is right above the ball and he can back within an inch of the hitch without someone else trying to yell directions to him.

Seems to me that a rear parking detection system (radar or sonar?) would be more effective than a camera. I wonder how they compare in cost?

tditom said:

Seems to me that a rear parking detection system (radar or sonar?) would be more effective than a camera. I wonder how they compare in cost?

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Had that on a car and it is like a depth finder on a sailboat; let's you know right after you run aground and hit something. Beep...beep...beep...bang... I know a few people who park that way. LOL.

Ceiling Cat forbid we design cars that you can actually see out of.

There is a widespread issue with poor rearward visibility on a lot of newer passenger vehicles. I don't think that is in dispute. (I will be the first to state that rearward visibility from a Mk5 Jetta is terrible. The trunk is too high and the window is a rather narrow slit when viewed from the driver's seat.) But a Mk5/6 Golf is fine because of the bigger window and no trunk behind it.

I'd rather that some sort of arrangement be made in which it has to be possible to see the top of a (say) 3 ft high object not more than X distance behind the vehicle when seated in the normal driver's position, or some other such thing, and then leave it up to the vehicle manufacturers to decide how to do that: either improve the outward rear visibility of the vehicle to begin with, or use rear view cameras.

Small hatchbacks shouldn't need rear cameras ... unless the rear window is made a uselessly small slit (Kia Rio). And yet the same manufacturer (Hyundai) got it right with the Veloster by having a near-vertical window section below the main hatch. Prius is also like that - and let's not forget that the second-generation Honda CRX was also like that, so it's not a new idea.

A child lying on the ground behind the rear wheels of the vehicle can not be saved either by rear visibility nor by rear cameras.

The best solution is to train EVERYone to back into parking spots, but good luck with that, and it doesn't always work. If I have to load something long into the vehicle at Home Depot, I can't back into the spot before going shopping.

VeeDubTDI said:

Stupid mandate. What a waste of time, money and resources.

I'd rather see them mandate more effective driver education by 2014, but W.T.F. do I know?

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This.

My reaction:

http://s10.postimage.org/vfddrsg3r/xzibit_meme_7219_***_am_i_reading_s510x334_15760.jpg

We could just start making this come standard in the glovebox of every new car:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000TCI7K4/ref=noref?ie=UTF8&s=automotive&psc=1

Optional for the buyers to use it.

As an additional note . . .

I'm kinda a "Look at the greater good and measure statistics" type of guy. When I see 200 people a year (out of 310 million) that get killed by people backing up I see something that appears to not really be a problem.

mrmopar said:

as an additional note . . .

I'm kinda a "look at the greater good and measure statistics" type of guy. When i see 200 people a year (out of 310 million) that get killed by people backing up i see something that appears to not really be a problem.

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ftw!

It also has to be remembered that providing all this technology will NOT save 100% of these incidents. The percentage in which it does help may be somewhat small ... and if implementing this technology causes other problems (by making people look at the screen instead of around their vehicle) the net benefit will be even smaller or possibly even counterproductive ...

GoFaster said:

It also has to be remembered that providing all this technology will NOT save 100% of these incidents. The percentage in which it does help may be somewhat small ... and if implementing this technology causes other problems (by making people look at the screen instead of around their vehicle) the net benefit will be even smaller or possibly even counterproductive ...

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Two years ago I watched a realtor back into a Toyota Camry.

Rear warning chimes were in full panic mode for at least 3 seconds before impact.

When your brain is off, a little camera is just going to get the carnage on tape.

I wonder if you folk that poo-poo the whole idea ever actually reverse into SMALL spaces? I seem to spend half my life trying to get into tiny corners and bays, never mind parallel-parking on busy city streets. I've both a camera and ultrasonics on the Forester and both have their own advantages.

For all that, tho, I'd tend to agree that it's not necessarily a safety issue directly; also that Mr M's Fresnel lens is a perfectly acceptable- and quite popular, here way of implementing the requirement. They work especially well in vehicles with more upright rear ends.

No argument that cameras in selected locations can be a convenience, particularly on certain types of vehicles. It's the government-mandatedness of this, which I don't like.

Once we get the cars so technologically advanced that they drive themselves (maybe 10 years from now) this will never be an issue.

If they want to save lives, mandate every car has a bretholizer, blow above .08 BAC, car doesn't run, you'd save thousands of lives.

I'd probably be cheaper than the cameras too.

740GLE said:

If they want to save lives, mandate every car has a bretholizer, blow above .08 BAC, car doesn't run, you'd save thousands of lives.
I'd probably be cheaper than the cameras too.

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You and the MADD crowd can take a hike.

Alcohol-ignition interlocks are about $1,000 installed and they're not fail-proof. Go read a few technical papers about how breathlyzers work and you will understand why a BREATH measurement is downright foolish to measure BLOOD alcohol content. It's nothing more than an estimation that can be wildly wrong. Read one paper and you will understand why I will NEVER blow into a breathlyzer for any reason.

AND they'd be a burden to people who don't drink and don't want to pay for a $1,000 device they'll never need to use.

MrMopar said:

As an additional note . . .

I'm kinda a "Look at the greater good and measure statistics" type of guy. When I see 200 people a year (out of 310 million) that get killed by people backing up I see something that appears to not really be a problem.

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Unless it's one of your kids that got run over. I do see your point but that is what drives this stuff I have watched them cut majestic huge pines in school grounds because a kid was killed by a falling branch (true story mother eventually had the school cut all the trees). There are some things out there that you can not see any thing directly behind you such as big pickups/SUV for as much 30'.

I'm currently in Santa Clara, CA on vacation with a rented Chev Equinox (nice vehicle BTW!) and the back up camera has been extremely useful in the Starbucks parking lot helping to avoid backing into other vehicles in the crazy coffee frenzy.

I should have bought Starbucks stock when it hit under 10/share back in '08 - 09.

740GLE said:

If they want to save lives, mandate every car has a bretholizer, blow above .08 BAC, car doesn't run, you'd save thousands of lives.

I'd probably be cheaper than the cameras too.

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Lets just ban cars all together, to save thousands of lives... right?

This where thinking like this ends up. You cannot legislate people from being stupid.

Politicians and Bureaucrats

MrMopar said:

Federal Government to require rearview cameras in all new cars by 2014:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/28/regulators-to-require-rearview-cameras-in-all-new-cars-by-2014/

The next day they announced they are delaying those rules:

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/02/29/rearview-video-camera-rules-delayed/

Text from the 1st article: In a draft paper, regulators said it would cost automakers between $160 and $200 to install the cameras and viewing screens in each new vehicle -- as much as $2.7 billion per year overall.

Can we PLEASE find a government regulator who can at least admit that it isn't going to cost the automakers a dime to install these cameras? IT WILL COST THE US CUSTOMERS $2.7 BILLION PER YEAR. I just can't stand government twits who act as if the customers of any product they regulate don't have to pay jack for what they are regulating . . .

Click to expand...

That BS is sort of like JACKING UP the corporate tax rates .........Gees! Don't they understand that, we the consumer, will pay those taxes in higher prices on the Goods and Services provided by the businesses!

But, election after election, we send or return 535 dummies to Washington~! ...and, of course the Bureaucrats in the agencies just love to write Regulations.....they need those for Job Security!

Why stop at resisting technological changes...

I say remove all goverment of any kind. No taxes period.

I mean really... who needs anything... we're smart enough without being told what to do. No one will take advantage in any way with all the laws and regulations removed. No military... ahh.. whats to worry... we're Americans... the smartest people alive on this planet. No one should tell us what do do... especially what safety features are put on our vehicles.

LOL....

White Crow said:

Unless it's one of your kids that got run over.

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I am just crunching the numbers and comparing risks. There is such a small minority of people who have had a child backed over by a car, and a smaller minority of those people who would demand that the solution is rearview cameras in all new cars. Of all the people who had children backed over by cars . . . some of them surely own swimming pools. Risk comparison is all I am saying.

AndyBees said:

That BS is sort of like JACKING UP the corporate tax rates .........Gees! Don't they understand that, we the consumer, will pay those taxes in higher prices on the Goods and Services provided by the businesses!

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Except when corporations then shift the profits overseas to avoid US Corporate Taxes, or use tax avoidance strategies to structure their financial affairs to have a lower tax burden.

The current populist cry of "tax the 1%" comes out of the mouthes of people that don't understand a Laffer Curve.

I really like the backup cameras. I've used them, they work well and I welcome the improvement; just as I'm pleased with the TPMS mandated 2009