Rear back-up cameras mandated in new cars

On 2018-06-12 12:17, Whisky-dave wrote:
On Sunday, 10 June 2018 00:49:57 UTC+1, Eric Stevens wrote:
On Sat, 09 Jun 2018 17:23:25 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Diesel
wrote:


I just don't get it. If I can do that with larger vehicles using
mirrors only, why can't you? You can't get in any worse of a
tight spot that I've been with some of these.

I made a trip by rented bus about a year ago. When the driver
started backing to park the bus people asked if he needed someone
to help. He said: no thanks, I have a rear view camera. He was a
professional driver with many years of experience, yet he was very
happy to have such a camera.

A commercial passenger bus isn't anything like a normal passenger
car/truck though. Something as tall and long as those typically tend
to be can benefit from a rear view camera to a point, certainly.

That being said, a normal passenger car/truck has mirrors which
should be more than adequate for the purposes of safe navigation.
Additional technology isn't going to be able to compensate for bad
drivers.

cars have rear windows, as do many trucks.
mirrors are useful if there isn't a rear window.

I used to drive a truck for a living. A real truck that is. When
backing into tricky places. loading docks etc, I used to open the cab
door and get out onto the running board from which position I would
steer. Although I had checked that the space behind was clear before I
started to back in, I had absolutely no idea of what might be
happening behind me once I started in reverse.

The same things apply to the blind spots behind cars. The driver may
have checked whether or not the space behind is clear but once they
are in the car they can have no idea of what might have moved in. This
is how a significant number of children and infants are killed every
year. There need be no fault on the part of the driver. There is no
question of whether or not 'they should have seen'. The plain facts
are that no one could have seen and this is why reversing cameras are
such a great device. It is incidental that they can also avoid the
need for a swivel neck when viewing areas behind the vehicle which are
visible when looking through the rear window.

The big advantage of a reversing camera is that you might not even have to look at the image as you could have distance sensors installed which would be much more useful than a reversing camera.

They are fine to have, but will not tell about a dog or baby in there.
Nor will the mirrors.

Also, some sensors may miss a vertical bar that happens to be low (so
not seen from mirror) and narrow, so escapes between two sensors.

--
Cheers, Carlos.