Thank god, another reasonable, logical person in this thread. It's as if these people think the car was perfected in 1970 and tech oriented assistance is just going to turn people into zombies. I get the fear that we become more and more dependent on technology to accomplish seemingly fundamental tasks, but it's not like there's suddenly going to be a mass exodus of backup cameras once people become reliant on them. We used to only require one side view mirror, but I don't see anyone complaining about how reliant we've become on having two. Nor do I think people worried that requiring safety belts would turn people into reckless drivers because they wouldn't have to worry about being catapulted from their vehicles in a collision anymore.

 

I haven't found anyone on this thread unreasonable. Even my very first comment acknowledged there is some benefit to backup cameras.

It is human nature to make the most minimal effort necessary. These driver aids will only lower the overall quality of the drivers on the road.

This last is what I think most of us are concerned about.

Will drivers be safer? Maybe, but yes many of us feel drivers will become more zombie like.

In that commercial I linked to the driver was definitely not paying attention to the actual act of driving.

 

I don't understand how people will become less capable drivers because of new equipment that makes things easier. This would assume that at some future point, cars will no longer have this equipment, and drivers will not be able to manage without it. Again, I don't understand how this is any different than when cars first got dual side view mirrors, or when the central rear view mirror became a requirement, or when ABS became standard, or when interior lights were put on time-out delays so people wouldn't accidentally drain their batteries overnight. Coming up with ways to make things faster, easier, safer and more reliable is a sign of human intelligence. Now, if the government was requiring that all cars had Facebook and Twitter integration, I could easily see a problem with that. But a requirement for cars to include something who's sole purpose is to prevent avoidable fatalities seems pretty OK with me. Especially when that something just happens to replace the garbage 3 line dot matrix display of my radio.

I am a very pessimistic person with lower than average faith in the intelligence of the general public (Americans especially). Perhaps this is why I have no problem with requiring something be put in cars that makes it easier for people not to screw up. I have personally witnessed several (easily more than 10) people back out of their parking spot without even a single glance at one of their 3 available mirrors. Maybe having a nice colorful idiot-box on their dash will capture their attention well enough to avoid a potential catastrophe.

 

I think that touchscreens are very distractive to use. With traditional radios you can, for the most part, use them without taking your eyes off the road. Not true with touchscreens. You HAVE to take your eyes off the road to use them. Some designers are trying to human factor around this by making the icons really large but not all.

I have a iPhone 6+ mounted in the car that I use for DashCommand but I can also stream music from it. Very dangerous when trying to change the streaming station on iTunes Radio, Spotify, etc, so I just don't do it.

 

When I visit any shopping center, I constantly have to watch for drivers who slide into their cars, start, engage, accelerate(sometimes forward into buildings) with no concern for anyone nearby. The attitude is, "I am moving, I have the-right-of way. Not correct, just a fact. This is why I went to great trouble to install a backup camera in my Mini.

When I got my first car, in 1966, a Triumph TR-2, it came with seat belts. All my friends gave me a lot of grief about pretending to be a race driver, since only race cars had belts. In those days the debate began about the need or even the use of belts. "They will allow drivers to become complacent, not need to worry about having a wreck. Just hit someone, let the insurance Co. buy you a new car." Sounds ridiculous now, but many of the same arguments then are heard now about any new advance.

Humans naturally hate change. Our ancestors probably did not want to replace a good trusty rock with a new fangled easy to break wooden spear. Fortunately technology prevaled, and the sabre-tooth did not.

 

I'll try one more time.

In this day and age change is the norm, not the exception. I doubt anyone on this thread is afraid of change.

However not all change is 100% positive.

Backup cameras are being mandated because like the passenger side mirror they remove a blind spot.

You can't say the same for the other driving aids hitting the market.

Mercedes strikes the correct balance in their commercials showing how driving aids can benefit the attentive driver. But let's be honest, attentive drivers don't need these aids.

Blind spot detector? Rotate your mirrors out a little more and learn to turn your head.

Automatic breaking? Pay attention to the traffic ahead.

Good, attentive, drivers don't need these aids to drive safely.

The Infiniti commercial shows the larger reality. A bad distracted driver not getting into an accident because his car keeps beeping at him. The driver even says "I didn't see that coming" to which I say hand in your license and get off the road.

Distracted driving is the cause of most accidents. Bad distracted drivers should be removed from the roads, not enabled to stay on.

Unless you frequently drive distracted I fail to see how these new aids can be viewed 100% positively.

 

Almost comically, I can say it is the end of natural selection....
Where one a "bad" driver would have a few accidents (and give up driving), or maybe die, now 90% of the population pays for technology that allows 10% of the population to drive safe....
Thst is where I lump blind spot monitoring and ,backup cameras...not real convenience items....
Too lazy to check your tire PSI? WE HAVE TECH FOR THAT!!
Too lazy to check your oil? WE HAVE TECHNOLOGY FOR THAT!!
Too lazy to turn on your headlights?! Ditto
Too lazy too turn on you windshield wipers? Ditto
Too lazy too put on a seatbelt? Oops...motorized seatbelts failed back in the '90's...
Sure, some items like keyless entry and electric windows can have benefits...
Then add the law of intended consequences..
Airbags to keep front seat passengers safe...you know the ones who did not put on their seatbelts?!
They start to kill children in the front ,so we add sensors and dual stage airbags...
Cars that navigate themselves, tell us where to turn (actually just a glorified map reader, but some folks follow directions blindly) and folks try to drive on railroad tracks...
Cars that beep if you try to change lanes and somebody is there...so folks can do Facebook and tweet while driving...
Oh yeah...
With a $17 item on eBay, I can get in your car, even if it is LOCKED AND START IT AND DRIVE OFF if you have "comfort entry" if the key is not stored in a metal box within about 200 feet of the car....
Slight security problem...but nobody mentions it...the technology is so simple...$17 is just a amplified antenna.....I stand NEXT to your car, and pont the antenna in the general direction of your key, and POP...the door unlocks, just like the key is in your pocket...can then hit the start button if I want...
Most folks just using them to steal stuff from the glove box, like phones, GPS, chargers, iPods...... Since if you drive away, you cannot ever shut the car since you cannot restart it.....the owner still has the key (besides, free stuff vs possible jail time!)!!

 

None of the things you mention are mandated by law. Many of them are half engineering accomplishment, half marketing strategy. That's why you see them in commercials - they help sell cars. Whether or not people actually use them or how effective they are is uncharted territory and given the fact they are generally only available in luxury vehicles, it's unlikely the majority of the public even has access to these features.

I too am opposed to allowing idiots behind the wheel. But we all know this is unlikely to change. I absolutely hate pop-ups on the internet, but since we'll never be able to eradicate the scumbag companies that create them, we all have to settle for pop-up blockers. Since we'll never have a road system free from bad drivers, the best we can do is make cars harder to be bad drivers in.

In any case, it's been mentioned several times by now that rear view cameras allow a view that no amount of attention-paying and mirror-checking can provide. If perhaps our X-ray vision capabilities were at risk of obsoletion by this mandated safety feature, it might be a different story. But I'd say only a handful of drivers on the road have X-ray vision, and they're probably just lying about it anyway.

 

I prefer my vehicles to allow me to drive. I understand the advances in technology and value safety. While I have driven cars with rear view mirrors I don't want one. I do see how they can be useful for some drivers, but I don't want one and wouldn't pay extra for one.

 

Happily hijacking a thread that is in danger of descending past the silly into the sublime...I'll note that since you live in New England your post makes perfect sense sans sarcasm.

When I moved to Boston one of the things that surprised me most was that it was a standard 'rule of the road' in NE that you were only responsible for 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock - the cars behind you were expected to adapt to what they could see in front of them...and so on and so on. Essential knowledge when entering the Sumner tunnel.

 

Guess I'm old school. I like driving my two Minis and making decisions for myself. When that is no longer fun I'll car pool or take mass transit.

 

At the risk of further hijacking this thread, you should try driving (or being driven) in India - one of the few places I worked where I was happier to be driven.

There, the 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock rule applies as soon as one vehicle is just a foot in front of the other. So as soon as an overtaking car's nose is alongside the nose of a car being overtaken, even if they are still overlapping, it has the right to go anywhere it wants and the overtaken vehicle must get out of its way. I doubt that this is an actual rule of the highway, but it is how everyone behaves.

 

The results would obviously be vehicle-specific. A truck camera doesn't have to show a large child hiding underneath the pick-up bed, and low and blind-spot-free old cars like Elan's and Miata's would need a 5 year old lying down on the ground to not be seen with eyes. Furthermore, you appear to be making a gross assumption that the already-distracted driver will actually observe and understand what's being displayed on the rear-view screen. It's akin to saying people look at their speedometer, or fuel gauge, yet it's often observed people under the minimum and over the maximum and also running out of fuel.

It's just another tool that can be used, misused, or ignored. I think the primary point you seem to be ignoring is the fundamental added cost of this system and how it impacts new vehicle prices. Meanwhile, the average age of cars on the road seems to keep rising, meaning only the wealthy or financially over-extended will have this tech. In the end, the NHTSA took many years before they were pressured by our federal government to implement the rear-view mandate, as their studies showed it would cost the industry way more than the estimated human value saved was worth. It sounds cold but it's the economics of society.

Let me ask you personally a question: Do you have a rear-view camera system? If not, when do you plan on implementing one?

 

+1
Then add the cost of fixing aging technology......
Anybody's MINI that needed $400 tpms due to dieing batteries knows that...just to keep it working like it should every 5-7 years...yes, the 2013+ cars have batteries that are epoxied in....so new sensors when they die, and remounting, and rebalancing the tires...
The person with the "used" car or keeping an oldr one, trying to save $ gets stuck with lots of $$ things to fix...
Things like HID/LED headlights, great new, but out of warranty, cost the better part of $1000 to fix....

 

This might have been true 10 years ago but today electronics are cheap...dirt cheap...almost cheaper than dirt. On Alibaba I found automobile backup cameras at $3.66 each in lots of 100. Around $1 in lots of 1000 or more. And 6" LCD Modules at $8 in lots of 1000 or more. Even the complete automobile camera backup systems sold to the consumer in nice boxes are $30-$50 on Amazon - including wiring.

There is a reason 'fancy' electronics like backup cameras are now standard on cheap cars like a KIA Rio (MSRP $13,990) - today electronics are basically free and they make customers happy.

Compare this with the price of just the glass in one MINI side view mirror if it breaks - $75 MSRP. Another $150 for the housing. Not that MINI is paying those prices...but I'm sure the mirror costs them more than the LCD.

 

Cheap electronics don't last in a car exposed to temperature extremes.

Take your average Android or iPhone and leave it on your dash, in a closed car on a hot sunny day. Come back 30 minutes later and see if it will turn on. It won't, not until it cools off.

Read the reviews for cheap dash cams, the common question is "will the camera work on a hot Texas summer day?"

Also no one will really complain when the cheap after matket part fails, usually after a mere 6 months to a year.

Now consider the cost of designing an attractive car interior, complete with a backup camera display, and the wiring necessary to get the signal from the back to the front, around the doors and passenger compartment. That's were the real costs are, that and all of the quality control and testing, absolute crap loads of man hours, because standard equipment safety features can never fail.

The cost of the hardware is trivial, it's the rest where all the money goes.

I was not aware that NHTSA was opposed to mandating backup cameras. Similar reasoning as to why infant seats are not required on airlines (if I recall correctly).

Again not saying backup cameras are a bad idea, just not trivial or cheap to design into vehicle.

 

I understand your point, but you've taken a non-qualified "automotive" example from non-approved vendors that have hardly fit the design and testing criteria of most automakers. You've also glossed over the big picture economics. The Kia Rio doesn't have much going for it on paper. Putting a "big ticket" item is a major draw for customers looking for the biggest bang for the buck. Kia's market research indicated that specific line item would pull the biggest ROI, so that's what they pushed forward with.

I was at my local MINI dealer yesterday. The topic of the hidden dash cubby going away for MY16 came up. Their most experienced salesperson had corresponded with MINI global to try to understand why that deletion happened. MINI responded and said they had to cut costs in order to amortize keeping the manual transmission offered on all models [since take rates are dropping]. They decided the cubby was barely functional already and was less important to the MINI "DNA" than having key performance features.

Point being? Kia thinks a camera is very important to their customers, and every company will make a case to target their demographics to make the sales happen.


As for the mirror example, both dealerships and OEMs make huge profits on parts department sales, that's no mystery. How much profit they can get away with is a delicate balance of actual cost, customer expectation, brand equity, and perceived value.

 

To compare a KIA and a MINI is like comparing a steak to a can of spam...yes, they are both protein, and tasty when prepared right, but consumers have different expectations when they sit down...
KIA, while having moved more upmarket, is still viewed by most as "value" car where features are piled on to makeup for, along with a good warrenty, for a otherwise sub par driving experience...
They have come a long way, but do they sell a "driving machine or driving experience", no, they sell a good priced appliance with lots of gadget's.
To say you can buy parts cheap, and wonder why they are not bolted onto a car as OEM explains why " off the shelf" parts are often inferior in so many ways, and why folks look for OEM/OES aftermarket parts....cause parts made by non automotive parts chain suppliers are nothing but future pain in a box...go to "pep boys" and look at the customizion isle...
Think the under car lighting will last more than a few weeks? Bet you can buy them wholesale and make kits cheap!! Need I say more?!
When you buy a car, the manufacture is vouching for the parts, and that they are tested, and will have a reasonable life, hense the warrenty.....
Anybody who believes "a part is a part" and cheapest is best has never bought non-oem parts for more than short term...they work, sometimes, for a bit...maybe 90 days, a year, but fail...be it the Chinese made alternator from auto zone (that was so cheap, they give you a "lifetime" warrenty") or a 2¢ resistor on an integrated circuit with a camera for your $5 backup camera....the part is only as good as the weakest component....
The point I am making is the OEM in a real sense oversee the parts, and warrenty them...
The $50 backup camera has a 90 day warrenty, and the most expensive part of it, the install and replacement labor is free, provide by you, as is product liability....
If you don't like the product any manufacturer is providing you at your trim level, feel free to buy a different car, or bolt on your $50 pepboys camera with the $1 camera lens, with the $5 LCD...
User experience is undoubtly lower than the OEM, and thus the higher cost...cause they CAN. IT WORKS BETTER, SO THEY CAN CHARGE MORE!! Called added value....

 

As I've mentioned already, part of the reason I am OK with this regulation is that my car was dealer-specced and sans-Visual Boost, which was near the top of my list in terms of features I wanted when shopping for a new car. Since the Visual Boost (and therefore Mini Connected) radio units are non-retrofittable, there's nothing I can do that would get me what I wanted in the car I chose, and I just had to settle with the trade-offs. With the regulation, this wouldn't be an issue, since the unit that can't be retrofitted would be required.

I don't have any plans to add a back-up camera to my current MINI, since that's not what I wanted anyway. My reasoning for wanting the LCD screen was to make navigating the stereo menus easier, quicker, and (coincidentally) much less distracting while driving. I get the urge to change music frequently, and the 3 line display of the standard radio makes this extremely difficult and very distracting.

You still seem to be stuck on the thought that distracted drivers are distracted from the moment they set foot in their cars and I can just as easily say you grossly overestimate this example. In any case, it's a moot point, since the idea is not to only assist the distracted drivers, but in fact, ALL drivers on the road. Another point you seem to grossly assume is that a vehicle's size and dimensions will determine whether or not a rear-view camera will provide an unobtainable POV. Perhaps if Miata owners only drove with the top down or if somehow the high ground clearance of a pickup truck makes it possible to see through the truck bed, you'd be correct. Regardless, this is such a weak argument since governmental regulations rarely apply to 100% use-case scenarios.

Your continual mentioning of the costs associated with this regulation is also of suspect legitimacy, being that any car maker that currently offers an LCD screen as an optional (or standard) feature has already stomached the cost of R&D, which cuts down the cost of implementation in a big way. Admittedly, manufacturers will lose the ability to maintain their insane markups on these no-longer options, but is this really something we should be advocating for on the behalf of corporations? Is there no line that can be crossed when it comes to profiting in America? You mention cost analysis and risk-vs-reward but where do you think these numbers are coming from? Independent scientists and engineers? Or the highly biased manufacturers who wish to maintain their current revenue streams. As I said in my first post, I'm not sure why the regulation jumped right to backup cameras when the logical first step would seem to be park-distance-sensors, but I wonder if this doesn't just point to a much smaller difference in cost between the two systems than consumers are privy to. I will say that if we DO see the average cost of vehicles somehow skyrocket because of this mandate, it will most likely be due to manufacturer's exploitation of the issue.

Obviously we are not going to see eye to eye on this, and at this point its probably just a waste of both of our time. The biggest point I'm trying to make is that there are upsides to this mandate, but if after 10 years, you manage to completely avoid looking at a single rear view camera screen, or selecting music from a display of more than 3 lines, feel free to gloat all you want. In the meantime, I'll enjoy the benefits of modern technology.

 

YouYup...on some level...BUT...
To the person who says everything should be "required"
Key is YOU WANTED IT...YOU ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR IT...NOT US.
Some folks want a car yo drive...
Listen to the revs, windows down...maybe radio off...
Why pay for it in a performance car?
You Are "comfortable" with extra regulations and rules...
Many are not...so why force YOUR likes on us?
That is the entire question at the basic level...
The reason...you think it might be 1500$ for YOU if everybody gets it, even if we don't want to pay an extra $500 for an item that is now $2000.
Huyindai/KIA has been giving away lots of fetures for free to make up for the rest of the crap box.... Mini does not have too (yet)....
HATE TO MAKE this thread political... Beyond the forum rules, but this comes down to basic view of life, and politics....
And those views are reflected in your consumer views...
So why push you desires on us? Let the free market rule.

 

I had sworn off this thread, but this long dead horse is getting one last beating from me as I've found a few factoids to share. An estimated 292 people are killed and 18,000 injured each year by drivers who back into them. And for the 2014 model year, 46 percent of vehicles sold in the United States include a back-up camera as standard equipment (I don't think anyone knows the actual percentage of vehicles sold with backup cameras - i.e. those with it standard + as part of a 'premium' package + as an option).

But the most interesting item I found is that studies have shown a rear camera helps rather a lot in avoiding collisions. But a camera that adds an audible warning helps less because drivers rely on the 'beeps' - which don't start soon enough to actually prevent a collision.

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/deskto...ee-behind-them

http://www.edmunds.com/car-technolog...p-cameras.html

 

well this one's easy...

Plenty of things I don't like in this world are requirements. That's just part of being an adult and accepting the fact that we don't get final approval on everything that comes our way. The old "free market" philosophy is such a utopian viewpoint. There are far too many stupid people in the world for an entirely consumer driven market to progress technologically. And yet again, you miss the point when you say my desire for a screen is forced upon everyone. It is the desire for cars to be safer by those in power to regulate the market that comes with what I see as a silver lining- a much nicer way to control my music.

see the post above for plenty of legitimate rationale behind this regulation...

 

My MA says 2017.

 

.

 

Having had a Countryman....the back body is so high....and I'm only 5'4", a rear camera would've been nice. A six year old child walking behind the car is totally invisible. There was a huge blind spot. I downsized to a clubman.