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I have not seen one sensible argument yet as to why these systems should not be in place. Good job NHTSA.
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Originally Posted by NSX
I think this is a great idea (working as a designer of vehicle safety systems).
Of course you would
The government will force the auto makers spend ton's on this and yet it all boils down to personal responsibility, common sense and accountability !
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
You might feel differently if you knew someone with a family member who died in a backover. In general, the masses are against new mandated safety features until someone they know gets hurt. There was backlash for seatbelts, airbags, and front bumpers - believe it or not. You are looking at this the wrong way, as if the possible added cost to the vehicle would be something that people would receive no benefit from.
Not only will hundreds of toddlers lives be saved, tens of thousands of people will be saved from injury. This decision was not made in a vacuum. The safety R&D of most of the major OEMs support this regulation and are developing better and more robust systems as we speak. The best I've seen is on the 2011 Fusion and Taurus SHO, the camera+radar works beautiful with minimal unnecessary intrusion.
Also, who are we to judge how much a life, or preventing someone from being injured, should be worth. Using your number, $400 per person is a small price to pay for a technology that will save hundreds of lives and tens of thousands of people from being injured. It is not a feature that people don't like, on the contrary, customer clinics have shown that most customers enjoy having a backup camera/radar system on their vehicle and are willing to pay a premium.
So NHTSA mandating a feature that most customers want anyway, adds safety and the major auto OEMs are in favor of. If the $400 extra will make or break a person's decision to buy a certain car, they should buy a cheaper model.
Personally, I love this feature. My Taurus SHO has a nice backup camera that has prevented me countless times in store parking lots and crowded areas from backing into things that I could not see with my own eyes. My Lotus is one of the shortest cars sold (149") and still has around a 10' blind spot directly in back. I'm thinking about putting in an aftermarket system myself.
Society, governments, industry, etc. make decisions all the time about how much lives are worth. Living carries risks - some manageable and others not so much. I think backup related deaths are largely preventable as is. I bet the driver of a vehicle involved in such an accident says "I should have been more careful" instead of "I wish the government had forced every car to have a backup camera."
It really doesn't matter if people like it or not. If they like it enough, they will buy a vehicle that has this.
If the feds want to force us to spend $4B per year to save lives, then they should identify areas of the greatest impact. I bet they can find areas that would save lives for less money then $26M.
How about mandatory 360-degree cameras on cars with no windows at all? Why do people place more trust in a camera than in what they can see with their own eyes? And if you give them cameras, that's exactly what they will do, and they will never actually look with their own eyes at the driving environment any more.
You might feel differently if you knew someone with a family member who died in a backover. .
Do you believe the government should spend $100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 right now to find an instant cure for for a hereditary eye disease that i have? No? Well, you would feel differently if you had the affliction that I have. There. Now, isn't that a silly argument?
If every person in the USA demanded that $26-million be spent per victim to prevent his own accidental death or injury, that would come out to about $8,000,000,000,000,000. I disagree with that expenditure, and I do not feel differently about it, even though I am someone who will die from one of those causes. I'm not going to run around screaming Me Me Me, spend 8 quadrillion dollars of somebody else's moneyto protect me me me me.
You might feel differently if you knew someone with a family member who died in a backover.
Not only will hundreds of toddlers lives be saved, tens of thousands of people will be saved from injury.
Again, people are trying to get the government to assume the responsibility of BEING CAREFUL and taking responsibility for their actions.
WHY do people get "backed over"? Because the driver is not paying attention. What in the HELL are toddlers doing behind a car when there is someone in the driver's seat and the engine is on?
Pretty soon, they are just going to wrap everyone in plastic wrap and guaze and make them stay in bed 24 hours a day so... "nobody gets hurt".
Stupid people kill other stupid people On in the case of wee children, stupid people kill kids who aren't being properly supervised by other stupid people.
Don't pile assinine laws on ME because of it. It's NOT MY FAULT that people are stupid.....
Again, people are trying to get the government to assume the responsibility of BEING CAREFUL and taking responsibility for their actions.
Pretty soon, they are just going to wrap everyone in plastic wrap and guaze and make them stay in bed 24 hours a day so... "nobody gets hurt".
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Don't pile assinine laws on ME because of it. It's NOT MY FAULT that people are stupid.....
20yrsinBranson
How is adding a backup camera with a radar into new cars an "assinine" (sic)?
Yes, I design these systems that will be put into cars, but even if I did not I would fully support them knowing the damage reduction they provide with minimal intrusion.
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WHY do people get "backed over"? Because the driver is not paying attention. What in the HELL are toddlers doing behind a car when there is someone in the driver's seat and the engine is on?
What makes you the vehicle safety expert? How many studies have you conducted with NHTSA, Federal Highway or any of the other Auto OEMs? Many of these accidents occur at the last second when a child darts out in back of the car, for whatever reason. Children do silly things that don't make sense, but that does not mean that the deserve to be struck by a car. How many times have you made a decision that wasn't the smartest when you were between 3 and 9 years old? Please get off your "Everyone needs to take responsibility, blah, blah blah" high horse and stop blaming the victim.
The time it takes for a child or animal to run behind a car is can happen in a split-second, when the driver has already started reversing. Scouting around the area beforehand is useful, but definitely not fully sufficient.
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Stupid people kill other stupid people On in the case of wee children, stupid people kill kids who aren't being properly supervised by other stupid people.
Please get rid of this condescending attitude. How many vehicle systems have you designed? Do you have a PhD? For what it's worth, many people who I would venture to say are far more knowledgeable than you are in this area fully support this regulation. We could see it coming for a long time in the auto industry and we decided jointly with the government that this would be a good idea.
Hoffdano: Trying to put a price tag on safety features and divide it by the number of deaths they could prevent is ridiculous? Nobody gave you or anybody else the right to decide how much a human life is worth. You could do the same kind of "calculation" with other safety features such as seat-belts, airbags, crash-worthy structures, ABS, etc, etc and the "cost" would come out high as well. If this was how the auto industry worked, we would all be driving in wooden boxes.
My Taurus SHO has a nice backup camera that has prevented me countless times in store parking lots and crowded areas from backing into things that I could not see with my own eyes. My Lotus is one of the shortest cars sold (149") and still has around a 10' blind spot directly in back. I'm thinking about putting in an aftermarket system myself.
I think you need driving lessons. Prior to owning your SHO, did you crash "countless times" into something behind that you couldn't see?
I'm 44, and have driven an estimated half million miles. Not ONCE did I ever back into something I couldn't see. Never.
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Originally Posted by Mouser
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
Thomas Jefferson
There's a debate about seat belt and helmet laws, and whether they should be laws at all. They shouldn't, and neither should this.
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Originally Posted by NSX
Do you have a PhD? For what it's worth, many people who I would venture to say are far more knowledgeable than you are in this area fully support this regulation.
All that genius, and look where we are now. Too many people not seeing the big picture and not being concerned with the real costs of something like this.
My biggest concern with something like this is 'where will it end'? The mentality behind mandating this can be applied to most anything. In a country where the government can't think in terms of less than hundreds of millions of dollars, why not spend many more billions of our money, directly and indirectly, to make vehicles even more safer? Let's put a "SAFER barrier", a la Nascar, around each vehicle. That will reduce injuries and fatalities. I bet a lot more people fall on sidewalks and die every year, so let's pad those too. Only round tables from now on; those corners are too dangerous. Somewhere our tax dollars are hard at waste on a study proving that, I'm sure. We can't legislate every possible situation.
A friend drowned in a pool when I was little, and another was brain damaged from being under too long. Do I think all pools should be closed, monitored, or have some kind of access restrictions enforced by the government? No. **** happens, people die, and that will never change until and unless we're allowed to be, as someone else said, wrapped in plastic.
I think you need driving lessons. Prior to owning your SHO, did you crash "countless times" into something behind that you couldn't see?
I'm 44, and have driven an estimated half million miles. Not ONCE did I ever back into something I couldn't see. Never.
There's a debate about seat belt and helmet laws, and whether they should be laws at all. They shouldn't, and neither should this.
All that genius, and look where we are now. Too many people not seeing the big picture and not being concerned with the real costs of something like this.
My biggest concern with something like this is 'where will it end'? The mentality behind mandating this can be applied to most anything. In a country where the government can't think in terms of less than hundreds of millions of dollars, why not spend many more billions of our money, directly and indirectly, to make vehicles even more safer? Let's put a "SAFER barrier", a la Nascar, around each vehicle. That will reduce injuries and fatalities. I bet a lot more people fall on sidewalks and die every year, so let's pad those too. Only round tables from now on; those corners are too dangerous. Somewhere our tax dollars are hard at waste on a study proving that, I'm sure. We can't legislate every possible situation.
A friend drowned in a pool when I was little, and another was brain damaged from being under too long. Do I think all pools should be closed, monitored, or have some kind of access restrictions enforced by the government? No. **** happens, people die, and that will never change until and unless we're allowed to be, as someone else said, wrapped in plastic.
You think I need driving lessons? I have a spotless driving record, except for 2 speeding tickets in my lifetime...but thanks for your concern. Just proves what an arrogant and thoughtless comment that was. This system is not about you. Like I said, it's not about your driving skill, it's about things out of your control. There are many folks like yourself who have never backed into something until a child (or adult) darts behind there car suddenly. While they are technically "at fault", they do not deserve to be hit by a car. There's nothing you can do if they are in your rear blind zone and you will not see them. You need to understand that this is not about protecting you, it's about protecting others around you.
This will not cost you anything in terms of your tax dollars. While the price of a vehicle may rise, the auto OEMs are bearing this cost so it is not a "tax issue".
The only complaints I've seen are from people who have little to zero understanding of the technology of a camera/radar ped sensing system, don't care about lives being saved other than their own or both. Every regulation is not bad, so there is no reason to freak out just because of a new gov't regulation. There are regulations that companies cannot dump toxic waste into people's well water, and I'm sure someone at a chemical company is screaming about "too much government regulation". Well we as a society should not blindly accept new regulations, we shouldn't blindly shun them either. It is important to look at each one on an individual basis.
The only complaints I've seen are from people who have little to zero understanding of the technology of a camera/radar ped sensing system, don't care about lives being saved other than their own or both.
Good thing your on the tech side and not sales
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