Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Actually, yes. if you've seen how far ingress areas to the spot you're going to be backing in at, you can determine that a toddler running at Usain Bolt like speeds still couldn't get to where you are going to back up. It's simply not that hard. Figuring out angles and speeds for a successful cue shot in billiards is vastly harder and average people are able to do that every day.
And if you are pulling past a spot that you are about to back into, you can indeed see BEFORE any of it gets covered by a blind spot, what might possibly enter that space, from which direction (for example maybe from behind a door, though you should be able to see the door open, but not from though a solid brick wall), and how long it would take at reasonable speeds, for a person or object to get to a location that you would both not be able to see it AND hit it.
Before you back into a space, you scan the area that will be covered by your blind spots as you get oriented to the space, so that then you only have to watch the ingress areas to those blind spots in order to not hit anything. Doing that sort of scan before backing into a space is part of the responsibility of driving.
OK, so I pull through the access lane, and I'm ready to back into my parking slot. I stop my car, blocking traffic, and get out and do a walkaround, and I discover that there is a toddler between two vans a couple of parking spaces away, invisible from my drivers seat and I estimate his potential dash speed to be adequate to be in my parking space in 10 seconds. If I hurry, I can jump into my drivers seat, and be nestled snugly in the parking space in 8 seconds. Should I go for it? Or should I call proper authorities, and report this hazard, and wait for them to arrive and clear the area of toddlers, and give me the OK to proceed into the parking space?
This scenario that you are fixated on will rarely occur, though, since about 99% of the parking spaces that I know about, are configured for front-in back-out, so it is backing out of parking spaces that most likely will enter into play.
I don't know if it should be mandatory equipment or not, but I can definitely understand why the proposal is being made. Most people wouldn't be ok with a 15'-30' blind spot in front of them, so why is it ok to have one in reverse?
After getting out and looking behind the car, and down on your hands and knees to inspect underneath, and seeing that nobody has crawled under there, is it possible that a child could get behind your car in the time it takes you to walk back to the door and get in and start your engine and buckle your seat belt and put on your sunglasses, and plug in your cellphone, and turn on your radio and select a channel, and back up? Only if you're stupid, right?
going to extremes aren't we? btw, what radio or cell phone? I have no use for either in a vehicle.And I don't have sunglasses as my glasses change in the sunlight. There are too many things you must be doing before pain attention to driving. Of course if you had a well tuned V8 with nice sounding/performin exhaust,why would you not want to listen to such beautiful music? Driving is serious, and should be treated as such, not full of attention grapping stupidity such as big tv screens of gps that also plays movies and music videos, (these should be banned in vehicles!) and radios really are not a need to drive tool.
I don't know if it should be mandatory equipment or not, but I can definitely understand why the proposal is being made. Most people wouldn't be ok with a 15'-30' blind spot in front of them, so why is it ok to have one in reverse?
yeah the good old day of getting a base model car with roll up windows, rubber floor mats, bench seat, stick shift, manual door locks, no AC, and just a AM/FM radio and 2-speakers are gone.
something like this base F-150 is perfect and will last 300,000 miles and 20 years no problem with basic maintenance and is the neareast thing to getting a base model anything these days.
cars now all come with pretty much everything standard atleast with trucks you can still get basic fleet versions.
Yep, sadly this is true...anymore people want their pick up trucks to also serve double duty as a Cadillac. Trucks are supposed to be utilitarian vehicles, though I can understand having a/c in a truck and maybe power windows.
As for the backing up device, sadly today's society consists of "it's not my fault" so we have to make compromises for stupid people.
yeah the good old day of getting a base model car with roll up windows, rubber floor mats, bench seat, stick shift, manual door locks, no AC, and just a AM/FM radio and 2-speakers are gone.
Last year we bought a 1996 Toyota Tacoma with roll up windows, manual door locks, stick shift, etc. We'd prefer manual locking hubs, but this one has auto locking hubs...
We looked at newer trucks and didn't like them, too complicated.
My 2001 Subaru Outback is a base model with many standard electronic features and it's ok. I wish it had a manual moving drivers seat instead of one with a motor.
I dread getting anything newer and more complicated. Especially those smart keys $$$$.
The reason you get everything as standard is because the competition started offering more standard features at the same base price and the cycle continued.
The reason starts partially because people started paying for a lot of that stuff new, rather than repairing and rebuilding the older cars.
If more folks started doing repairs more often for an extended period of time, we'd probably see the complexity scale-back a little bit.
Just thought of something. Does this mean that idiots with such equipped vehicles holding me up in the left lane can be made to actualy realize they are in the way by pulling within inches of them? Be careful what you wish for!
Just thought of something. Does this mean that idiots with such equipped vehicles holding me up in the left lane can be made to actualy realize they are in the way by pulling within inches of them? Be careful what you wish for!
You can do that anyway, but no. The backup camera only comes on when you're in reverse, although I've heard of some Prius owners who have been able to disable the link to reverse gear, so the camera is on all the time.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Be careful what you wish for!
