

This spans cars, SUVs, trucks and vans





Source: NHTSA

Comments     Threshold


RE: Another stupid law
By BioHazardous on 3/31/2014 5:46:53 PM , Rating: 3
I agree, I have one, and it seems pretty useless. I do much better looking around like I'm supposed to. Staring at the backup camera screen limits the ability to really see what you're doing when backing up, especially in crowded parking lots. Also if I set my screen to dim because I was driving the night before, the backup camera then the next day is dim in broad day light when I get in the car to backup (impossible to see). Yeah I could adjust it back, but I don't look down until I'm in reverse, and I can't change the setting when the backup camera screen is on. Overall, I find it not helpful when backing up.

RE: Another stupid law
By Jeffk464 on 3/31/2014 6:22:21 PM , Rating: 3
They are super convenient when backing up into a spot even if you are not worried about the safety factor.

RE: Another stupid law
By Samus on 4/1/2014 4:48:03 AM , Rating: 2
I forgot to point that out I my previous post. Even though my new truck doesn't have backup sensors, the camera has prevented me from ever tapping a car when parallel parking. I'd say I love-bumped 2-3 times a year in my last truck, but almost never in my old Focus. No real excuse in a car that small.

RE: Another stupid law
By Mint on 4/1/2014 6:01:06 AM , Rating: 1
I wouldn't be surprised if the non-human damage toll alone will pay for the cost of the cameras. How many times do you think the average driver does some minor damage (to either car) when backing up over the lifetime of a car? 10 times? 50?

If they don't notice, think damage was there before the tap, or are just plain uncourteous, there won't even be any note left behind. Same with minor damage that isn't worth your time to pursue compensation. I once noticed my car had a faint crease in the plastic bumper when washing it, clearly because somebody bumped me. A month later, the paint started peeling from there.

Even if a third of these fender-benders get avoided, it should dwarf the <$50 needed to implement this in a car.

RE: Another stupid law
By Reclaimer77 on 4/1/2014 9:15:22 AM , Rating: 1

Can you prove it will cost less than $50 to put these in all vehicles? Stop with the absurdly unrealistic biased estimates. Nothing you're saying in this entire post is backed by any objective or verified facts.

And, again, the issue isn't whether or not these cameras are of some benefit. The issue is the Federal Government mandating them as standard equipment in all vehicles. That should up to us as a society and the free market to decide!

This is a perfect example of your Liberal wishy-washy belief system. You scream "free market!!" when Tesla want's to direct sell it's vehicles, but you think backup cameras should be mandated equipment. You either believe in a free market or don't, which is it?

RE: Another stupid law
By Jeffk464 on 4/1/2014 11:39:55 AM , Rating: 1
Liberals don't necessarily pass more laws that restrict your behavior. Which states are legalizing the marijuana, conservative or liberal? Conservatives are normally the ones trying to use the penal code to enforce their version of morality on everybody else.

RE: Another stupid law
By rountad on 4/1/2014 11:42:39 AM , Rating: 2
Can we agree that they are both awful?

The default state should be freedom, not a constantly expanding government...

RE: Another stupid law
By Reclaimer77 on 4/1/2014 12:59:25 PM , Rating: 2

Thank you!

The argument is hardly ever about that, sadly. It seems to be about which side can "better" manage a monstrously overpowered and invasive Government.

RE: Another stupid law
By Jeffk464 on 4/1/2014 5:52:40 PM , Rating: 2
Rountad, you got my vote on that one

RE: Another stupid law
By FITCamaro on 4/1/2014 12:32:54 PM , Rating: 1
Every penal code is the imposition of someone's morality on everyone. The question is who's. Our founders created this country exactly for the purpose of having a limited federal government handling national matters (defense, borders, international relations) and everything else left to the states for the people in them to decide what is best. That includes the penal code.

Man I wish we had a time machine so I could send you back to 1790 when to live in a state meant that your tax dollars were going towards the state's sponsored religion. Not mandatory belief, but mandatory support. Why? Because the Constitution allows for states to decide if they want to support a religion while not forcing belief in it.

It is secular morality which has allowed for the murder of over 70 million children in the past ~40 years in the United States alone. So excuse me if I believe in holding citizens accountable to a higher law than one that men can change like the fleeting wind. And if people disagree, they can move to another state. And if by some great act of God and all the states disagree with you, you can always leave the country as well or petition to create a new state.

RE: Another stupid law
By FITCamaro on 4/1/2014 1:19:17 PM , Rating: 2
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labour to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens.” – George Washington, Farewell Address (note that Washington is actually going so far as to say that if an individual attempted to separate religion and morality from politics, he could not be called an American Patriot)



"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” – John Jay12 Oct, 1816 First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Member of Continental Congress

“Why is it, Friends and Fellow Citizens, that you are here assembled? Why is it, that, entering upon the sixty-second year of our national existence, you have honored with an invitation to address you from this place, a fellow citizen of a former age, bearing in the records of his memory, the warm and vivid affections which attached him, at the distance of a full half century, to your town, and to your forefathers, then the cherished associates of his youthful days? Why is it that, next to the birth day of the Savior of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day?—And why is it that, among the swarming myriads of our population, thousands and tens of thousands among us, abstaining, under the dictate of religious principle, from the commemoration of that birth-day of Him, who brought life and immortality to light, yet unite with all their brethren of this community, year after year, in celebrating this the birthday of the nation? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon the earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity, and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfilment of the prophecies, announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Savior and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets six hundred years before?” – John Quincy Adams 4th of July Speech 1837

“He is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down on profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not to call him an enemy to his country.”- John Witherspoon

“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed … No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.- Noah Webster, Preface Noah Webster Dictionary, 1828

“I verily believe Christianity necessary to the support of civil society. One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law … There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying its foundations.”- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Harvard Speech, 1829

But we weren't founded as a nation that, while not trying to mandate belief, was set on Christian principles.....right.....

RE: Another stupid law
By Reflex on 4/1/2014 3:58:18 PM , Rating: 2
Nope, we weren't, and two centuries of law have demonstrated that.

Also, your understanding of history and the founders is fairly...incomplete. The express purpose of the country was not to have a small central government. It was to have a moderate central government with divided powers. There was a huge amount of debate between both sides of the argument over sides and scope, with Jefferson and Hamilton on opposing sides. Neither side 'won' that debate, and both shaped the future of the nation equally.

RE: Another stupid law
By FITCamaro on 4/2/2014 7:49:27 AM , Rating: 2
One only has to look at the STATED powers that the government was given to see that it was to be small and limited. Not the unlimited, endless, authoritarian powers that liberals today try to extract out of things that are taken so far out of context, they might as well take the Constitution out of National Archives and shred it.

RE: Another stupid law
By Jeffk464 on 4/1/2014 6:09:53 PM , Rating: 2

Really, because by and large the Japanese aren't really religious but they are about the best behaved society on the planet. How do you explain that?

RE: Another stupid law
By Reclaimer77 on 4/1/2014 6:36:33 PM , Rating: 2
I'm not entering the whole religious debate, but what you just said was pretty stupid.

First off, that's a stereotype. Secondly the Japanese are deeply spiritual people.

RE: Another stupid law
By Samus on 4/1/2014 10:11:53 PM , Rating: 2
Reclaimer, considering most cars now have screens, we're talking a 720x480 iR camera. Weather-proof models cost about $10 in bulk.

I'd be shocked if it cost anywhere near $50 to implement these during assembly. The camera usually runs off the reverse-light circuit (where it gets power) and the video feed is an RCA cable (single wire) in the accessory harness. The camera, gasket, and wiring probably costs manufactures $20.

Vehicles without a screen usually implement it inside the rearview mirror. Those mirrors from Gentex cost around $100 in bulk, or $200 MSRP. But again, many vehicles just use the infotainment screen they already have.

RE: Another stupid law
By hughlle on 4/1/2014 5:58:02 AM , Rating: 3
Myself, i just learnt to drive.

RE: Another stupid law
By FITCamaro on 4/1/2014 12:17:03 PM , Rating: 2
Convenience shouldn't be mandated by the government.

RE: Another stupid law
By boeush on 3/31/2014 10:10:06 PM , Rating: 2
The cameras would be more useful if they also provided audible warning for any obstruction in the path of your car -- similar to the radar or sonar based systems. This could be enabled with a stereo camera (that has depth information over its field of view). Probably total cost wouldn't be all that much higher...

RE: Another stupid law
By boeush on 3/31/2014 11:11:40 PM , Rating: 2
Come to think of it, such systems could even auto-apply the brakes (when the car is in reverse-drive mode) if they detect that the rear bumper is about to make contact with something...

That way, the whole driver inattentiveness issue and/or reaction lag won't matter much anymore.

By 2020 or so, systems like that ought to cost (in terms of BOM) about as much as a used computer mouse today...

RE: Another stupid law
By FITCamaro on 4/1/2014 12:41:33 PM , Rating: 2
Perhaps in terms of hardware yes. But software is where the expensive part comes in.

RE: Another stupid law
By toffty on 4/1/2014 5:16:41 PM , Rating: 2
The cost of developing the software can be spread across all cars from a manufacturer over many years so even if the development is expensive, the final cost to the customer is very small. So the key is the hardware’s cost, not the software’s.

