years ago, my fiancee was backing out of my drive- that house had a very long narrow drive...anyway she was driving a brand new contour demo, backing out caught the hose reel on the side of the house, dinged up the rear bumper...wouldnt have been such a big deal, but they ended up having to paint the whole side of the car and replace the mirror...wasnt a scrape, but more of series of dents every foot or so from sawing the wheel back and forth, I'm pretty certain each dent was a 'stop' point...

asked 'why didnt you just stop?', and...' well I was trying to get away from it'. I still cant help but laugh even thinking about that- she got mad too-"why are you laughing?"
umm because IT WASNT FREAKING MOVING!!!

we still got married.

she did learn to use her mirrors.

I still wont let her back my cars up, and stand far away if she tries to back hers, 'just in case'

 

I completely agree here. At school I back into my spot daily, and last year I always had a pull through spot so I'd always pull out into the aisle instead of back in. It's a high school parking lot, and amazingly, it's no worse than a gas station or any other place (GASP! High schoolers don't suck at driving, EVERYONE who doesn't pay attention does).

That being said, backing up a regular cab truck is easy as hell compared to a SN95 or even a new Escape. Rearward visibility in everything is terrible now a days

 

Yep....maybe if we were still actually teaching people how to drive.....
Some silly dolt here proposed raising the age to get a DL to 18.......THAT's what I want, a bunch of kid going of to college and the military that have never driven before........if practice makes perfect, how come we don't re-institute driver's education and let kids get their permits at 14, giving them a couple of years under adult supervision before cutting them loose on the world?

 

Let me outline the driver's test I took at 16 for further criticizing.

1. Drive car through parking lot, around to back of building.
2. Complete 3 point turn
3. Pull into parking spot marked by 4 cones. Hit a cone, you fail. You could easily put an F250 in this spot
4. Leave parking lot
5. Drive around a neighborhood block with 25mph speed limit and stop signs.
6. Return to parking lot, pick up license.

 

Don't see what the problem you'd have with this.

The principle is simple; if you don't have the driving skill to back into an empty spot with no traffic in it, you shouldn't be backing out of a spot into traffic. The "back in, pull out" principle is all about what we call in the aviation field "situational awareness". It's the same as looking up the street to get a picture of what the traffic is doing instead of looking only looking 100' past your hood. When you are driving by the spot before you pull in, you are looking for obstacles in the spot, pedestrians walking around the area of the spot as well as traffic. You get a better awareness of what you are putting your car into where when you are backing out into traffic your awareness is limited.

The fact that some people just suck at driving doesn't make it any less sound of a principle.

Reality is that some people are just bad drivers. These people will be the very same ones that will fixate on the RV camera and pull out onto a busy street because their pea-brain can't get their empty cranium to pivot on its axis and actually take a look where their car is going. What people also really need to do is a walkaround before getting in their car and making sure there are no kids playing behind it. Hell, you may even notice that flat tire before you get on the highway. It's all about "good driving practise".

 

Ah the good ol' Spartan method of driver's education.

 

+1 on backing in. There is a reason us valets back in and pull out. A lot safer in a busy parking lot.
Also, even if it does become more affordable due to mass production, the cameras will increase cost and weight of our cars. That said, I don't think it is a terrible idea, but I likely would put a back up camera on my car anyway. Today's cars do have far worse rearward visibility than yesteryear's, take it from someone who has driven most anything that has graced the road in the last 20 years.

 

I wouldn't really worry about a few ounces of extra weight. There is plenty of extra stuff that weigh more than the camera. Cost will likely go down since more of them will be made and all in all, the camera isn't all that costly anymore, maybe $250 and that's old aftermarket price.

 

Just slap a warning beeper on the thing.

 

sounds more like someone in video camera manufacturing has a friend in the NHTSA

 

 

While I am agaainst this on principal, just like TPMS, I can see it being useful in some vehicles, particularly minivans, vans, SUV's, large trucks, and similar vehicles with poor rear visibility. Back when I was driving a large work truck (Ford Super Duty with a large closed box on the back) I backed up and missed that there was a Pontiac Grand Prix directly behind me, as I only had side mirrors. Witnesses said I pushed the car about six feet even though they had their brakes on, and I didn't even feel it.

If a small to medium sized vehicle, like a Mustang for instance, isn't designed so poorly to make rear visibility a huge issue with the standard three mirrors, I see no need to add the additional cost and complexity of a camera and viewing screen. If a person with most vehicles with decent rearward visibility can't use their mirrors properly when backing up, they aren't likely to do much better with a camera in back (how are you going to force them to actually look at the screen?).

 

uh...retnal recognition?????

 

As an option, I have no problem with this. But requiring people to purchase something they may never use is absurd. I rarely back up, as there is no reason to. Lots of space out here, even when we go to the mall. I have never in 6000+ miles hit the skip shift either.

It really is the principle of the thing. How many more "nanny" gadgets are we going to be required to live with.

We really need to toughen the requirements for getting a license. No, I have no problem with teenagers (out here age 14) being licensed, just the lack of training that is required to get the license.

 

Back up cameras aren't about training or the nanny state. No matter how good a driver you are, there is a blind spot behind every car/truck. Go read some of the accounts of children being accidentally backed over, many of the drivers had good records, had checked their mirrors, and were sure there was nothing behind them. They are mandating this for the same reason seatbelts, airbags, and crash standards are mandatory: because there's no way to make sure all the bad drivers or all those destined to one day be in an accident check the option box.

 

Huh, I suppose this isn't that bad. It'd make me lazy, though, that's for sure. I'd have to try hard not to rely on it.

 

yeah I dont see the big deal either. They don't even cost that much as an option, they'll be even cheaper if ever car has to have them....

 

There is nothing bad with added visibility. Whether or not we feel we can drive just as well without seeing as much, we still are all safer if we see more as we are backing up. Compared with all of the other things that will jack the price up, this is a minor issue adding a back up camera.

 

I would have ordered my '11 with the rearview camera, but it was not an option on the 300A package (just the premium models). I've driven just about every possible kind of Ford in my 12 years working at a dealership, and I consider myself a much-better-than-average driver. I think the rearview camera is great. I prefer it in the rearview mirror as opposed to looking downward to a nav screen in the dash, but those work well, too.

A few years ago, we had a customer back up over her own niece (a toddler) and kill her. She was freaked out to ever want to drive again, so the owner of our dealership paid to have a rearview camera installed in her SUV so that she could feel confident backing up again. Sure, it didn't bring back her loved one, but it helped her overcome some of her grief knowing that it would never happen again.

I turn off most of the safety nannies in my car (traction control and advancetrac), but some are keepers, IMO: ABS brakes, rearview cameras, TPMS, failsafe cooling, etc.

 

Wow, I am so sorry for her loss. When I lived in Texas many years ago, a friend of our family backed over a box that was sitting in his driveway. It turned out that his grandson was playing in it. Even though this must have been a good 25 years ago, I still have never forgotten that. In that case, the backup camera would not have helped because he did see the box, just not his grandson inside. I ordered the backup camera and reverse sensors (Overkill, but with what I was getting, it was not much more). When my mom gets her mustang in the summer, I will either make sure that a backup camera is in it when I buy it, or it will be her first mod. My 2011 Sienna has one, and it really is worth it.