Back up cameras can easily be added aftermarket if wanted. But frankly, many of those older cars had much better rearward vision that anything today.

Sure, but where I live they are mandated by law in every new car.

There's plenty of kids on my street, and I'm much more comfortable knowing everyone has one when backing out of a driveway, and not just the people who bothered to go get one installed aftermarket.

I'd feel more comfortable if we'd raise the standards for the driving test so that only responsible people can drive. For example, the proper way to park is to back into the driveway. You should never be backing from a smaller road or driveway into the larger one. The perk of this is that you do not have to watch for cross traffic while backing up and also looking at a camera, no gear change delay when pulling out, and better visibility into the area you are backing up to due to your approach. This makes it significantly safer for all parties when exiting the driveway.

    I'd feel more comfortable if we'd raise the standards for the driving test so that only responsible people can drive.

That perfect driver doesn't exist. Virtually everyone will eventually drive unsafely when they're sleepy, in a rush, distracted by kids in the backseat, etc.

To give a programming analogy, this is like saying "we can prevent memory safety issues by only allowing good programmers to use C". Everyone makes mistakes.

And all those things exist with a backup camera too. The point isn't about a perfect driver. The point t is that different people find different things comforting. If we think about this logically, a backup camera is only help a very small percentage of driving time at very low speed, for which the number of fatalities is extremely low. On the other hand, increased driver training applies to all driving situations, including the high speed, higher risk scenarios that are linked to more injuries and fatalities.

Fun fact: if you look at the FARS data for 2017 vs 2023, it appears backup cameras have made no difference at all. All the advocacy websites are referring to old NTHSA reports and none of them are using modern datasets.

I mean, sure, of course that'd be great too. If we could raise the standards high enough that there was never any accidents ever, that'd be even better.

But the realistic option that worked immediately was mandating backup cameras.

(I would note that even in a world where everyone backed up into their driveways and parking spots, mandated backup cameras would still be a good thing.)

"But the realistic option that worked immediately was mandating backup cameras."

Citation needed. FARS data shows no decrease in reversing fatalities pre vs post backup cameras.

You're also mischaracterizing my argument. The point is, the current test of 50 questions and a 10 minute drive around the block is a joke of a test. Of course you're not weeding out people who aren't fit to drive with such an easy test.

How we got to whatever your country's driving test is comprised of from me simply saying "I like backup cameras" is wild. You seem to think I've said "with backup cameras, everything is fixed!" which is so disingenuous I don't know where to begin. I think you're just trying to be contrarian for the sake of trolling.

By the way, I don't even know what FARS is. There's no agency by that name that I can think of in my country. Does it collect data on accidents worldwide?

I'm guessing you're from the US. Here's a quote from the NIH.

>"This study indicates that drivers not only attend to an audible warning, but will look at a rear-view camera if available. Evidence suggests that when used appropriately, rear-view cameras can mitigate the occurrence of backing crashes, particularly when paired with an appropriate sensor system."

From the IIHS.

>"Rearview cameras reduced backing crash involvement rates by 17%. Reductions were larger for drivers 70 and older (36%) than for drivers younger than 70 (16%)"

FARS is the fatality tracking system in the US. None of the studies I've seen have shown real world fatality reduction. The studies they do have still list things like inattentive drivers or reckless choices. While small increases in non-fatal, typically low speed accidents is good, it's not really adding to child pedestrian safety. Better driver testing and education will provide the better overall improvement in fatality reduction.

Backup accidents aren't high speed and the rate of fatality is low, why would you use FARS data in this context? Its clear cherry picking.

A kid getting hit by a backing up car causes injuries and concussions, and you saying it doesn't "add to child pedestrian safety" to prevent that because they aren't splattered by these incidents is offensively absurd.

I'm using FARS as it's the best data I found. Do you have other data? Or at least data to show that concussions etc aren't proportionate to the fatality numbers since you are implying those have gone down while fatalities have stayed roughly the same?

But how do you want to test for this? Lots of bad drivers are not bad because they can’t drive well, they just don’t give a shit. They would pass the test with flying colors and go back to driving like there is no tomorrow.

The assumption you have is that it's mostly a physical ability test. In many cases people don't know the rules or the reasons behind them. Right now, it's something like a 50 question test and you only need to get get 75% right. If you don't know what the proper procedure is up to a quarter of the time on only a subset of the rules, that leaves huge room for errors. I see it all the time with people passing on the shoulder and changing lanes in an intersection. These are high risk illegal activities that many people don't even know aren't legal because everyone else does it and cops rarely enforce it. I have yet to meet a person who doesn't give a shit about getting into an accident. Those people are more likely uninformed and overly cocky.

We must have driven very different cars. Rear visibility has always been terrible, and rear cameras are a god send.

Compare an 80s Caprice, 80s Nova, and similar to any car today, and I think you will clearly see the rear visibility today is much worse.

There were some cars with better visibility. I would question the caprice being one, but generally smaller cars did have better visibility. Such that something like a Kia Soul has ok visibility. Still is absolutely nothing compared to using the backup camera. And the side mirror blind spot detectors are pretty awesome. On all cars.

The backup camera has limited field of view and most require you in a heads down position. This is not helpful for maintaining awareness of your surroundings. It will not help you see a bicyclist speeding by. The blind spot detectors can fail and lead to a false sense of safety, especially on multilateral roads.

Show me the FARS data that supports these as actually saving lives.

Are you trolling? The FARS data does call out the same concerns you list, but in a "we can do even better" way. The fatality and accident numbers have absolutely gone down with backup cameras.

This reminds me of when my father would try to argue that seat belts make people worse drivers. There is a logic to what you are saying. But it doesn't pan out with the data.

Show me the data. FARS rear impact pedestrian fatalities for 2017 (before the mandate) was 71. In 2023 (latest data) it was 68. There were still some percentage of backup cameras prior to 2017 so I checked 2006 and the number was 74. If they were really effective I'd expect a much larger drop.

https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/People/PeoplePedestrians.aspx

Your dad's argument about seatbelts is that it will make people worse drivers. My argument is that backup cameras don't reduce fatalities because there are few to begin with, involve low speeds, and the data hasn't show any real improvement.

The point, if you want to save lives, let's start where the biggest savings are. Those are better driving testing and education (I do support these) and breathalyzer interlock devices (support these for offenders, not universal).

There are studies where they compared the same vehicles that show it has reduced the numbers. They can go into the actual calculations for how they got that, if you want to see it.

You seem to be asking why you don't see this directly in the data, with a number going down. But you do realize the the number of drivers and miles driven have both increased in that timeframe, right? Such that, if the safety had remained the same, the number of incidents would have gone up. Pretty much by definition, that means a number remaining the same means something kept it from growing.

How about the number of kids playing outside? If that number goes down, that would affect the results too. Again, if those studies exist to compare results, show me.

Just googling "impact of rear view cameras on car safety" brings up the standard studies. They were modest in impact, but the cohort analysis did show results with nobody rejecting their stats.

A search for those exact words didn't being up studies for me. One of the articles on the first page even talks about the potential dangers. At this point I assume you're teolling swine multiple attempts at asking for studies on real-world data hasn't yielded nothing of value from you. Goodbye.

https://www.aarp.org/auto/driver-safety/dangerous-reliance-c...

Apologies, I assumed you'd have to play with the terms a bit, especially with Google being personalized nowadays. For me, the first result on that search is https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/bibliography/ref/2130, which shows about a 16% reduction in backing crash rates. Which could easily conform to the numbers you were showing, as the number of licensed drivers increased by about the same percent. (I'm assuming miles driven and similar would have grown about the same.)

Reading your link appears to be more fear and caution than data showing things are worse? There is a broken link that ostensibly looks at lane assist and how it can have problems in bad weather. But nothing that says rear view cameras actively cause trouble? Just a fair callout that you shouldn't exclusively rely on them.

Older cars are more likely to be things like coupes, a form factor more or less abandoned today. I know, I used to drive a coupe. Dear God, the rear visibility was the worse out of any car. And the side blind-spots. You'd think a small vehicle would have good side visibility but no, all you get are those tiny little back windows.

But, it was a beauty.

Generally, I think you're right. But there is quite a range even for coupes. I'm sure Porsche can afford to use higher strength steels, but the pillars on a 911 are surprisingly thin: https://h7.alamy.com/comp/B082JF/2008-porsche-911-turbo-in-s...

On the other hand, coupes with rear hatches can be particularly bad: https://www.motortrend.com/uploads/sites/10/2015/11/2004-toy...

Looking at the extremes like the Honda CRZ, it does seem to be a low priority area!