It’s not supposed to be a replacement for watching behind you, it’s just another angle to check, and one that was impossible to check before - directly behind you.
I am much more confident when in reverse now, and that’s wonderful. I do have poor spatial awareness when backing out, and trust me, it’s not something you can practice - my brain doesn’t work very well in that area. Having the camera lets me back into a space if I need to, which before would have taken me 5 minutes and given me a panic attack. Ditto for backing down a long narrow driveway or backing out onto a busy road. It’s wonderful.
I have a 2008 Prius that came standard with the backup cam. I’ve got the car in the shop for some body work and have a rental 2013 Chevy Cruze which does not have a backup cam. Here’s the thing, we have a narrow driveway due to this winter’s snow fall and the boulevard has pile of white mess 5 feet high. With mirrors, I can see directly behind me in both cars. With the Prius, the backup cam with its slight fisheye curved lens allows me to see more and from a better angle too-4 feet further behind me.
When backing up I always turn my head around and look with my eyes at what is behind me and peripherally off to or approaching the sides.
I would never trust the backup camera to do this. If a kid/car/dog/baby stroller etc. is going down the street behind me I am not going to see it in the camera until it is too late.
But the backup camera is not completely useless. I think it is good for:
A quick glance to double check no small kid is playing down low and out of view from the windows.
Confidently backing up a far as possible to clear tight parking alleys.
Entertaining the small children in the back seat who watch it far more intently that I do.
I’m only going to point this out because I’ve seen you make a number of similar threads on topics like these, but your previous posts didn’t give this impression, like the one here.
Your situation may not be favorable or ideal, but your habits are increasing the chances of causing a crash, which now endangers others. But this behavior seems to be consistent elsewhere, too.
From a similar thread on blind spot monitors:
It really does sound like you’re creating excuses to drive the way you want to.
The backup camera on my 2010 Ford Escape pops up in a little square on the near end of my rearview mirror, so consulting the camera does not require me to look anywhere that I wouldn’t otherwise be looking anyway. It shows fixed sight lines to help me judge distance, and it also beeps if I get too close to something, so I don’t really have to pay more than cursory visual attention anyway. It sounds like other manufacturers might benefit from adopting some of these features.
It seems to me that the backup camera would either prevent a collision or it wouldn’t; i.e., some people still get hit like they would if there were no camera, and some walk away uninjured. I don’t see how the camera leads to a class of incidents where the camera prevents someone from being killed, but still permits enough of a collision to cause serious injury.
A fact that I’m well aware of and constantly bemoan. Wagons are dead because consumers prefer SUVs. As a wagon lover, I now blame all SUV buyers for ruining it for the rest of us.
I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s no excuse for a lack situational awareness.
It’s true that the EF Civic isn’t a viable option anymore, but there’s a vast gulf in visibility between a Yaris and a Sienna. You can see a toddler standing behind a Yaris or a Corolla a few feet away, the same isn’t true for the Sienna (or Highlander, or Rav4, or Venza, or 4Runner, just to pick on Toyota). The camera isn’t there as a replacement for mirrors and head turning, but simply to provide visibility to a blind spot which is now much larger than it used to be in the past thanks in small part to crash standards, and large part to consumer preference.
It’s the responsibility of owners of new cars with large blind spots to learn how to safely use this new technology. Now, if there’s some study that shows that backup cameras don’t save lives, that’d be one thing, but I haven’t seen anything like that. If it’s just your anecdote that you don’t like using it, or that you’re incapable of using it effectively, that’s much less persuasive.
Even if you’re looking backwards, there are blind spots down below that you can’t see. There could be obstructions, pets, kids, etc. If they have to have a backup camera, put it on the back window. I think having it on the dashboard makes things more dangerous.
For those 294 people killed, would a dashboard image have helped? What were those drivers doing? Why weren’t the people visible to the driver? My hunch is that the drivers were acting irresponsibly and the camera wouldn’t have made all that much difference. The exceptions would be if there were kids or something playing behind the car where even a responsible driver wouldn’t have seen them.
No computers to fry when an EMP hits, no $5-zillion catalytic-converter donation to Midnight Auto Parts, no $150 fee to plug into a computer scanner because the gas cap isn’t tight, no need for a TV station in the back bumper — a REAL back bumper — smf an iron block, an iron head and two-tone.
Your '53 Pontiac was a deathtrap compared to modern cars. Steering columns weren’t crushable - have fun literally being impaled in a head-on collision.
Also, having a rigid steel body is not a good thing. The energy/force from an impact will travel. If you have steel - a metal that will not absorb that energy - that force is going to keep going … Transferring to a much more absorbent, squishy human. Crumple zones et al may look like shit after it’s hit, but that’s because it’s doing its damn job: absorbing force before it travels to you.
I would much rather have dash cameras be standard equipment on all cars. It probably wouldn’t prevent any collisions, but at least we’d have clearer evidence of what happened.
Plus, I would just a like a record of all the dumb shit I see people do on the road on a daily basis, but I suppose I could just buy and install a dash cam myself.
Sorry, then you should NOT be driving. Sucks, but you are now driving while impaired, just as bad as if you were major sleepy or on drink or drugs. If you can not manage to turn your head, you are now a hazard. I hate to tell this to someone on a board I inhabit, but you hit me in an accident and it turns out it is because you couldn’t turn your head, I will sue your ass for as much as I need to support me in my injured and disabled state.
Christ on a freaking crutch, how frequently do we bitch on this board about idiot drivers doing something that prevents them from seeing and driving their vehicles?
That one IS quite annoying. I have a feeling that it’s a trick to drive up demand for voice-commanded vehicle systems. (“Siri, turn on defrost mode and line up my unlistened podcasts from last weet until today”)
My only experience with backup cameras (I own a 2009 midrange model, it was a pricey option at the time) have been rentals in the last few years, and the main use I’ve given them is for back-in parking of unfamiliar cars in unfamiliar lots, or for tight parallel parking of said unfamiliar car (so I can check if I actually fit and am not hitting some object), as it takes me a goodly time to get a good feel for where the “new” car begins and ends; but even then I still work mostly with mirrors and turning to look whether or not the car has the camera, I mostly go to it if I don’t have a clear LOS to whether I’m too close. (And by doing back-in parking, that means pulling OUT of the spot I will be moving forward and have a much better range of visibility; I try to do it if circumstances allow it).
