The new car I bought a few months ago has all the new bells and whistles that the electronic age has brought to automobile dashboards. In fact you can hardly even adjust the mirrors without electronics.
One of those geatures is the rear-view camera. From my perspective, it's technology for technology's sake. It offers little real value. And, it's often a nuisance. As I start my car and back out of our garage, the sensor system picks up the workbench that sits right in front of the car and starts beeping, while the camera will pick up the garage door - until it goes up high enough - and start beeping. As I back out the camera continues to sound the alarm as it senses (1) the edge of the garage (eek!), (2) the rubber strip on the floor that seals the bottom of the door when it's closed (ack!), (3) the holly bush right outside the door (omigod!), and (4) neighbor's cars parked 30-40 feet away on the other side of my cul-de-sac (yee-ow!).
All these beeps and bleeps are nothing more than distracting. I know those obstacles are there, so mentally I tend to assume that the camera is detecting something else (which it isn't). Over time, it is inevitable that I'll just learn to ignore the beeping, and I'm sure many other people will too. Kids will be no less safe, cars will be more expensive, and we'll be none the wiser.
We old-timers recall when cars had only two brakelights. Then someone did a study and found that rear-end accidents occurred less often when cars were fitted with an experimental third brakelight above or below the center of the rear window. It was evident (to me, anyway) at the time that of course people would tend to notice something they weren't accustomed to. But also that if the third light became common, they'd soon learn to ignore it.
Nevertheless, the government mandated the third brakelight. People learned to ignore it and I have little doubt that a properly defined new study would find that the incidence of rear-enders, corrected for the greater number of cars on the road and other factors, is right back up to where it used to be.
Meanwhile, it's worth noting that the government has been agitating to require backup cameras on new model cars. The requirement has recently been postponed again. That's being interpreted as a victory for the carmakers, but I think it's also a victory for common sense.
Brakelights then, backup cameras now. Not much difference.
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