Discussion»Questions»Science and Technology» Why don't they just go ahead and put cameras in all new cars? Dashcams, rear cams and all that? It's going to happen anyway.
I think you're right; it will happen eventually so why not now? I'm sure that expense is what holds them back now, but like seat belts, power steering, air bags, anti-lock brakes, safety glass, for instance, cameras might soon be on the list of options or standard equipment. ~
Screw that. There is already too much gadget crap packed into cars that makes them way too expensive for the actual quality of build and performance. Just another thing to tack on another grand on an over priced POS packed with stupid gadgets and electronics.
Actually, the automobile industry is one of the most brutally competitive businesses on the planet.
Car companies have to invest BILLIONS of dollars developing new models with lead times of 3-4 years, not knowing what petroleum prices or consumer tastes will do while they are engineering their planned models to acceptable standards.
Mazda has a 5% attrition rate built into its corporate planning. In other words, it tries to produce the same number of cars or more as the previous year, using only 95% of the employee base it used the year before (most of the employee losses are due to retirement or employees voluntarily leaving).
That's why NHTSA phased in the rear view camera requirement over 4 years instead of requiring compliance immediately (or by the next model year) when the rule was issued.
That's all fine and true, but has no bearing on this.
Still making it mandatory is stupid and just serves to cost the consumer more money down the line for something they don't need. Next a functioning rear view will part of inspection adding more mandatory repair cost. Yay progress.
@Glis -- How do you value the 200 people killed and 14,000 people injured each year by backover accidents?
If mandatory backup cameras save 50% of those (say 100 deaths and 7,000 injuries per year) at an approximate cost of $400 million per year ($40 per car X about 10 million cars sold per year), might it be worth the cost? There is also a substantial amount of body damage which will be spared because drivers will be able to see how close they are getting to the car behind them in parallel parking situations (instead of "parking by Braille" as is common now).
I don't know with certainty that NHTSA has done a cost-benefit analysis, but it's pretty certain that you have not. Perhaps you should consider at least taking a stab at it.
Recently, my 85-year-old mother fell and broke her right femoral neck (the most common kind of "broken hip" injury). She had s surgery to replace the top of her femur with an artificial appliance. She then fell again, dislocated the appliance, and loosened the appliance attachment to the femur (requiring a second surgery to repair). The survial rate of people in my mother's situation is about 50% after one year.
Despite that, my mother's health insurance paid about $120,000 in surgery, hospitalization, and rehabilitation costs. On top of which, my mother had to pay about $30,000 for additional care services. My siblings and I spent about an additional $20,000 in transportation costs, lodging costs, opportunity cost from lost wages, etc.
People dying and being injured is NOT cost-free and if you're going to hide behind the old Stalin line that "200 deaths and 14,000 injured is just a statistic"...well, that doesn't speak well to your sense of justice or fairness.
Let's attach a $1 million figure to each of those 100 deaths. Let's attach a $100k figure to half of the 3500 injuries possibly prevented by backup cameras (round up to 1800 to make the math easier).
The $400 million investment is being paid back in $100 millilon in benefits from prevented deaths and $180 million in prevented injuries. OK, $280 million doesn't produce a positive benefit compared to the $400 million invested, but that's with fairly conservative assumptions and no accounting for the body damage prevented due to backup cameras.
As for your skepticism about the price, I note the NHTSA estimate was $40 - $140 per car. I also recently helped a relative purchase a new Subaru. She selected a 2016 Impreza and one key feature she wanted compared to a somewhat cheaper used 2015 model was the backup camera. The difference in new MSRP between the comparable 2015 and 2016 models? Less than $300.
If my rational analysis of the situation is "stupid", I will still take it any day over your fact-free emotional fulminating.
Randy D 