Do Rear-View Cameras Really Prevent Backup Crashes?

Wed, 3/28/2018 - 6:53 pm by Kirsten Rincon

Accidents involving a motor vehicle hitting a pedestrian while moving in reverse are common. Usually, these “backover accidents” occur when a vehicle is getting out of a parking spot or exiting a driveway. Toddlers and kids under the age of 5 are the most common victims of these types of accidents. When a driver is backing up trying to get out of a driveway, he/she has difficulties seeing small kids playing behind the car, as they are in the car’s blind zone. While this can happen in all vehicles, blind zones are bigger in bigger vehicles. SUVs, minivans and pickup trucks have the largest blind zones, which is why the vast majority of backover accidents involve some of these large vehicles.

Thousands of People Get Injured in Backover Accidents

Importance of rear-view camerasAccording to the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS), backover accidents result in 292 fatalities and 18,000 injuries annually. Most of these accidents take place at parking lots and driveways, and a small percentage of them occur on public roads. Just like most other accidents, backup crashes are caused by human error, and they can be avoided. Drivers have to make sure there is no one behind their vehicle before they start backing up. When you’re driving, take a look around it and make sure there are no children in your blind zones. 

Backover Accidents Can Be Prevented With Rear-view Cameras

In addition to being extra careful and making sure children are out of the way, there are a couple of devices that can help drivers avoid these accidents. While in the past, parking sensors were thought to be more effective at preventing these types of crashes, a recent study conducted by the IIHS reveals that rear cameras are more helpful to drivers when trying to avoid backover crashes. The institute tested both rear camera and parking sensor systems, with volunteer drivers in an empty parking lot in Los Angeles, and found that cameras are more effective than sensors. What’s more, researchers discovered that cameras work better by themselves than if they are combined with parking sensors.

David Zuby, the IIHS executive vice president and chief research officer, said in a statement: “Right now cameras appear to be the most promising technology for addressing this particularly tragic type of crash, which frequently claims the lives of young children in the driveways of their own homes.”

How Backup Cameras Work

Cameras capture video images of the area behind your car, and the images are displayed on a screen mounted on your car’s dashboard. This way, you can see if there are any objects or pedestrians in your car’s blind zone, which are otherwise impossible to detect. This visibility allows drivers to brake to avoid hitting someone, or something.

Regulations Requiring Backup Cameras in New Vehicles

Over the past few years, a lot of evidence of the effectiveness of backup cameras in preventing backover crashes has come up, and the government decided to enact a law that would mandate that automakers install such devices in all new vehicles, but even though the Department of Transportation proposed the rule back in 2008, and was supposed to go into effect by 2011, it still hasn’t happened, because of the strong opposition from car manufacturers, claiming that it would be too expensive for them. However, many car makers are installing backup cameras in their vehicles, even without a law that requires it, and over 50% of new vehicles today are equipped with these systems.

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