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You must have quite the impressive neck if you can reproduce the same view a backup camera does.


You can also turn your body a bit as well.


I have tried this before but I have never been able to make the bumper transparent.

The reason this law exists is because small children (e.g 3ft tall) were getting run over.

Seriously, go put a large suitcase immediately behind your rear bumper and try to see it without a camera. You can't.


If you put a child size doll right under the rear wheel, can you see that in the camera? Or under a front wheel, for that matter?

Solve the problem completely or else admit that it's just for twits who can't parallel park.


> Solve the problem completely

That's just simply not how safety engineering works. Safety features mitigate risk, none of them solve it.


That is false. Safety engineering sometimes only mitigates risk, but often reduces it to practically zero, such that people have to be deliberately negligent to prevail in bringing about a safety incident. E.g. elevator holds 15 people, yet 45 somehow jam themselves in as a stunt.

Partial safety mitigation isn't so much how safety engineering works; it's how it ducks out of working due to non-engineering reasons. If any safety issue remains, that means engineering was not done in that regard: the safety engineers were excused from the requirement to design anything for that risk.


Do you believe, that I believed that I could see through the bumper?


No, I believe your flippant answer was made with disregard for the need to do so.


I had a flippant stupid reply. So they got a stupid flippant response.

Typically when you are reversing and there is likely to be something sat behind your vehicle (like a child or a pet). You are parked. You can you know look before you get in the car.

If you have parking sensors it will alert you to something walking behind you anyway.

The point being made is there are way to deal with this without the need for a rear camera.


> Typically when you are reversing and there is likely to be something sat behind your vehicle (like a child or a pet). You are parked. You can you know look before you get in the car.

You can.

And then the kid/pet moves. They do that.


The point being made is that there are ways of mitigating the risk. That for some reason you are other people don't believe can be done at all. This is patently false.

Also just because there is a camera and a screen doesn't mean people will look!


> The point being made is that there are ways of mitigating the risk.

Yes, like a backup camera.

> Also just because there is a camera and a screen doesn't mean people will look!

The number who will is well above zero.

(This critique also applies to your proposed mitigations, yes?)


> Yes, like a backup camera.

Well you've just twisted what I said because you are getting angry. So we will leave it there.


Is a backup camera not a way "of mitigating the risk" when reversing?

Which is easier, installing them in new vehicles, or making a billion drivers undertake remedial training in basic safety?

> you are getting angry

If you say so. I've gotten angry on here, but it takes a lot more than someone who thinks they can see through their bumper.


> Is a backup camera not a way "of mitigating the risk" when reversing?

You knew I was referring to other methods mitigation the risk and decided to get a quick jab in at me. That was disingenuous. I don't appreciate it.

> Which is easier, installing them in new vehicles, or making a billion drivers undertake remedial training in basic safety?

Driver awareness can be done through other means than re-training.

> If you say so. I've gotten angry on here, but it takes a lot more than someone who thinks they can see through their bumper.

I never said that and obviously don't believe that. Funny how at the start of this reply you were pretending you weren't engaging in that behaviour. I wouldn't bother replying, you won't get another one.


You are coming across as weirdly unhinged about this.


> You knew I was referring to other methods mitigation the risk…

Yes, I do. And I'm wondering why this one doesn't count.

> Driver awareness can be done through other means that re-training.

Such as?

(Ironically, the serious answer to this is "stuff like backup cameras". Which improve driver awareness when backing.)

> I never said that and obviously don't believe that.

You: "However the backup camera being required by law is absolutely ridiculous. You can just either use the mirrors or turn your head."

How do you use those two techniques to see things in the blind spot behind the bumper without its being transparent?


Of course, ideally people see the child and do not hit it. When atypical incidents happen, we call them accidents, and when they start happening at rates we find unacceptable we often engineer solutions to make those accidents less likely.

This is why we have seat belts instead of telling people "you idiot you should have used the brakes!"


Don't patronise me. You've done it twice now. I find it extremely irritating.

The point being made is that many of these things can be mitigated by better driver training or driver aids which are much simpler & cheaper (I am likely to fit parking sensors in my older cars, kits are cheap).


> mitigated by better driver training

Oh, well, if it's that easy! Just retrain 1.2 billion people, some of whom still don't know how to tie a shoelace reliably.


> Oh, well, if it's that easy!

They have been mandating that in most UK countries for decades and it is definitely one of the reasons why roads are safer now.

> Some of whom still don't know how to tie a shoelace reliably

Your true colours finally show. All the people are too stupid to learn how to do anything. BTW this is called the "Bigotry of low expectations".


> Your true colours finally show. All the people are too stupid to learn how to do anything.

All? No. Some? Absolutely. Five minutes on the road demonstrates it.


Probably should have had better driver training ;-)


Yes, they should.

If you find out a way to retrain everyone on the road more cost-effectively than a $30 backup camera, do implement it. (Don't forget figuring out how to get people to maintain those skills.)

Until then, I'm glad my car has some safety features that protect me when I get rear-ended in stopped traffic by someone who wasn't paying attention.


> Yes, they should.

So you accept that better driving training would be better.

> If you find out a way to retrain everyone on the road more cost-effectively than a $30 backup camera, do implement it. (Don't forget figuring out how to get people to maintain those skills.)

As time goes on, older people stop driving either they stop driving (they realise they are too old to drive) or they die.

If you implement better driver training. Then newer driver have to do that training. So over the overall minimum standard improves.

A $30 camera is something that doesn't improve the overall minimum driving standard. It is a band-aid over a bigger problem.

> Until then, I'm glad my car has some safety features that protect me when I get rear-ended in stopped traffic by someone who wasn't paying attention.

Crumple zones have been standard in cars for like 30 years now. That rear camera isn't going to help you.


> So you accept that better driving training would be better.

Oh, certainly! But it needn't be exclusive. (And "teach people better" is a lot harder than running a wire to a $30 camera.)

> As time goes on, older people stop driving either they stop driving (they realise they are too old to drive) or they.

They drive far, far too long on average. I'd love to see an annual requirement to pass a driving test over 60, but… old people vote.

> A $30 camera is something that doesn't improve the overall minimum driving standard.

Sure. It improves the "backing up" bit only.

> Crumple zones have been standard in cars for like 30 years now. That rear camera isn't going to help you.

Both are safety mitigations, for different aspects of driving.

I'm glad I can both survive a rear-end crash and being reversed over by someone driving a Hummer with a six foot high blind spot in the back. I don't have to pick one improvement, which is great.


> Oh, certainly! But it needn't be exclusive. (And "teach people better" is a lot harder than running a wire to a $30 camera.)

But earlier you were pretending that it was the case. Interesting.

Do you not remember?

> I'm glad I can both survive a rear-end crash and being reversed over by someone driving a Hummer with a six foot high blind spot in the back. I don't have to pick one improvement, which is great.

Are you saying the mandated camera doesn't stop someone from reversing over you or that the hummer doesn't have the camera, but won't kill you because the camera is mandated by law in other vehicles?

I am not sure what to make of this statement.


> But earlier you were pretending that it was the case. Interesting.

Hardly. Just that "teach people" is tough, expensive, and time consuming. "Install a $30 device" is not. (In your now flagged last-last-last reply to me, you advocated for PSAs. As we all know, they worked great to stop texting while driving!)

> Are you saying the mandated camera doesn't stop someone from reversing over you or that the hummer doesn't have the camera and the hummer won't kill you because the camera is mandated by law.

I'm saying I'm glad the Hummers now have backup cameras, because they sure as shit can't see me with the windows/mirrors.


[flagged]


> No you were pretending that it couldn't be done. You specifically said earlier people were too stupid to learn because many people couldn't tie up their shoelaces.

This remains entirely true. That's part of why it's tough, expensive, and time consuming. People do dumb things. Much of safety is figuring out ways to lessen opportunities to do so, and mitigating damage when they manage it.

See, for example, aviation/medical safety, which take the approach that individuals making mistakes is an indictment of the system that permitted that mistake to occur. We engineer them away, as much as possible, with pretty great success overall.

> I knew that. I thought I deliberately misinterpret the sentence so you would be forced to clarify. You did to me several times in the other thread.

No, I still wanna know how you stop time between checking behind your car and getting in, starting it up, and backing out, so no kid/pet/whatever can run behind it in those 10-15 seconds.




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