From the "Duh!" file comes a new report from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS) that concludes that rear cameras help you detect objects better than sensors. IIHS put 111 volunteer drivers in Los Angeles behind the wheel of a 2013 Chevrolet Equinox and had them back up, just as a stationary object—a cutout of an toddler-sized crash test dummy—was placed behind the vehicle without their knowledge. Drivers using the rearview camera alone had the fewest collisions, although 56 percent of them still hit it, while only one out of 16 drivers using parking sensors alone avoided it. When neither technology was used, all of the drivers hit it. Again, duh.
"The sensors might be more useful if they had a larger range and could provide an earlier warning," says David Kidd, an IIHS research scientist and the lead author of both studies. "Even when drivers braked in response to the sensor, few collisions were prevented."
Perhaps most interesting is that drivers using both cameras and sensors did not enjoy compounding benefits. Quite to the contrary, three-quarters of these drivers hit the object. The study suggests that drivers got a false sense of security with the sensors and did not check the cameras as often, and then . . . more fake baby splat.
Certainly, this is no laughing matter to the nearly 300 people who are killed, and 18,000 people injured each year by drivers who back into them, usually in driveways or parking lots, according to the IIHS. The Institute supports efforts to encourage rearview cameras, while at the same time, has also urged the agency to require that new car designs make a certain minimum amount of space around a vehicle directly visible using backward glances and mirrors.
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Now, we could possibly get behind a mandate for rearview cameras in future cars, but we're not exactly down with changing car design forever solely for the sake of rear vision. (Glass trunk, anyone?) Besides, cars will be driving themselves in the not-too-distant future, so this all may be a moot point soon enough. In the meantime, guys, check your mirrors, look over your shoulder, and don't run over grandma.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
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