It’s a good thing we have the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to keep a watchful eye on us. Without their great concern for our safety we may not have life saving rearview cameras mandatorily installed in our automobiles. Wait… haven’t we been getting along just fine since the invention of the Ford Model T without rearview cameras? I guess that fact is entirely irrelevant to NHTSA since they’ve now trying to make the installation of such cameras mandatory:
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 228 people die and around 17,000 people are injured annually in backover accidents involving cars, trucks and SUVs. What’s worse is that nearly half of the fatalities are children. In 2010, NHTSA proposed a rearview camera mandate for all passenger vehicles, and The New York Times is reporting that the agency will send a final version of the plan to Congress on Wednesday.
If passed, automakers would be required to put rearview cameras in all passenger vehicles by 2014. “Adoption of this proposal would significantly reduce fatalities and injuries caused by backover crashes involving children, persons with disabilities, the elderly and other pedestrians,” NHTSA said in its proposal.
Yup, yet another mandatory expense included in the cost of automobiles. I’m still waiting for the mandatory inclusion of a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device in each automobile that can be activated whenever some punk law enforcement officers wants to know your location.
well, it also only effects newly manufactured cars. There will still be plenty without microstam… I mean, cameras! yes! the cameras…
Give them a few years. First they’ll release a study about how great the rearview cameras have been and then they’ll pass a law making it mandatory that all older vehicles be retrofitted with said cameras.