In a case of insane regulatory overreach, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wants to require back up cameras in all new cars.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which published the proposed rule today, said an average of 292 people die each year from back-over accidents, which primarily kill children and the elderly. To equip a new-vehicle fleet of 16.6 million produced in a year would cost from $1.9 billion to $2.7 billion, the agency said in the proposal, calling the cost “substantial” and saying it might reduce back-over deaths and injuries by almost half.
So 146 people MIGHT be saved by spending at least $2 billion.
That’s over $13 million per life that MIGHT be saved.
Or might not.
People get run over because people back up without paying attention. How will a camera make people pay attention?
All that money might not save anyone and even if it did, it’s not worth it.
The federal government is out of control.
I’ll bet we’d see more deaths with the cameras, since people get lazy when they’ve got censors & backup cameras.
A backup camera is a luxury. Seriously, all new cars? We’re gonna put them in brand new $13,000 Kia’s?!
You miss the point that this assumes that ALL of the deaths would have occurred had NEW cars not been equipped with said cameras.
Apparently no one has been backed over with a 1988 Chevy Silverado since 1988.
And the backup camera cost will be inflicted on EVERY new vehicle coming off the line from this day forward, until some day in the not-too-distant future SOMEONE can point to a child’s life having been saved by the backup camera.
And someone else can point to the child whose life WASN’T saved when the driver didn’t bother to use it.
At some point the “Just One Life!” mantra is going to have to go the way of the dodo bird.
Parents could just teach their kids to – you know – not stand behind a car!