They wanna talk safety.... Something's missing

The gov't wants the car companies to add rear cameras to cars. Now, I'm fine with improving the safety of our cars although some of their mandates are unneeded (TMS) if not stupid. Every time I hear about a new safety changes I wonder why they don't require stainless brake / fuel lines. I've had my share of pedal to the floor incidents and several on vehicles that weren't that old ( (my f150 for one). How many cars out there are about to bleed one of these precious fluids. Go on Craigslist and there's a bunch of cars that have leaking gas tanks and oh I have to have a flubber, do hickey on top of my lawn mower can so the deadly fumes don't escape. Maybe I'm complaining because I have yet another rusted brake line to repair. What say you ?

This is a double post.

Link to the active thread.

I think the government is one big bloated pig that can't stop eating everything and is wallowing in it's own cesspool. But don't get me started.

The annoying thing is that this is needed in part because previous safety standards and mileage demands have reduced rear visibility on newer cars.

This became painfully obvious when helping my father and his girlfriend shop for a new car. She's blind in one eye and due to that, has to have excellent visibility, especially to the rear and so many of the cars have huge rear pillars and small windows and headrests that stick up too high. Even my wife became annoyed while looking at the same cars as potential replacements for her 01 Highlander and found the lack of visibility in quite a few cars and she doesn't have any depth perception issues, just perhaps some height issues to contend with.

After sorting the list of cars/CUVs, they got down to the 500L, the Mazda 3 and the Jetta Wagon. Finally settling on the Jetta wagon.

Considering the lack of driver training that is prevalent in today's society, I suspect this solution will be ignored as most drivers refuse to even properly aim their mirrors, let alone look over their shoulders when changing lanes or backing up. I mean, how many people can even merge successfully? The engineers come up with a new solution to counter the fools and they just keep creating better fools.

In reply to turboswede:

As far as I can tell, the 1967 pick up that we had, I could not see beyond the lift gate. That hasn't changed.

And I seem to remember other cars before I was born that had big bulky pillars, too.

Every car has blind spots, some worse than others. This is a nice way to fix one of those.

It's just one more thing that is required to sell cars in the US. Big deal. BTDT, most new cars have back up cameras already.

rustybugkiller wrote: The gov't wants the car companies to add rear cameras to cars. Now, I'm fine with improving the safety of our cars although some of their mandates are unneeded (TMS) if not stupid. Every time I hear about a new safety changes I wonder why they don't require stainless brake / fuel lines. I've had my share of pedal to the floor incidents and several on vehicles that weren't that old ( (my f150 for one). How many cars out there are about to bleed one of these precious fluids. Go on Craigslist and there's a bunch of cars that have leaking gas tanks and oh I have to have a flubber, do hickey on top of my lawn mower can so the deadly fumes don't escape. Maybe I'm complaining because I have yet another rusted brake line to repair. What say you ?

I can't speak for fuel lines … but stainless steel brake lines aren't the easter egg you think they are … the insides are still rubber (probably the same rubber that OEM lines are) … yes, they do give better feel than old worn out OEM lines ..

but when the rubber starts to fail (and it will, SS not-with-standing) you'll never know until it's too late,

on my TT and a-x car, I just treat the OEM brake lines as a wear item, and change them out every other yr.

as long as the OEM rubber lines are relatively new, there's really not enough difference in feel to be worth the expense (and especially the lack of knowledge of the condition of the rubber inside)

In reply to alfadriver:

Yeah but what if you want a $10,000 base base model versa for A to B transportation, it is now 11,000 dollars. 1/10th of the car is addition of the camera? hell even if its 500 more its quite the hike.

All in all its just another stupid idea where laws are put in place in leu of driver education and personal responsibility.

Generally, I think govt mandates or legislation for specific solutions or technology is pretty myopic - perhaps stifling newer/better technology or as mentioned, an attempt to compensate for a different problem.

It's probably because they're looking at the stats. Brake line blowouts due to rust are probably a lot less common than kids getting backed over by SUVs.

One of the hairiest moments I ever had in racing was when a tie wrap broke and allowed my stainless brake line to rub on the inside edge of the rim. Diving into turn 1 at Daytona at the start of a club race in a pack of about 40 cars, the pedal went to the floor and the back end of an MR2 started getting real big real fast. I squeezed through the tiniest of gaps, went off the outside and bounced through a few hundred feet of grass before getting it stopped, heart pounding.

Dueling Threads!

To me the issue is more that people somehow have come to think of driving a car as something safe to do and cars as safe to be around. When every high school had a favorite someone who died behind the wheel, when everyone had broken down and had to knock on a door to borrow a phone, when dad's tool box lived in the truck and he was damn proud his car had made it to 100k miles without a rebuild, back then no one would have sued because their wad of keys shut the car off after hitting a bump.

Driving is, has been, and always will be dangerous, and the driver is always responsible. Hit a bump, car shut off, got in an accident? Fewer keys, better line, less speed, more following distance, better driving skills, better use of horn and signals, better car maintenance, seat belts, fewer distractions, etc... All could have prevented the accident or minimized it's impact and all are the driver's responsibility.

wbjones wrote:

rustybugkiller wrote: The gov't wants the car companies to add rear cameras to cars. Now, I'm fine with improving the safety of our cars although some of their mandates are unneeded (TMS) if not stupid. Every time I hear about a new safety changes I wonder why they don't require stainless brake / fuel lines. I've had my share of pedal to the floor incidents and several on vehicles that weren't that old ( (my f150 for one). How many cars out there are about to bleed one of these precious fluids. Go on Craigslist and there's a bunch of cars that have leaking gas tanks and oh I have to have a flubber, do hickey on top of my lawn mower can so the deadly fumes don't escape. Maybe I'm complaining because I have yet another rusted brake line to repair. What say you ?

I can't speak for fuel lines … but stainless steel brake lines aren't the easter egg you think they are … the insides are still rubber (probably the same rubber that OEM lines are) … yes, they do give better feel than old worn out OEM lines .. but when the rubber starts to fail (and it will, SS not-with-standing) you'll never know until it's too late on my TT and a-x car, I just treat the OEM brake lines as a wear item, and change them out every other yr. as long as the OEM rubber lines are relatively new, there's really not enough difference in feel to be worth the expense (and especially the lack of knowledge of the condition of the rubber inside)

In the rust belt, the actual steel hardlines that run under the car start to rust out after 10 years or so, then you go for a panic stop and BOOM, half the brakes are gone. Or you bump the now paper thin fuel lines with a wrench and they start leaking.

I'm very much aware about the hard lines … I had to replace the entire brake system (other than booster) on my F150 … I may live in the South (the mountains of the South) but we get lots of salt

as I said, I don't have any knowledge about the fuel lines … guess I should get under the car and look at them