U.S. Plans Rearview Camera Mandate, Starting In 2016
On March 31, the U.S. Department of Transportation finalized a set of federal standards for rear visibility that will require all new vehicles under 10,000 pounds to have backup cameras by mid-2018. Congress called for the rules in 2008 after a spate of accidents in which parents driving cars or trucks backed over their young children, killing them. The DOT proposed regulations in 2010 to carry out these orders, but the Obama administration delayed the rules several times over cost concerns.
The final rule was released one day before the administration was scheduled to defend itself in federal circuit court against safety advocates who had sued the government over the delays. The rules will phase in over several years. Automakers will be required to have compliant rearview systems in ten percent of the vehicles they build from May 1, 2016, to May 1, 2017. That share rises to 40 percent for the next year and 100 percent starting on May 1, 2018.
That timetable will force automakers to accelerate their adoption of the technology, which has become increasingly popular in luxury cars and high-end trim packages, and as a way to differentiate mass-market cars such as the Honda Civic, which includes a camera as standard equipment.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the main lobbying group for automakers in Washington, said in a statement that the industry has embraced the technology, and offers backup cameras as standard or optional features in two-thirds of the fifty top-selling vehicles in the United States. Despite that, the group opposed a mandate requiring them to make backup cameras standard equipment in every car.
The rules require drivers to be able to see a ten-foot by twenty-foot zone behind a vehicle. A camera system appears to be the only way for automakers to comply with that requirement and separate standards for traits such as "image size."
NHTSA estimates that a full system, including a camera and a display screen, will cost $132 to $142 per vehicle for the 2018 model year. Installing a camera in a vehicle that already has a suitable display screen would cost $43 to $45, the agency says. Because an estimated 73 percent of the new-vehicle fleet would have rearview cameras by 2018, regardless of the standards, NHTSA estimates the total cost of its rule at $546 million to $640 million that year.