More Big Brother in Your Car: Mandatory Backup Cameras for All Cars

A new federal law may require all care manufacturers to include a backup camera in all cars by 2014. These are those cameras that turn on a dashboard monitor and camera when you put your car in reverse. Of course, considering all this talk of black boxes in cars and other technology that reports to the government your driving habits, what else could cameras on your car be used for?

U.S. auto-safety regulators proposed requiring backup cameras on all new vehicles by 2014 to prevent drivers from backing over pedestrians, a rule that may cost as much as $2.7 billion.

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.

Notice they say it might. It might be safer and then of course you just have another distraction on your car when you put it in drive.