Backover Accidents And The Growing Concern For a Rear View Camera Rule

Any experienced team of Los Angeles injury attorneys has probably had to deal with the implications and aftermath of a backover accident at some point in their careers. In fact, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2010, 292 people were killed by being backed over by vehicles in the US and over 18,000 people were injured. One simple solution would be to install rear view cameras in all new vehicles.

The NHTSA is seriously looking at bringing in a law that forces manufacturers to fit rear view cameras to all new vehicles manufactured inside of the US by the year 2014 and as a result they suggest that this will drastically cut the number of people killed through backovers each and every year. One would think that this would be the perfect solution to a problem, however a team of Los Angeles injury lawyers aren't at all surprised that there is conflict from the car manufacturers. In fact, the car manufacturers state that the costs to do this are estimated at around 2.7 billion. This is to install devices on over 60 million cars each and every year. Consumer groups also fear that this will increase the price of a new vehicle considerably. Furthermore car manufacturers state that the NHTSA are over regulating the industry making for impossible trading conditions.

As a result an amalgamation of car manufacturers such as car giants, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, General Motors and Toyota and are lobbying against the ruling. They state that rear view cameras are an unnecessary expense and are something that their customers might not even want.

An LA injury attorney states that the reason that the NHTSA is paying particular attention to this problem is that in 2008 a ruling was passed that is known as the 'Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transport Safety Act'. This was named after a child who was accidentally reversed over and killed by his father who at the time was driving an SUV that was not fitted with any rear view camera warning system. This ruling has given the NHTSA a time frame of 3 years to come up with a set of rules or actions which can be put in place in order to reduce the number of people being killed through backover accidents.

The fact of the matter is that rear view cameras are already available as standard on some of the higher end car models so it's not as if they don't exist. However apart from the costly business of standardizing them across all makes and models, the lobbyists believe that developing a 'one size fits all' type of camera will result in problems. The reasons cited are that that the length of the blind spot is different from say an SUV to that of a smaller car such as a sedan.

Many people believe that the car manufacturers have literally been getting away with murder for many years and as recent as a last year, there was a major recall on car safety belts from several of the car giants such as Toyota and Chrysler. It is of the opinion that in many instances the car manufacturers have a good understanding of which types of seat belts are safer than others. But yet, they still choose to fit the belts that have a less than satisfactory safety record because of price considerations. Some government officials state that the car manufacturers should be brought into line and as a result should be held accountable for their actions. Clearly they don't agree and are looking to fight this latest bureaucracy.

An injury attorney Los Angeles explains that it is going to be an interesting couple of years for the car manufacturers and this latest offering by the NHTSA may well only be the start of their campaign to introduce tighter controls on the car manufacturing industry. The manufacturers may not like what is going on in their industry, but they have been kingpins for too long, and maybe they need to start 'manning up' to their responsibilities.