A study conducted by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS) in the US concluded that rear cameras are more effective than parking sensors at preventing collisions while a driver is in reverse.
The study was conducted with volunteer drivers in a parking lot that had a pole marked with different colored bands to indicate varying heights of children.
The pole was placed at varying points behind the vehicle, with the band representing a 12- to 15-month-old child being the hardest to see.
Even with the pole as far away as 27 feet, this band could not be seen by the drivers using glances and mirrors alone.
Large SUVs fared the worst in the IIHS study, proving to have the biggest blind spots of any of the vehicles tested. However, the Ford F-150 fared well compared with its peers — a product of its large side-view mirrors used for towing.
In addition, the IIHS conducted a second test in which drivers were not told they were involved in a safety test, but merely there to test the infotainment system.
The drivers were asked to back the vehicles up and drive to their personal vehicles, but a foam dummy representing a child was placed behind them — sometimes moving and sometimes stationary.
The test showed that a moving dummy was easier to spot, but when the vehicle lacked either sensors or cameras, the drivers hit the stationary target every time.
An estimated 292 people are killed and 18,000 injured each year by drivers that back into them, an IIHS study said.
Rear cameras reduce the blind spots that lead to such collisions by up to 90 percent.
Rear cameras better than sensors in reverse safety
