this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
754 points (98.0% liked)
Technology
58137 readers
5630 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Blindly backing up in the dark is how you hit/run over things. Back up lights are supposed to provide enough light so you can see where you're going.
Well, I will concede. I was certain I read a NHTSA interpretation denying this purpose, but the definition in FMVSS specifically states the purpose to "illuminate the road to the rear".
But, there's nothing in the regulation specifying how this is supposed to work (except the brightness of the lamp), and there's no maximum height for the mounting location like the other lamps.
Exactly, we left it mostly up to the manufacturers and they've kind of abused that freedom and made them kind of shit for their intended purpose.
Now in the modern era, with backup cameras being standard equipment on new cars, you can maybe make an argument for them being a little redundant since most if not all backup cameras have some night vision capabilities, but a little redundancy isn't a bad thing, if your camera gets fucked up you still probably want to see where you're going when you're backing out of your driveway to get it fixed.