When an individual wants to deny personal responsibility, the taxpayer suffers.

It is not the car designer's fault that no one was watching Cameron Gulbransen when his father backed over him. Your driveway is no place for your two-year-old. It is very sad that this child was killed...but he didn't die because cars aren't designed for the driver to see behind the car at bumper level. The child died because no one was watching him.

Like I said, it's a denial of personal responsibility. Yes, I realize it's hard to accept the fact that you (or your spouse, babysitter or whoever) were careless and it cost a two-year-old his life, but eventually that's what it has to come to.

You don't get to saddle all of consumerdom with excessive, unnecessary and ineffectual expense because you'd rather blame the car than yourself.

But there are plenty of terrible tragedies that befall children each year in America, from accidental drownings to the consumption of poisonous products, and increased regulation could probably decrease the number of deaths caused by a range of products.

This is such a specious argument. I say that because there's no way to calculate how many children didn't die of drinking bleach because of some new regulation. If the numbers dip even slightly, it's seen as proof that the regulation works, even though there's no real way to determine the cause of the decrease (if there even is a cause). If the numbers don't decline, then out come the theoretical children that were saved even though more kids were drinking bleach. And the line that gets trotted out is that if it saves even one life, then it's worth it. I freely admit that what happened to Cameron is tragic, but the article is right that there must be cost-benefit analysis done on these things.

You don't get to saddle all of consumerdom with excessive, unnecessary and ineffectual expense because you'd rather blame the car than yourself.

I've never had a backup camera on my car, and the only thing I've backed into in the past eleven years was my grandparents' LeSabre, which can be seen from space. I even knew the car was parked behind my space in the garage; I just backed out like I always do without thinking. No one's fault but my own, even though it maybe could have been prevented had I, like Mhbear, been looking at a screen on my dash instead of the rearview mirror like I forgot to. I do like the beeping when you get close to something (my dad has a backup camera on his car) because it's handy and doesn't make you look away from your mirrors, but I wouldn't force it on someone.

LEGISLATION that bears the name of a victim of a particular crime or accident is often bad legislation. That's because lawmakers, feeling the pressure of an emotionally-charged constituency, tend to overreact, instituting a broad and aggressive policy in response to a specific, perhaps rare problem.

When I read about the proposed new legislation, I asked myself if there was a sudden rash of people backing over small children that I wasn't previously aware of. Because of all the tragedies that are the result of cars, I would have to think accidentally backing over a kid ranks very, very low in frequency. Not to give anyone bad legislation ideas, but a law that requires ignition interlocks for everyone would probably save more lives. But that's so common as to be comparatively unremarkable, even though there are more tragic stories that come from drunk driving. Uniqueness does not necessarily good public policy make.

"...increased regulation could probably decrease the number of deaths..."

The job of the government is to evaluate that statement - to put some hard numbers to it. Cost/benefit analysis. What is a human life worth? When you have that number, then you can weigh the cost of regulation against the likely gain.

Yes, one can - indeed, must - put a number to the value of a human life.

Let's take a shot at it: Median US wage $35000/year. Working lifetime 20-65. Without discounting for net-present value, we get a median lifetime earnings of about $1.5 million. The typical accidental death will occur somewhere in the middle of this, so say $1 million in lost productivity. Multiply by three, to account for the general upheaval and emotional distress caused by an accidental death, and we we could say that preventing an accidental death is worth $3 million in costs.

How does this play out? Fr the rear-view cameras, if they actually would prevent 100 deaths/year, they would be worth $300 million in annual costs. This legislation fails by a huge margin.

In another context: what is TSA worth? $6 billion in direct costs. Does the TSA save 2000 people every year? Not even close? Then it should be eliminated.

It may seem cold-blooded, but this is how the government ought to evaluate legislation. Your life is infinitely valuable to you, and mine to me. But to society as a whole, we are nothing special.

What happened to this kid WAS NOT a tragedy. It was life. He would have died sooner or later anyway.

Was it horrible for his parents? Most definatly, but it was a net gain for society - children of such careless, self centred, and delusional people more often then not grow uo to be just as bad a citizen as their parents.

Given the leangths these folk went to cast the blame for their own inatention on everyone but themselves leaves little doubt their kid would have turned out the same.

Mankind has few effective predators, none of them habitual - the only thing killing us off aside from old age is our own stupidity and freak accidents(most accident being able to be traced back to someone's stupidity)

C'est la vie

And we must also consider the fact that adding safety features to automobiles causes us take more risk. This might largely cancel any benefit that rear cameras could provide.

How about a fast-spreading virus that forces you to check behind your car before you back it up?

Or mandatory castration if you accidentally kill your kid(s)?

So if you try to idiot-proof everything, you end up with more idiots. Go figure.

This is all part of the general innumeracy and stupidity in this country proving yet again, along with the imaginary danger to other people from unseatbelted infants in an airplane, that most people cannot realistically calculate risk.

Goodness, I haven't time to read through all of the comments, but this is similar to legislation Amy Klobuchar pushed through in Minnesota. Klobuchar's though was tailored to regulate drain covers in pools, because of a freak accident involving a young girl. It was a horrific accident, no denying that, the girl's intestines were basically sucked out of her bottom and she died later after several surgeries. Minnesota has a severe budget deficit as well and is historically known as a welfare state, so for Ms. Klobuchar to be able to tie her pathetic name to the unnecessary legislation regarding pool drain covers should totally be heralded, non?! I'll answer, NO! Good question though, how many lives have been saved by the newly regulated pool drain covers?? Hmmm ...

Typical politician thinking. "Fix" the car, not the driver. We've dumbed down licensing requirements in this country to the point that a moderately intelligent monkey could get a driver's license.

When I lived in Florida, Governor Bob Graham signed a law removing the parallel parking test from the licensing requirement, because "no one parallel parks anymore."

Huh? I could go down the street in front of the capitol building (in clear view of the governor's office) in Tallahassee and see dozens of cars parallel parked. On the narrower streets of downtown, it was the only way to park.

He also eliminated the inspection process. So, within a short time Florida roads were full of incompetent drivers behind the wheel of one-eyed bandits with bad brakes and bald tires.

As a parent, these stupid regulations drive me nuts. Side drop cribs? Off the market because 2 kids died in these cribs. Out of the millions who have used them. Walkers? Can't buy 'em, because a few stupid parents let their kids wander in them and the kids fell down stairs. Remember as a kid the mittens-on-a-string that ran through the arms of your coat so that you wouldn't loose the mittens? Can't buy them now because ONE kid managed to strangle himself to death with the string.
Gosh, every day about 1,000 people in the US visit emergency rooms due to dog bites (I see quite a few in my ER, especially during the summer)....so we should outlaw dogs? Even though 90% of the people I see with bites got exactly what they deserved?

I completely agree that a mandate for rear-view cameras is pointless.

But it's interesting to note that the reason they're so useful on vehicles that aren't box-vans and trucks (where their utility is obvious and a side-effect of the inherent properties of the vehicle) is that other "safety" mandates (related IIRC to pedestrian collision injury amelioration) require cars, in practice, to have a very high belt-line.

(Which is one reason why new cars mostly look horrible.)

A high belt-line might well help reduce some injuries to a pedestrian who is hit by a car - but it also reduces visibility significantly, especially near-field rear visiblity.

It's almost like the idea of side-effects is unknown to legislators.

Conan: Here in Oregon there's no "inspection" for cars outside of emissions every two years.

And it turns out that we don't have a flood of cars with bad brakes and tires causing havoc. We do, however, have a wonderful lack of effective state subsidy for auto-shops and inspection providers...

I must say that I can't even understand such a mindset. When my children were little, I didn't move my car unless I knew exactly where they were. But IF something unthinkable had happened? IT WOULD STILL BE ONLY ONE PERSON'S FAULT. Mine.

If you are taking control of 3000# of potentially deadly steel, you also have to take responsibility for it.

OI!

I was watching an episode of Cops the other night. A woman backed into a cop car (scuffed the cop car's bumper and no damage to her truck.) She drove away and was stopped and cited for leaving the scene of an accident. (Also misdemeanor pot possession.)

The thing about it -- she had the backup radar system. She saw a guy crossing behind her and assumed that caused it to go off but never noticed the cop car with the lights on.

"When I lived in Florida, Governor Bob Graham signed a law removing the parallel parking test from the licensing requirement, because 'no one parallel parks anymore.'"

When I got my first license in Tennessee in the mid-'70s, there was no parallel parking in the test. In fact, there wasn't much of anything. This is what the test consisted of: Drive out of the testing station's lot onto a little two-lane road that ran behind it. Go down the road about 200 yards. Stop. Make a three-point turn using a driveway. Drive back to the testing station. Park in the lot. That was it. I-24 ran right past the station, but as far as the driving test went, it may as well not have existed. Local legend was that the only thing that could really get you flunked was if you played the radio too loud for the examiner's liking.

"He also eliminated the inspection process. So, within a short time Florida roads were full of incompetent drivers behind the wheel of one-eyed bandits with bad brakes and bald tires."

The car inspection was eliminated because it was massively corrupt. But I know what kind of driver you are talking about. When I lived in Ft. Lauderdale, it was the position of the local condo commandos that driving was a God-given right, no matter how bad the eyesight or incompetent the handling of the car. They seemed to like to get out during the lunch hour and see how bad they could screw up traffic with their massive land yachts. You'd see one doing something like slowing down to 15 MPH on a main road, because they were looking for their turn and couldn't read the street signs.

It was in South Florida that the nonsense over the Audi "sudden unintended acceleration" started. My favorite Ft. Lauderdale traffic story was the elderly woman who drove her car through the front door of a bank, fortunately early in the morning before it was open. She swore that it wasn't her fault because the evil bank manager had moved the drive-through to the other side of the building overnight, just to screw her up. When the police ran her license, they found an outstanding warrant for failure to appear on another traffic charge. That one was for driving her car through a fence and onto an active runway at FLL. That time, her defense was that her son was driving. Per the police record, she was alone in the car and didn't even have a son.