Do backup cameras make driving safer?

Automakers had to start equipping their cars with rearview cameras in 2018, and the results since then have been dramatic. According to research presented in American Academy of Pediatrics 2025 National Conference and ExpositionThe federal mandate has helped reduce the number of serious injuries caused by backovers in children under five by nearly 50%, while the death rate in that age group has decreased by 78%.

Meanwhile, a study National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) — though from the pre-mandate era — found that people 70 or older had about 26% of the deaths from backup crashes. There is also evidence that rearview cameras are particularly effective in helping older drivers take charge. per research Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the cameras helped reduce crashes involving people 70 or older by 36%. This can be compared to a 16% decline for young drivers.

The reasons are self-evident. Since you don’t have to look out the small rear window like trying to see the rear ends in the back rows, cameras can significantly improve your rear visibility. Since looking at the rearview camera is much less difficult than trying to turn your head as far as it will go, it makes driving safer for older people or those with physical challenges.

Despite those impressive safety stats, rearview cameras can have difficulties in certain situations. Bad weather, for one thing, can prevent you from getting a clear view. Cameras can be easily obscured by raindrops, snow, frost, mud due to their outdoor location. Physically smaller lenses don’t help either, as it doesn’t take a huge obstacle to impact your view – picking a Chevrolet Colorado as a random example, the camera lens may have a diameter of around 11mm. For comparison, an American dime has a diameter of 17.91 mm. Thankfully, some vehicles are now available with rearview-camera washers that can clean a lot of stuff.

In the real world, backup cameras may also struggle to meet the driver’s needs in the dark. Just ask Ford Bronco owners filing complaints about faulty backup cameras on online forums. One problem with the Bronco is reverse lights that aren’t bright enough – a problem also reported with GMC Sierra backup cameras – but physics plays its part too. You have to remember that darkness is the absence of light, in the sense that there are fewer actual photons of light around. Therefore there will be fewer photons of light hitting your camera sensor. The result may be grainy as the camera tries to compensate for the limited number of photons.

Then there’s an issue that’s hidden in the lens itself. They are usually wide-angle, as this is a big advantage to the camera’s ability to provide an extended field of view. The downside is that wide-angle lenses distort the view at the same time. The colored lines on your backup camera can help you compensate for that – and even make you a parallel parking master in the process.

While backup cameras have their weaknesses, other advances in driver assistance technology can help compensate for them, and some of them will be mandatory. Next up is a federal rule demanding that most cars and light-duty trucks come with automatic emergency braking (AEB) as standard by 2029.

NHTSA says its new rule for Forward AEB will save at least 360 lives each year while also preventing at least 24,000 injuries. A 2024 study by American Automobile Association found that cars equipped with the new AEB technology were able to sense and avoid obstacles throughout 100% of testing at speeds up to 35 mph, although the federal standard requires the system to operate up to 62 mph. Other notable driver-assistance technologies are also being reviewed. While NHTSA has not yet mandated their use – it has added evaluations for blind-spot warning, blind-spot intervention and lane-keeping assist to its New Car Assessment Program (NCAP).

Studies have shown that blind-spot technologies – including both warnings and interventions – can reduce the number of lane-change crashes by 14%. With both lane-keeping assistance, warnings, and interventions, the number of crashes decreased by only 5%. Ultimately, the consequences of a pedestrian AEB largely depend on the circumstances. In fact, an analysis is available through National Library of Medicine Found that there was no evidence that the system was effective in the dark, at speeds over 50 mph, or while the vehicle was turning. Despite these limitations, the technology still reduced the risk of pedestrian crashes by 25% to 27% and the risk of pedestrian injuries by 29% to 30%.