Cameras replacing mirrors. A backwards step?

[61653 HTAFC]

This is something that has come up in the "switching to EVs" thread a few times, but isn't directly related to the EV question. More and more new vehicles, particularly larger ones such as buses and LGVs, are being supplied with cameras and screens in place of wing mirrors.

However I think this is a negative for safety for a few key reasons. First of all, there is no feedback for other road users as the camera setup only works in one direction, unlike mirrors which allow more vulnerable road users to know if the driver of the vehicle in question has seen them. We've all seen those stickers on the backs of lorries that say "If you can't see my mirrors, I can't see you!"- cameras do not have this advantage so will increase risk for more vulnerable road users.
Secondly, with a mirror you can change the angle of the pane and thus observe in different areas simply by moving your head. The only way to do this with the camera/screen set up is to move the camera itself.
One slight positive with cameras is the elimination of the blind spot, but we already have a tried and tested way of doing this which again is to move your head and check the blind spot- something which all drivers should have been taught and which takes less than a second. That said, I'm not opposed to some sort of system that warns about the blind spots being occupied, as long as it is in addition to traditional wing mirrors, not instead of them.

The worst defence of the camera setup though, is that they're less likely to get damaged. Anyone who routinely clips street furniture and other vehicles with their wing mirrors shouldn't be driving. Sure we can all have the odd one-off incident, and sometimes some idiot will clip your mirror while you're parked and you're left to pick up the pieces... but the disadvantages of cameras far outweigh the advantages for me.

What do others think? I know some of our regular contributors to this section of the forum are very much pro-everything new. I'm admittedly something of a dinosaur when it comes to in-car technology. Maybe there's something I've missed that will change my mind on this topic?

EDIT 18/12/24: I'm not referring to reversing cameras or parking assist, just the replacement of traditional wing or door mirrors with cameras and screens.

 

[Spamcan81]

I’m against them.

 

[Foxhunter]

My wife's new car has come with a traditional rear view mirror that has a mode where the mirror changes to a tv screen connected to the rear parking camera.

Utterly useless for me. I wear bi-focals for driving, upper part to see down the road, lower part focused on the instruments. Glancing up to the screen requires me to re-focus onto a 2D image, whereas the mirror presents a true long range image.

Tried it once in the first week we had the car, it will never be switched on again.

I can see there can be applications but, I suspect it needs to be a lot more thought through for widespread use.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

My wife's new car has come with a traditional rear view mirror that has a mode where the mirror changes to a tv screen connected to the rear parking camera.

Utterly useless for me. I wear bi-focals for driving, upper part to see down the road, lower part focused on the instruments. Glancing up to the screen requires me to re-focus onto a 2D image, whereas the mirror presents a true long range image.

Tried it once in the first week we had the car, it will never be switched on again.

I can see there can be applications but, I suspect it needs to be a lot more thought through for widespread use.

The 2D/3D thing is something I neglected to mention, but that is a good point. Whilst a mirror is still a flat surface so isn't "true" 3D image, it still has far more depth than even the most high-definition screen could ever hope for.

 

[alxndr]

I’ve not used one, but it would certainly put me off considering a car which had them. Mirrors work perfectly well and, if rear view cameras are anything to go by, are far more reliable.

A mirror is unlikely to fail mid-drive too, or if it does get damaged during a drive it’s usually during a slow speed manoeuvre. A mirror is still largely usable even with a crack too. Electronics can go awry at any point. I certainly wouldn’t want to find myself in a position where I was stuck in the right hand lane of a motorway and find I’ve got no “mirrors”.

 

[Harpo]

I detest everything in our VW that takes control from me and reduces the skills needed to drive a 4 wheeled laptop.

However I still have to use a spray and a scraper to defrost the damned thing.

 

[thejuggler]

I've seen it reported as a real problem on HGVs. A mirror works all the time, a system which relies on power turns off when the power goes off. Park HGV, turn engine off, looking for a gap in the traffic to open the door? No mirror available.

 

[Darandio]

I've seen it reported as a real problem on HGVs. A mirror works all the time, a system which relies on power turns off when the power goes off. Park HGV, turn engine off, looking for a gap in the traffic to open the door? No mirror available.

Strange you've seen that reported, as that isn't how it works. Any truck system i've seen stays on for a period of time after the ignition is switched off. Alternatively, simply opening the door a tiny fraction re-activates them. Some systems also have an override button which turns them back on whilst others can have the ignition delay toggled to be even longer.

 

[christopher]

Have to say from using them whilst driving buses they're are amazing compared to standard mirrors especially in rain and at night.

 

[DelW]

The 2D/3D thing is something I neglected to mention, but that is a good point. Whilst a mirror is still a flat surface so isn't "true" 3D image, it still has far more depth than even the most high-definition screen could ever hope for.

I don't think that's actually correct. When you look at an object in a mirror, your eyes don't focus on the surface of the mirror, they look through it at the distant object, just as if you're looking through a window. So as long as the mirror is big enough for you to see the object with both eyes, you do get full 3D vision.

You can test that by looking in a mirror at a distant object, then refocusing on the edge of the mirror, or on a mark on its surface. You can feel your eyes adjusting between the two.

A screen is quite different, you need to focus on the screen itself and you lose the ability to judge distance using parallax. It's just like looking at a TV screen, which has no depth, everything looks as if it's at the distance of the screen.

 

[birchesgreen]

My new (well its 2 years old now) car has a rear view camera, i'm sure my rear parking has got worse since i got the car. I've started trying to rely more on the mirrors and just using the camera as a back-up.

 

[75A]

My Wife got a brand new top of the range Kia in June and I can't get use'd to all the cameras, front, back, left turn, right turn add in all the bings & bongs from all the warnings, driving me mad. Fortunately i've still got my 14 year Ford and I use that whenever I can.

 

[signed]

Most rear view cameras are very bad resolution and very much not useful, but when you have a big vehicle and trying to squeeze into a perpendicular spot in reverse it's very useful.

I own a small city car, and rented a quite sizable panel van, and that camera was a saviour

 

[MotCO]

The one big advantage of cameras over mirrors is the much reduced size of the forward protrusion. Many a time I have had to duck whilst waiting at a bus stop layby as the bus swings round over the pavement with the wing mirror leading.

 

[thejuggler]

Strange you've seen that reported, as that isn't how it works. Any truck system i've seen stays on for a period of time after the ignition is switched off. Alternatively, simply opening the door a tiny fraction re-activates them. Some systems also have an override button which turns them back on whilst others can have the ignition delay toggled to be even longer.

So far more complicated than having a piece of silvered glass which just works.

 

[Harpo]

My Wife got a brand new top of the range Kia in June and I can't get use'd to all the cameras, front, back, left turn, right turn add in all the bings & bongs from all the warnings, driving me mad.

On a single track country road, the simple job of squeezing close to a hedge to pass or be passed at close quarters becomes sensory overload in ours. Even worse if it involves any reversing.

 

[jfollows]

On a single track country road, the simple job of squeezing close to a hedge to pass or be passed at close quarters becomes sensory overload in ours. Even worse if it involves any reversing.

Mine likewise. They can’t differentiate between a twig and a brick wall. Every time I reverse out of my driveway I’m assailed by useless bings and bongs. So I ignore them. At some point I will reverse into something significant.

 

[75A]

As Harpo says single track country lanes are a nightmare and we're completely surrounded by them. I go into the system and turn the bongs off which takes forever, and then we you restart the engine you have to do it all again, if you leave the engine running (Wife still in car) and pop into a shop you get even louder bongs because the remote start fob (no key) is in my pocket.

 

[DustyBin]

The sweet spot for me is traditional mirrors coupled with a reversing camera and sensors. Cars have got bigger and visibility is often poorer, so these basic driver aids have a place in my opinion. (See also the increasing size of wing mirrors!).

For context, I learnt to drive buses and LGVs with no aids whatsoever, so I’m probably a bit of a “traditionalist” in this regard. I do think however we’ve reached the stage where technology has become intrusive and encourages poor driving. Just my opinion!

 

[PeterC]

The sweet spot for me is traditional mirrors coupled with a reversing camera and sensors. Cars have got bigger and visibility is often poorer, so these basic driver aids have a place in my opinion. (See also the increasing size of wing mirrors!).

My preference as well.

 

[John Webb]

Having the wing mirrors is to my mind part of the 'KISS' principle ('Keep It Simple, Stupid) which should be applied to all areas of vehicle control. I wouldn't mind the bonus of a rear-view camera when need be. But I understand that in a number of new vehicles you have to use the touch-screen display to operate even the wipers. Would seem to me very distracting from the job of keeping a proper eye or two on the road compared to mechanical switches within finger-touch of your hands on the steering wheel.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Reversing larger vehicles safely relies on using the side mirrors. It took me a little bit of practice at first to get used to the view, obviously, being a mirror-image. But do the screens on reversing cameras show the view as the camera sees it, or reversed? It might be confusing if it's the former.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The sweet spot for me is traditional mirrors coupled with a reversing camera and sensors. Cars have got bigger and visibility is often poorer, so these basic driver aids have a place in my opinion. (See also the increasing size of wing mirrors!).

For context, I learnt to drive buses and LGVs with no aids whatsoever, so I’m probably a bit of a “traditionalist” in this regard. I do think however we’ve reached the stage where technology has become intrusive and encourages poor driving. Just my opinion!

I've no issue with reversing cameras. My own car doesn't have it fitted as they were only on more prestige marques and models at the time it was built (it's an 11-plate). I'm not bothered enough to fit an after-market system though.

The inability of so-called driver assistance systems to distinguish between twigs and solid objects is another reason I think widespread "full self-driving" is much further away into the future than many advocates believe... though that's all another topic altogether.

 

[Brickz]

We have these on about 95% of the trucks where I work all class 1 truck units we use and they actually have less blind spots than normal mirrors do, still a slight blind spot by the passenger door but it's very minimal and is where only the silly people would sit or stand. There's a button you can press while the ignition etc is off that put the screens on temporary so you can see others just common sence is used as in open door slowly and slightly to look before swinging it wide open. The cameras on the mercedes are bad at night on a pitch black road though all you see is a fuzzy black screen light on old fashion tv's, on the dafs they're slightly better quality than the mercedes and on the new 24 plate man trucks they are even better still and are very clear picture day or night, they're front drop down camera cover whole of the front and all way around the passenger door but personally I do still like a standard mirror.

 

[gg1]

Have to say from using them whilst driving buses they're are amazing compared to standard mirrors especially in rain and at night.

Really? Those are the conditions where I find the reversing camera on my car the least useful, the picture quality is awful at night and water on the camera distorts the image, in both cases mirrors give a clearer view.

The one big advantage is it cuts down on blind spots.

 

[DelW]

But do the screens on reversing cameras show the view as the camera sees it, or reversed? It might be confusing if it's the former.

On my car, the camera image is reversed, to make it simulate the view in a mirror. I find it useful for checking that there's nothing in the area immediately behind the boot which is otherwise a blind spot, but for actually positioning the car, I prefer to use the mirrors in the traditional way.

For years I was annoyed by my car tilting the nearside mirror right down when reversing. I can see the point for parallel parking alongside a kerb, but that's something I rarely do, and it was a nuisance when reverse parking in car park bays. Eventually I found out there's a simple way to turn that off, but I wish I'd done so before having to pay £150+ to replace the nearside rear light lens after a nudge with a gatepost when reversing. As with others' comments above, the parking sensors are ridiculously over-sensitive, so I get too used to having to ignore them.

 

[HSTEd]

Really? Those are the conditions where I find the reversing camera on my car the least useful, the picture quality is awful at night and water on the camera distorts the image, in both cases mirrors give a clearer view.

The one big advantage is it cuts down on blind spots.

I imagine it will depend, to a very large extent, on the technologies in use.
It is certainly possible to build a camera installation with far superior performance to a conventional mirror in such conditions, assuming someone is willing to pay.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I imagine it will depend, to a very large extent, on the technologies in use.
It is certainly possible to build a camera installation with far superior performance to a conventional mirror in such conditions, assuming someone is willing to pay.

A key advantage of a physical mirror is that you can move your head and see a slightly different view. You can also see in 3D unlike on a screen and thus more easily perceive depth.

 

[Brickz]

Here's that they are like on the 2024 MAN trucks between the front drop down camera and the side camera it pretty much eliminates the blind spot BUT if a car is sitting at just the right place on my nearside they are still invisible to my cameras proximity sensors and my line of view from the drivers seat, yet these still meet Londons new safety rating some how.

 

[Deepgreen]

My car has mirrors but also has a rear view 'parking' camera, which displays on the information screen to the left of the dashboard. That is genuinely useful, especially when I got used to the actual proximity of an object rather than what the sensor thinks it is! I would not wish to be without the door mirrors or the rear view mirror as contributors to my awareness of my surroundings. However, I am considering having my indicators removed as they appear to be becoming redundant, judging by others' use of them...