We got a newer car a couple of years ago, it has parking sensors.
Today I was in our older car, I was turning around using a familiar alleyway looking in the rear view mirror as I went backwards. I met resistance when the passenger side rear corner scraped a stone wall and I realised i'd been waiting for the beeps whereby i'd have put opposite lock on and gone forward.
My bad, what a pillock, but this is why I don't like all this tech on cars, it makes decent drivers complacent and shit drivers even worse.
We have a lot of width restrictions around here to stop industry traffic coming through the residential streets. Now I cannot of course drive, but I'd suggest that without beeping sensors, most drivers of cars would be bashing these daily. Brian
My favourite involved a mate of mine (it couldn't have happened to a better person) who got a new car. Arriving at a parking space, he announced: 'Look at this. My car's got a parking sensor. There's no need to look' whereupon he reversed into a brick wall. The problem was that the wall was not at 90 degrees to the direction of travel :-)
The only time I thought I *might* need parking sensors was when I bought a new car whose front wings slope away so steeply that it is difficult to judge where the (unseen) corners of the bumpers are when parallel-parking. I was contemplating getting the garage to fit them on the car I was getting second-hand, until they said that in this car the sensors can only see forwards (to judge the straight-ahead distance from something in front or behind) and that they wouldn't be able to see the corners so I could monitor the distance between the front left corner of my car and the back right corner of the car behind which I was parking, as I swung into the space.
So I didn't bother getting the sensors fitted. And I've managed for 13 years without needing them. When I was test-driving the car, I drove to a street where I knew there would be a few vacant spaces to practice parallel parking, to get the feel of where the corners were and to make sure I didn't feel *too* helpless having to judge something that was out of sight. My previous car had had wings that were more vertical so if I could see the top of the wing I could judge more accurately where the corner of the bumper would be in relation to what I could see and to the car ahead.
My wife's car has sensors front and back. Both of us have managed to nudge objects behind us when reversing: I touched a signpost and my wife touched a telegraph pole. In both cases, it was the sensor itself that was hit, without it sounding, so it looks as if the sensors cannot see objects straight in front of them, only those slightly to either side :-( I wonder if subconsciously we both thought "I don't need to look quite so carefully because the sensor will tell me if there's anything that I haven't seen". The dangers of complacency?
Yes you need to know the limitations of the sensors: what they *can't* see. In the case of my wife's car they don't seem to see an object which is directly ahead of the sensor: the only two times we have nudged the sensor was when we reversed into objects that actually touched the sensor. So our sensors can see at an angle but have a straight-ahead blind spot ;-(
Conversely I’ve seen many drivers fail to parallel park in a perfectly adequate space because they have no idea where the ends of their car are. I’ve definitely squeezed into spaces I wouldn’t have attempted without parking sensors.
Another favourite was when he stopped behind a parked car, flashing his lights and sounding the horn. He then moved on to shouting and swearing. I thought this was so funny that I waited for a bit before saying, 'Hey, xxx, there's no driver in that car'.
Not to mention that they often 'do see' things that don't matter, like grass. We sometimes park in a field by our house and if the grass is long the sensors squawk like crazy when you drive into the field.
This is also irritating in another way: too many people have no idea (and never gain an idea) of the width of their car, and are unable to judge how far they are from (say) parked vehicles. So they drive down the middle of the road and don't use the space available.
I have always believed that cameras make more sense and a system which either shows all 4 corner cameras at once or the one which sees what has the closest stationary object. And one that makes it easier to watch the tow hitch as you back up to a trailer or van etc.
No use when driving into carpark slots in a car which slopes very fast in front of the windscreen so you have no idea where the corner of your car is in relation to the adjacent car.
My wife suspects that this is more to do with the increasing number of cars which are on long term contract hire rather than actually owned. The tiniest scratch at the end of the contract will cost the [non]-owner a load of money. So they drive down the middle of the road to avoid any possibility of scratches.
Airline pilots encounter the same sort of problem. No not reversing, assuming the aid is working when everything around them tells them something else is going on. Can cause more than a scrape.
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