My partner's Nissan Leaf has cameras all round, combined to give a 360 degree view. It makes lining up when parking so much easier.
However, using one of the cameras and a digital screen for the rear view mirror doesn't work for me as a driver. I like to simply swivel my eyes to glance at the mirror, but naturally the screen requires me to refocus. Additionally, as I wear varifocals, I am looking through the wrong section of the lens.
Fortunately, it can be switched off and it can be used as a slightly dim conventional mirror.
OTOH, as a passenger, I find the digital screen works fine - I can turn my head to look at it, and it shows me a clear rear view from the passenger seat.
Yeah, that's what I require in a new car. And for it to work as dashcams when driving too with good enough resolution to record the number plates of other cars too.
And security cameras for car theft and car burglary.
Not clear why they dont all have all that now.
Main downside is that it would provide evidence of me causing the accident too but it should be possible to have a wipe function with an easy wipe button for that.
I've had them for decades, mine (unfortunately) gives a quick beep when you engage reverse, to confirm they are working, then beep as you near an obstruction.
Trouble is, I am so used to hearing that single beep that I no longer register it, risking them possibly not working without me realising. Better, would be a continuous tone if their was a problem..
You pick that info up by walking round the vehicle a few times and driving it a few times. It's a question of developing mental techniques to do that. OK, that doesn't translate to suddenly being able to do that for a bus or truck, but if you've ever been on a bus that has to navigate some narrow roads and other hazards, you'll see that bus drivers have that skill too.
My previous car was an S-Type Jag. My wife advised me t get rid of it because I kept hitting things. I could park it well enough but we seemed to visit places that were full of would-be parkers that reckoned they had the right to pull in and out without checking first.
So I bought a car that was 6 inches narrower and a bit shorter (a Niro, small SUV). Even after five years I have to concentrate on parking because the lock is poor and the concave mirror images give a strange impression. This only affects car park slots. I am just about getting to lining up properly in one go. It's weird.
The sensors and video reversing aids are brilliant. My wife is now impressed when I get into short roadside slots.
I once visited a friend and parked nose in, in a parking space, behind his house. He was working with another friend on his car out there at th etime. After I parked my car (a Sierra, so it was impossible to see the front end), the other friend commented, "Let's really f*ck up his parking next time - stick a piece of paper on the wall." I must say, I couldn't always manage to park it that well.
My seonsors only switch on when I select reverse or push the sensor button. They then turn off again as soon as I get up to 20 mph, so they don't produce any false alarms after that.
It could be easy to get caught out on the latter. My car failed its MOT on Friday (a stuck brake pad had worn and the track-rod ends were worn). I fixed them, but can't get a retest until Thursday, so to keep mobile, I have borrowed my dad's car (they have two). The exhaust comes out on the passenger side, half-way along - not where you would expect to look at all.
I think that a big part of it is simply practice. I used to have to parallel park at least twice a day, often more and I also normally reverse into my drivewayonce or twice a day on average. People who generally have to do neither, struggle when they have to.
When you are learning where the extremities are, it is a lot easier/quicker to use someone else who calls out the distances, than it is to keep stopping and getting out to look for yourself.
No. In the absence of aids such as parking sensors and revering cameras, you have to learn the objects on your car body that have to be lined up against the car behind or in front of you, to judge when you are as close as you dare get. Not bullshit.
I tend to use the reversing camera much more than the parking sensors on my wife's car for determining where I should stop. The camera image has lines that indicate "getting very close" and "you must stop by this point", whereas I find it very difficult to determine that by rapidity of beeps on the parking sensor. The parking sensor says "there is something that you may not have seen and it's getting closer" but the camera gives the actual stop point.
It's a shame that parking sensors don't also have the option of displaying the information numerically on the screen eg centimetres between the corner extremity of your car and the corner extremity of the car ahead when you are parallel parking, so you can see when it gets as close as you dare.
When I got my new car (a Peugeot 308, in 2009) I was very sceptical about the sloping wings - would I ever be able to estimate where the corners were when there wasn't anything at bonnet level that was reasonably above the corner of the bumper. But I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I learned how close I could get.
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