I'm interested. Judging distance etc on an extreme wide angle lens is not going to be easy. And is that lens actually in the rear bumper? The multiple sensors on my car measure more than 180 degrees anyway. I can't see a single camera doing the same.
It's trivially easy to react to a reversing sensor which bleeps faster as you approach a hazard and goes continuous when you need to stop. I've never hit anything since I've had it - and really can't see the need for anything more complicated.
My (nearly 3 yo car) has both sensors and a rear camera. It is easier to park than its predecessior which only had sensors.The camera's picture is overlaid with markings showing the proposed path.
I have seen people reverse into stuff in cars with reversing sensors.
Remember they are just ultrasonic echo detectors, if it doesn't reflect the sound back to the sensor its invisible.
It's silly to expect mirror quality for something as close as that.
But much better than mirrors in the dark when what you are looking at isn't lighted with a mirror.
Only a fool uses a dealer supplied replacement if one is required.
Any set of cameras can leave that for dead, particularly when you need to back into a car park slot and need to see how close you are to the cars on either side. You already know there are cars there because you can see them. You need to know if you are going to hit them or not so you can steer to avoid hitting them.
Yes, and found them useless for backing into a car park slot or into the garage etc when you already know that the cars on either side or the garage and its contents are there and need to avoid hitting them with your car as you back.
Sounds like you
Then you need to get out more. Have a look at the best of the car cameras that give you full imaging of where the corners of the car are so they not only work for backing into a car park car slot or garage, but also for driving forward into a car park slot or garage and with parallel parking too. Leaves sensors for dead when you want to park into a carpark slot.
You don?t use them to judge distance, you look at the image to see if the corner of your car is going to hit what is closest to it so you can steer to avoid that happening when moving into a car park slot.
The best of them are, in fact at least one at every corner of the car because that is what will hit the cars beside you when moving into a car park slot.
The
The best systems don?t have a single camera.
But are useless when you need to steer to avoid hitting the cars on either side when moving into a car park slot.
I've
There obviously is when moving into a car park slot to avoid hitting the cars on either side.
I always stop at the same distance from the car I'm parking behind. So what if it's away form the kerb? I'll just end up away by the same amount, and in line with the car in front.
I've always thought I'm shit at parking, that's why I need to follow a strict measurement.
Can she reverse a caravan?
Surely they both show the edges of your car?
You might not :-)
Do you really park with your tyres only 2 inches from the kerb?
Don't you know the width of your car?
I'd never heard of anyone moving their mirror to park, and I've watched plenty people do so.
Cars should all have turning back wheels. Only being able to turn the front ones severely restricts movement in tight spaces. For example, if you'#re parked close to the kerb, and wish to reverse and turn away from the kerb, you cannot turn the wheel much to begin with.
In car parks you aren't parallel parking, so why do you need anything?
And that will see you slugged with the same fine he gets fined if he is illegally too far from the kerb.
Doesn't happen often enough to justify the very high cost of being able to turn both sets of wheels.
Because the space between the cars can be small enough so that it isn't always just a one move drive into the slot with bigger cars and you need to be careful even with a small car.
The lens is in the rear tailgate/number plate. The display is marked up with lines corresponding to the width of the car. These lines are splayed to allow for the lens aberration. The reversing lights give enough illumination for the camera to see about 30 ft without problems. The low light performance of modern cheap cctv cameras is oustanding IME. The local street lamps enable mine to give a picture over 50 ft which is nearly as good as daylight. My in car camera gives a good picture at night with the headlights on dippd beam.
They probably didn't understand what the bleeping meant.
Never come across this ever. And I've had cars with reversing sensors longer than most. It's far more likely to react to something that's not important - say leaves on a bush or whatever - than the other way round.
I can easily see cars either side without cameras. What you can't easily see is things behind the car not covered by mirrors. And this also depends on the design of the car.
I'd say if you can't see your garage walls without the aid of a camera, you need to stop driving until you get your eyes checked out.
Cameras or mirrors are only any use if a) they show the reference object that you are trying to position yourself in relation to, and b) they show some identifiable part of your vehicle (tyre, bumper, wing, towbar) in relation to this reference object. If the reference object is low down, you may need to drop your mirrors to see it; if it's something like a garage wall, you can see it with the mirrors in the normal position or directly through the windows by turning round.
Camera that only show the surrounding world say "there's a bollard, a wall, another car, a child nearby - take care", but don't give you any idea of how to avoid it because you can't see yourself in relation to that object.
Mirrors will show you the garage walls so you can position yourself equidistant between the side walls and can *estimate* how far back you need to go (although by showing you a very oblique angle), but you need a camera or one of those downward-facing mirrors attached to the rear window to show you a top-down view of exactly how much space you have behind you as you gradually approach.
To answer the people who have said "how much can you see with the mirrors and why do you need to drop them" I've taken a few photos of what I can see with the passenger door mirror and what I'm trying to line up with, to show why it's necessary to drop the mirrors:
The object of the exercise is to reverse into the drive (to avoid having to reverse out into a busy road when leaving home) and position the left front and rear wheels as close as possible to the kerb between the drive and lawn, to leave as much room as possible for a second car to reverse, initially in front of me and then to swing round to the right of my car and park alongside on the drive.
In all the following photos, I've positioned the camera as close to where my head would be if I stretched slightly upwards and slightly to the left of the normal seating position, to try to give a slightly better view of the ground while still being able to control the car. The car is positioned with the nose just clear of the road, ie at the start of reversing back to end in the position of 1173.
Now my wife has got a bigger car, she's actually the one who parks in this position since it's a straight line from the gap in the hedge; I'm the one who parks on the right of her because my car is more manoeuvrable for swinging round. I position myself relative to a hedge on my right which is tall enough to see without having to adjust the right hand mirror at all. Likewise the front right wing of my wife's car is visible in the left hand mirror without adjusting the mirror. The first few times I did this manoeuvre it was scary because at one point I get very close to her wing and needed to take it very slowly to make sure I would not get any closer, but now I've got used to it; I can't get further away otherwise I'll clobber a tree with my right wing. The joys of parking on a drive that's wide enough for two cars side by side, but with an exit to the road that's only wide enough for one car - and we like the tree so we don't want to remove it and the hedge to give a wider exit.
If it's a strange garage, you'd normally judge if it's wide enough for your car. Although actually knowing the width of the vehicle they're driving does seem foreign to many these days. ;-)
I'd then park by going as close to the driver's side wall as possible - and you don't need a camera for that. And the reversing sensors will tell you when you are close to the rear wall. All easy without a multitude of cameras.
Doe you mean knowing it numerical terms and comparing that with the width of the garage checked with a tape measure the first time, or do you mean being able to look at the aperture from a distance and be able tell by eye how much bigger it is that your car, even before you drive right up and offer up the two for comparison?
My friend had a Lexus to which he fitted after market parking sensors. They worked perfctly. His next Lexus had units factory fitted. He backed into a post on day one of ownership as the factory units had blind spots!
You should be able to judge by looking. In the same way as you judge a gap when driving. Although many these days seem to think their car is 10 ft wide or more.
Not with modern cars that slope so dramatically at the front that you can't ever see anything of the front corners of the car even if you lean forward as much as you can. No matter how far forward you lean, you can never see how close the front corner of your car is to the car you are passing when driving in forwards.
And in front too.
And there aren't many modern cars that don?t slope so dramatically at the front that you can never see you front corners at all, no matter how much you lean forward.
And the other thing is that a completely integrated set of cameras that do everything from help you with parking to act as crash cameras to provide the evidence of which car ran into yours when it was parked with you not in the car at all, to evidence of which scrote broke into your car, leaves mirrors for dead and adds very little to the total cost of the entire system.
I wasn?t talking about the garage walls, the stuff virtually everyone has in their garage apart from the car. It would be much more convenient to be able to have anything you like on the floor against the walls even temporarily and be able to avoid hitting them as you back in.
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