I’m used to driving a small sedan, but this past weekend, my son and I volunteered at the rest stop for a bicycle club century ride and rented a large cargo van (Ford 250Z) to transport supplies.
Ford F250 Z cargo van
Safety feature: back-up camera with lines that curved as I steered indicating the path of the vehicle — display in the center mirror. (Also, the van did have windows in the back doors and the load was low enough that it didn’t obscure them.) But I didn’t know about the camera until another club member who had rented such a van last year told me about it.
Danger features: no side windows behind the driver’s seat, and neither the camera nor the convex blindspot mirrors under the main side mirrors offered a view directly to the sides. I had to back out into a street blindly on one occasion. At the time, I was alone in the van, so my son couldn’t spot for me. (There might possibly have been another camera at the right side, but I didn’t know. There was room in the mirror for a second display.)
When changing lanes, I am used to checking for traffic in blindspots by turning my head, and there were a few times I forgot to look into the convex mirrors. Huge danger feature: open cargo compartment behind the driver’s and passenger’s seats, minimal tie-downs but no tie-down straps, and no partition to prevent the load from flying forward and beheading the driver and passenger in the event of a collision.
Many kinds of optional and custom interiors are, I’m sure, available for this model of van but the one I rented, fresh from the factory with a completely bare unimproved interior, really ought not to be street legal.
Oh, and I have noticed on this vehicle and almost all other newer vehicles, the front turn signals are way over at the side, out of view of anyone about to cross in front from the other side. (See photo.) How the hell can this be legal?
Where is Ralph Nader now that we still need him?
And, the rental agency handed me the keys without giving me any instruction. Fortunately, I had no crashes and my son and I are unscathed.
I’m not quite sure I follow you, John. Did you say the straight-out-the-rear-view cam stayed on when the truck was in “drive”?
The NTSB rules for passenger cars and light trucks permit rear-view back-up cameras, but the rules mandate that the camera cut-out when the car/light truck is shifted into drive. Cars/light trucks are also permitted what amount to side mirror rear-facing cams to augment lane changing. These, of course, turn on in “drive”. All I have ever seen is passenger side, but I have been told that both-side is available.
However, I admit I have no I idea what the rules are for commercial vehicles, but I have seen a land yacht RV that had separate screens for all three cams plus a close-to-the-front-bumper cam. Of course, that sucker cost more than my house.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. The backup display in the Ford van lit up only when the van was in reverse gear. The display appeared in the left side of the half-silvered center rear-view mirror, suggesting that there might optionally (or in a different model) be another display in the right side of the mirror.
A backup camera and display are sorely needed in newer sedans, because the aerodynamic shape puts the rear window and trunk lid too high to give a view of objects close behind the vehicle. I address that issue at 0:50 in the video embedded in another blog post: http://john-s-allen.com/blog/?p=3724. But many sedans made up to a few years ago have the problem body shape and no camera.
The most useful additional display in the Ford van would point directly to the right, for use when backing out into a street, as I described, as the van had no side windows behind the driver’s door, and even if it did, a load could conceal them. I have ridden in a vehicle (a Honda Odyssey) with blindspot cameras in the side mirror housings, but the display would light up only when the turn signal for its side was activated. I have read that manufacturers would like to do away with side-view mirrors entirely, replacing them with cameras in the interest of aerodynamics. The convex mirrors under the main mirror in the Ford van did a good job though in showing the blind area close to the van when merging — once I accustomed myself to looking into them instead of turning my head.