[dsfyu404ed]

You know what they say about metrics and targets.

The OEMs make you sit deep in every car because that's how you get a 5-star rating. Then a bunch of people back over pedestrians and kids because in the real world more people will be put in a situation like that than will be in a high speed side impact.

Now the .gov mandates back up cameras...

[mikeash]

Implying nobody was backing over kids in older cars?

What you describe sounds like a reasonable iterative process of identifying what’s likely to kill people and making it safer.

[dsfyu404ed]

It was far less common when your typical vehicle had a smaller rear blind spot than a T-72

There's a direct trade-off between safety and visibility.