Scott P. Geisler

Reduction of Backing Crashes by Production Rear Vision Camera Systems

Today’s automotive Rear Vision Camera (RVC) systems display an image to the driver of an area behind the vehicle generated by a camera located in the rear of the vehicle. This paper examined if, and to what extent, these systems offered on a wide variety of production vehicles are addressing backing crashes (estimated to represent approximately 3%-4% of all annual police-reported crashes in the United States). Police-reported crashes from ten United States state crash databases were examined to determine the frequency of backing crashes and control (baseline) crashes. The logistic regression model developed suggests that production RVC systems examined may be reducing overall police-reported backing crashes by 52%. This is a particularly promising finding because these systems may also be helping to avoid additional backing crashes that have not been reported to the police. This research can be used to inform emerging crash avoidance system-related system consumer metrics (e.g., New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) programs), government regulations surrounding RVC systems, and system performance requirements associated with RVC consumer metrics and regulations.