Rearview Mirrors: Another Case of Government Intrusion

Posted by Lorren on February 19, 2010

I was working on writing a car review today (my “real” job is writing for a marketing company, primarily car reviews), and I noticed a link about rear view cameras while I was doing research. Evidently, Senators Hillary Clinton and John Sununu wanted to make it mandatory to put rearview cameras on cars by 2010 (this was a while back).

While this is old news, and the bill was shelved for now, this is another example of the government trying to control people. Yes, rearview cameras are great. Could they save lives? I’m sure that they could. I know a couple of people that have been run over by cars while they were backing up (they lived). Like any other option, putting in (or omitting) rearview cameras should be controlled by the free market.

Many new cars come with rearview cameras, especially the nicer models. As technology gets better, it is likely that they will start to appear on more cars, even without mandates from the government. Mandating rearview cameras could make it so that some people are unable to afford new cars. Cars have been around for more than 100 years now, without rearview cameras. People will buy them when the price falls to a point that is affordable to them.

The same principals apply to bicycle helmets, seat belts, and just about every other safety feature that the government decides to mandate. Are these things good? Of course they are. But shouldn’t we decide to use them? Shouldn’t we decide whether we want to eat trans-fat or smoke? People take calculated risks every day. We should be allowed to be stupid. We should be allowed to buy a car, even if we can’t afford rear view cameras. They will probably be on most vehicles soon enough, without governmental intrusion.