With the hope that tragedies like the one that befell Greg Gulbransen of Oyster Bay, New York, who accidentally backed over his two-year old son, Cameron, in 2002, taking his life to never happen, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has issued a proposed rule that requires "rear-view visibility systems" to be built-in to all new light trucks and automobiles beginning in 2018.
The rule is designed to begin phasing in the rear-view cameras as a requirement on May 1, 2016 and the goal is to be at 100 percent two years from that date on May 1, 2018.
For Gulbransen, who has been pushing for a law that mandates better rear visibility in automobiles since 2008, the announcement is bittersweet as the battle has been a very difficult one for him emotionally.
"It's been a long hard fight, and this is rule took too long, but we're thrilled this day has finally come," he said in an interview. "I'm glad we could channel our grief into a policy change. That was important."
The law is named after his son - the Cameron Gulbransen Kids and Cars Act and has been aggressively pushed by several advocacy groups including Public Citizens, Advocates for Highway Safety and KidsAndCars.org.
The NHTSA requirements for the rear-view visibility system include that all equipped vehicles would have to give the driver a view of 10x20-ft. directly behind the vehicle.
The NHTSA claims that approximately 210 people die and over 15,000 are injured in light-vehicle backup incidents each year. The organization, a division of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) also claims that 58-69 lives will be saved each year (not including injuries prevented) once every new vehicle in the country has the rear-view systems installed, which they feel is possible by 2054.
