Even cars are getting comically bad visibility. While there might be a big piece of glass bonded to the rear quarter, it’s got a huge black painted border on the outside and frit on the inside. Then there’s fat plastic trim that obscures driver sight lines from what is left.
NHTSA would be better off at having a visibility requirement for 5th and 95th percentile men/women. I’d allow cameras to play a part, but if used, everything in the system has to be warrantied for 10 years/100k miles (similar to emissions equipment).
Yeah it's gone under the radar pretty much, but going from an early 80s car in the 2010s to a new car, it was like I was driving blind for half the time but reversing cameras are great (too bad they also cause problems where we can't really see everything).
Driving in older cars is way easier apart from power steering. The rest are luxuries like air con, entertainment. Even cabin space in older cars was vastly larger than new cars and the exteriors of new cars are vastly larger now than before.. thanks (but no thanks) to safety measures.
NHTSA would be better off at having a visibility requirement for 5th and 95th percentile men/women. I’d allow cameras to play a part, but if used, everything in the system has to be warrantied for 10 years/100k miles (similar to emissions equipment).