In most modern vehicles, visibility is often sacrificed for design and safety. There are models where you can't see the front or rear of the bodywork clearly. It is therefore not uncommon for even an experienced driver to overlook poorly visible obstacles such as concrete posts, kerbs or poles.
Although the repair of a scratched and dented bumper is not cheap for the vehicle owner, it can be classed as a harmless consequence of an unsuccessful manoeuvring attempt. After all, the safety of road users is even more important than protecting the vehicle. Pedestrians, especially children, can easily be overlooked and even killed when reversing. Conversely, other road users can also easily overlook reversing vehicles, which can also have serious consequences.
In the USA alone, around 180* people are killed every year by reversing cars. More than 6,000* other people are injured. The victims are often children who are overlooked when backing out of driveways or garages. What is particularly tragic is that the drivers are almost always their own parents or relatives. The children involved are usually between one and two years old and cannot be seen in the rear-view or wing mirrors due to their size.
Retrofitting a parking aid or reversing warning system can therefore not only prevent scratches, but also prevent tragic accidents. When choosing the right solution, it is important to ensure that even very small or narrow obstacles and moving objects, such as pedestrians, are reliably detected. This is why all 4-sensor parking aids from Vodafone (Cobra) fulfil the ISO 17386 standard, the safety standard for the best possible obstacle detection. Many other systems do not fulfil these high requirements and therefore do not provide the same level of protection.
* Source: www.nhtsa.gov, www.kidsandcars.org