I had just been hired for a job as a contract programmer after a dry spell of well over a year where I couldn’t get any other work besides low paying temp jobs, and the occasional lawn that needed mowing.  The pay was great, absolutely great, better then anything I’d ever made before.  But the job was in Baltimore and I was still living a friend’s basement in Rockville and I had no car.  At the time I couldn’t afford insurance on one, let alone buy one.  So I was making due with various forms of public transportation, and my own two feet.  I’ll say this much…all that walking kept me in good shape.

So, with the help of a friend, I bought an old Ford LTD  station wagon.  It was a big tank of a car, with a huge 450 cubic inch V-8 motor, that had belonged to the mother of a friend of his, who used it for her gumball machine business.  She drove it all over West Virginia servicing her gumball machines.  The car had over 240 thousand miles on it. But at least it ran.  I named it The Great White, as in Great White Whale.  For over a year The Great White got me from Rockville, and then from Wheaton, to Baltimore and back, until I was confidant enough in my new line of work, that I bought myself a brand new 1993 Geo Prism.

One day shopping at the Rockville A&P grocery store.  As I walked out to the wagon I saw, on the other side of my car, two young women slowly walking in my direction, chatting idly with each other and taking very little note of their surroundings.  I had other things on my mind just then, but as I saw them I noted that I’d probably have to watch out for them as I drove away.  They were walking at a very slow pace, and chatting with each other like they were having a stroll in the park instead of walking through a busy parking lot.

I got in the car, closed the door, and started the big V-8.  Then I turned in my seat and looked back down that long tunnel of glass (the car was huge, even for a station wagon) and watched as the two young women walked just past my tailgate, and away from the car.  I turned around, put my foot on the brake, released the parking brake and put the car into reverse.  The transmission settled into gear with a loud ‘Clunk’. 

I heard the most hellacious scream I’d ever heard in my life, turned, and saw one of the women rushing back to the tailgate of my station wagon.  I saw her reach down as if to pick something up.  Then I saw her walk away again, leading a little toddler by the hand.  The kid couldn’t have been more then my own knee height.  The woman was chattering at the kid, scolding him I guess for not sticking by her side.  Meanwhile I was about having a heart attack.  I put the car back in park and had to just sit there for a few minutes and calm down.

I never saw the kid.  I was looking.  I was watchful.  I was paying attention to the area around my car.  I was being careful.  And I still didn’t see the kid.  I could have killed him.  You could argue that it would have been more the woman’s fault then mine….but so what?  I’d have had to live with knowing that I killed a little kid.

Flash forward to now.  When I bought the Mercedes I saw that there was a dealer installed option to have a backup sensor installed.  I opted out at the time of delivery, because I wanted to investigate it some more.  It was a lot of money, but I figured it would be well worth it if it did what they claimed.  So I checked things out here and there, and to cut to the chase, instead of buying one of the other aftermarket ones, I bought the Factory Authorized system instead, because in the end I just didn’t want anything installed in that car that wasn’t approved by Mercedes-Benz.  I was lead to believe by my dealer that there was a version of the system that had visual, as well as audible indicators, but that turned out not to be the case after all.  I really wanted something with a visual indicator too, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.  But I have the system installed now anyway, and just a little while ago I gave it the acid test.

The system consists of four small round sensors they install into your rear bumper.  When you put the car into reverse the system activates and you hear a single beep to let you know that it’s working.  It only starts beeping at you when you begin to approach some obstacle and the beeps increase in frequency until you are about a foot away from it, when they turn into one continuous tone.  For the past week I’ve been using it to gage how close I am to the other cars on the street, or the back of the parking garage at work.  As a parking aid it’s fine.  But that’s not what I bought it mostly for.

Today is my usual telecommute day, which means I’m home and most of my neighbors are at work.  Which means the street out front is pretty empty.  Just right for my acid test of the system.  I have several twenty pound sacks of bird seed down in the basement (I stock up on it for the winter months), that are about the size of a toddler.  Just a while ago I took one outside and placed it just behind the rear bumper where I couldn’t see it from the inside of the car, but I’d hit it almost at once if I backed up.  Then I got in, turned on the engine, and put Traveler into reverse.

Immediately the backup sensor started yelling at me.  Good.  I placed the sack at various spots around and near the bumper, trying to find a spot where I could put the sack, couldn’t see it, and my sensor wouldn’t detect it, which would allow me to hit it upon backing up.  I couldn’t find one.  The sensor always complained that there was something back there.  Nice.

Since it’s an electric gizmo I expect at some point the cost of these will come down and they’ll be available for all makes and models.  As you can see from the photo above, you don’t have to be driving a big SUV to miss seeing something that’s right behind you.  Eventually I think, these sensors should become standard safety equipment.  In the meantime, this wasn’t a cheap add-on by any means.  But better you feel it in your wallet then you hear it screaming in your dreams.