Our driveway goes down from the street to our house. When I back out of the garage and up the driveway, then, I can’t see anything that’s behind me except the tops of the houses across the street.
That means I can’t see children in the street.
I put a tricycle with a long push-handle behind my mini-van and took these photos:
You can’t see it at all. Not even the long handle that sticks up.
It’s so dangerous!
On days when I know there are children out playing, I’ll back my car out of the garage, park in the driveaway, and then get out of my car. I’ll make sure there’s no one behind me and will try to alert any parents around to keep an eye out for just a second. Then I get back in my car and back out of the driveway.
It’s a pain in the rear.
But we live in a neighborhood FULL of little kids – some who are well supervised and some (a whole ‘nother post) who aren’t. So taking extra time to back out has always been necessary, no matter how rushed or late I might be.
So when I got the chance to try the PEAK Back Up Camera, I was SOOOOO excited.
The PEAK Back Up Camera comes with a color LCD monitor that affixes to your windshield or dash with suction cups. It provides easy-to-see rear coverage from the water-resistant camera on your rear license plate holder.
Now, I’m not going to lie – when I realized that we had to hook it to the brake light wires, I thought we were in trouble.
I’m a handy gal and have my fair share of awesome power tools, but I don’t play with electricity. And my husband is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but isn’t Handy Andy, if you know what I’m sayin’.
But it turned out to actually be pretty easy! My husband just took the cover off the light and hooked the wires together easily.
The hardest part turned out to be figuring out how to get the cord from the outside camera on the license plate holder to the inside of the car, where the rest of the wireless system is. We ended up drilling a hole under the license plate, so the cord just runs down behind the license plate, through the hole and into a little pocket inside the car.
From there, the wireless system sends the camera image to the monitor on my dash. I didn’t like the cord going up over the dash and didn’t feel like figuring out some way to run it under the dashboard cover, so I just stuck it onto my dash. Awesome!
I love it!
I can easily see everything behind my minivan now, whether I’m backing up the driveway into the street, backing out of a parking space, or parallel parking.
And look! I can see the tricycle now:
I feel so much more comfortable backing out of my driveway now and don’t have to waste time checking to see if it’s safe. I wish I’d known about the PEAK Back-Up Cameras a long time ago!
The PEAK Back-up Camera can be installed on cars, SUV’s, Trucks, RV or Campers and is available at Walmart, at auto retailers nationwide and on Amazon.
For more information on the PEAK Back-up Camera, you can visit: www.peakauto.com
I recently drove a car with a back up camera, and I feel like they are so necessary!
Awesome! I didn’t realize these were available after-market.
I’m so glad they’re starting to make these standard in so many vehicles – with a precocious little kid running around, we definitely need one!
This is such an important safety device It should be on all cars
I’ll be glad when something like this is standard for cars. What a difference!
EVERY vehicle needs one of these. I remember my sister neighbor some years back had the Grandma visiting and her granddaughter went behind the vehicle without her knowing and ran her over, killed her and to this day, that just makes me so sick. My heart hurt for that family and how awful the Grandma must have felt and probably still feels today. I am like you and always double checking behind the vehicle
So nice to have. mine already has it but hubby’s doesn’t this would have been perfect for Christmas!!
Oh I didn’t know you could buy one that wasn’t installed already in the car I love this!!
This is so cool! I want one for our car now.
That is AWESOME! Our can has a rearview camera but i would get this if it didn’t. Backing up always make me so nervous in our neighborhood of kids!
This is awesome. Old Bob the van definitely did not come with a back-up camera. I love that it is something I can add on my own.
I really could use something like this for my car.
Both of our cars have back-up cameras, but this is an awesome option for cars that don’t already come with one.
We love our new car but this is the only thing I wanted that it is missing. I need to tell my husband about this!
I’ve test drove a few vehicles with back-up cameras and I love the concept. Considering I can’t afford a vehicle like that this would be perfect as it looks just as good.
This is great, I didn’t know they made them separate like that. I liked test driving a Mitsubishi with a back up cameral
That’s such an awesome device. I would love to get one for my car.
I loved the backup camera in the Sienna I test drove. It makes it so much easier when backing up!
I feel so bad we got a back up camera a couple of years ago and never installed it 🙁 We have just not lived in neighborhoods that had little children for last 7+ years. Now that are daughter is going to be driving though we really should look at getting it installed so that we all have more peace of mind when she is backing up places.