Consumer Complaints
| Fail date | miles | occurences | Purchase date |
|---|---|---|---|
| COMMUNICATIONS - BACK UP ALARM | |||
| 09/07/2007 | 25 | 1 | 08/31/2007 |
| There is a safety defect that could cause serious injury or death to pedestrians. i have purchased a new 2007 chevrolet 3500hd, ltz pickup truck. this truck was purchased with the factory installed ultrasonic backup sensor system. my system works just like it is described in the owner's manual, but i believe that the design is dangerously unsafe. it relies on visual only, instead of auditory (or a combination of auditory and visual) warnings. users expect to have an auditory warning and thus will likely hit something or someone before discovering their misunderstanding. briefly, in normal operation, the system will emit a single beep when it first detects any obstacle while backing up in reverse. when the obstacle is less than 12 inches from the rear bumper, it emits a burst of beeps. this is, of course, so close that it only serves as a panic stop indicator. in between those two audible signals, no auditory alerts are provided. instead the driver is instructed to look over their shoulder out the rear window and observe a set of lights on one side. as one backs ever closer to an obstacle, first one amber light comes on, then a second amber light comes on indicating that the driver is still closer to the object and finally a red light comes on signifying that you are very close. this system design in inherently dangerous because the driver must look at the panel while backing up to get the benefit of the closing range indication. as anyone knows who drives a pickup truck, especially a | |||