Testing, testing

The BMW 7 Series I’m currently testing shows how it should be done: it’s a big car and use of digital cameras really helps you to deal with its bulk.

- MATT SAUNDERS

I’m sure it was BMW that first offered the plan-perspective parking aid which it now calls Surround View. It's a composite image, delivered as if you were hovering about 30 feet above the roof of the car, in order that you know you've parked perfectly in the centre of the bay you're aiming at without getting out to check. It's a little bit of genius, digital technology enabling a perspective you couldn't get any other way – and proof positive that cameras do have their place on new cars.

A lot of the digital camera technology that I find in new cars isn’t nearly so clever, however. Since cameras seem to be being used ever more widely and are now even influencing things like big-picture vehicle design, it’s high time we lay some ground rules. Simple rules that you might not imagine needed stating at all, although they clearly do. Rules like: do the cameras in question actually work in the first place? Are they adding something or just doing a second-rate job at replacing something? And are they fit for the intended purpose to which they are put and the best way to achieve that purpose?