If the electrical wiring was shoddy enough to come unstuck with a minor road bump, I'd be more concerned about the rest of the wires in the ECU messing up, over a camera. This never happens
Tires are likely to be damaged and are crucial (and can be vandalized) and cars run okay. The camera going out probably won't be much worse than all the times my tires went flat or that time when my tire blew out while I was going 75 down the highway.
Look at the Toyota unintended acceleration incident to see how dangerous a malfunctioning engine can be. (Even if it ended up just being floor mats or driver error, it shows what can happen in that case.)
Other cars in full working order drive into stationary vehicles and lane dividers every day. Nobody’s freaking out about DIY mods for those.
Have you ever had either fail on you? I never have. I have heard of a few failures but always on very modified or old vehicles. Some failure modes can happen whether actuated by wire or motor as well.
it isn’t a first order concern really, dozens of higher risk, more complex things going on like tires, brakes, explosives in the steering wheels.
Because while the FOD might not be an immediate problem, it could bounce around and get caught in a mechanical linkage causing a fatal crash, could be rubbing against wires causing a fatal crash, could start on fire (if it has lithium battery) causing a fatal crash, could cause a huge delay when maintenance finds a random part bouncing around later on and they don't know what it's from... you get the idea.
This was a case of 12V power disappearing to a lot of systems; that still doesn't explain the slack harness, but electric pretensioners would certainly fail to work in a crash under such circumstances.
Having watched some youtube of most dramatic webcam recorded crashes, I can believe that. They often start with some car losing stability and going sideways.
Firmware errors. Loose wiring. Rotor overheating + damage. Brake sensors and control units. Steering component damage (e.g. from bumping up against a curb too violently.) Fried caps, just like everyone else. Damaged charging control units from poorly behaving charging stations. Distortions in the touch screens from heat. Damage to switches and doors from de-icing fluid. Damage to the underbody from road salt. Rusted connections in tail light fixtures. Damaged and/or leaking suspension seals. Air conditioning unit leaks/damage.
This happens with cars pretty frequently too, though usually with squirrels. They get in and chew up the wiring harness under the hood. It's crazy expensive to fix because it's not always clear where all the damage is, and access often requires disassembling tons of stuff in the engine bay.
I wonder if anyone actually thought they were looking at a tachometer in a Toyota with a jammed accelerator as the car and its occupants, convenient videographer and all, hurtled toward an uncertain fate... unlikely in my estimation.
I always assume that the junk I see on TV is either staged or a representative example.
Reminds me of the time my brand new F-250 "crashed" and rebooted. Lost all functionality for almost a minute, completely dropped dead on the road. It rebooted and continued on. Happened one time in five years and ~50k miles.
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