The history of safety is, in part, the history of resistance to safety. From transportation and travel to sports and entertainment, the safeguards taken for granted were once too allegedly controversial or costly for companies to grant to consumers. Imagine driving a car without a seatbelt or being a passenger in a minivan without side-impact airbags or anti-lock brakes, or playing football without a helmet or riding a roller coaster without a shoulder harness. Imagine, too, pulling out of parking space without a rear-view camera, unable to see passing cars or pedestrians.

Cameras are now as common among compact cars as on the most uncommonly expensive sports cars and sedans.

And yet, the technology that earns drivers a discount on car insurance is the same or mostly similar technology that insurers refuse to cover elsewhere. The technologies that makes parallel parking easier or easing a car into traffic a cinch is considered an extravagance on construction equipment, despite the dangers crane operators face but cannot see, despite what workers on the ground can see but not forecast, despite what cameras can record and capture.

Reprinted courtesy of Christopher Machut, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.