What happens when a Audi Q7 (the SUV that looks like it eats subcompacts for breakfast) crashes with a minuscule Fiat 500? The result is predictable (Audi vs Fiat 10:0), but the reasons are somewhat surprising. German auto club ADAC has been testing the so-called crash-compatibility of cars for 15 years. The Fiat 500 is an up-to-date car, with five Euro-NCAP stars and even equipped with knee airbags. In this 50 percent-offset test, conducted at around 40 mph (56 km/ h, but equivalent to 80km/h for the lower-mass Fiat), the Fiat fares much worse than it would if it just hit a wall. This is because the Audi's longitudinal beam misses the Fiat's frame and bores right into the smaller car's footwell. Subsequently, the Fiat's frame collapses and the driver's overtaxed airbag ruptures. For the Fiat's occupants, such a crash would likely be fatal, while the Audi's passengers would suffer not much more than some bruises. ADAC's Rolf Ambos says this result is quite unnecessary: with cross members and longitudinal beams in similar heights, damage would be much lower. "We at ADAC call for regulations that require larger cars to have energy-absorbing beams on several levels. Most heavy sedans already take compatibility into consideration; SUVs should too." Yet another nail in the SUVs coffin?

Germans are fond of testing the heck out of machines, no matter how oddball the configuration. They even turned testing into a world-class industry, what with companies such as TÜV expanding into unlikely places such as China. The newest and strangest crash test was carried out for the German insurance industry association, as shown in this video via Spiegel TV. Surprise, surprise! If you drive your Segway down a sidewalk at top speed (15 km per hour) and a car pulls out in front of you, the resulting crash can be fatal. "At slow speeds such as 9 km/h, the Segway is fun and safe, but at higher speeds, even a helmet cannot prevent serious injury, because the full impact force is on the driver's jaw", says test engineer Siegfried Brockman. The rest of the video is worth watching for the pirouetting meter maids, and the "World's Funniest Video"-style clips of people (including GWB) falling off their Segways. But isn't life about choices? One could wear a full-face helmet (and scare small children), or hope for an airbag-equipped Segway in 2010 (just kidding). Or maybe just walk.

Motorcyclists. Of course, Mary E. Peters didn't quite put it that way. “We have seen the total motorcycle participation in vehicle miles traveled go up,” Mary E. Peters, the secretary of transportation and a "longtime Harley-Davidson rider" told The New York Times. “We might see more people moving to that mode of transportation. We might see that data skew.” (I don't know about you, but I wouldn't use that kind of language around my fellow Hell's Angels.) By the numbers, "Deaths of motorcyclists surged 6.6 percent, to 5,154; 2007 was the 10th straight year of increase… Total deaths in motor vehicle crashes in 2007 declined to 41,059, a drop of 3.9 percent compared with 2006. Deaths in cars fell 7.8 percent, and in light trucks 2.7 percent. Even alcohol-related deaths fell." Obviously, there are enough unconfirmed variables to please/challenge any advocacy group: gas prices, passive safety, driver education, drink drive enforcement, changing demographics, helmet laws, etc. But common sense suggests that gas price hikes are a double-edged sword. At the moment, it looks like a net safety gain. Or loss. Or something. 

I live just off Blackstone Boulevard (GPS coordinates available for GM Black Ops rotary winged aircraft). It's RI's urban highway: two-lanes in each direction with a large, leafy central island (once a streecar route, now joggers' paradise). The Boulevard is also the Mother of All Speed Traps; I'll pay anyone who can drive down that piece of tarmac at 25mph to wear one of those Mission Impossible masks and sit through my kids' school plays. Well, that's the way it used to be. Suddenly, Renaissance City Planners have added a bike lane to Blackstone Boulevard, restricting traffic in each direction to a single lane. As a two-wheeled boulevardier, I can only say WTF? The new lane places two-wheelers closer to the traffic (there's a lane for parking next to the curb). Why didn't my unelected representatives ban parking and put the bike lane next to the curb? And now I hear these self-same traffic planners [sic] are going to install speed bumps. All I've got to say about that is this article about a Canadian traffic calming strategy gone serious awry. "[Local resident Brenda] White says cars and a motorcycle have spun out of control after hitting or dodging [constricted] curbs. Some cars spin onto lawns, she said. Some shear off trees or dent traffic signs and cable boxes. Curbs are chipped and blackened by the many tires that have struck them. A recent survey found residents are almost as concerned about the curbs as they are about speeding. Their concerns are justified. Between 2004 and 2006, five drivers lost control on Heritage Drive and crashed. Five more vehicles crashed for other reasons. One of these 10 collisions claimed a life."

Alzheimer's disease compounds the physical changes that accompany aging, which can undermine driving skills. Yet, studies from Brown University and Washington University indicate that patients can drive through the very early stages of the disease. The August 2008 Harvard Mental Health Letter (HMHL; sub) reports the Brown study of 84 patients with early Alzheimer's and 44 healthy older controls. All of the latter passed an initial driving test as compared with 88 percent of those with "very mild" Alzheimer's and 78 percent of those with "mild" Alzheimer's. Time to failure of the driving test was a median of 324 days (~11 months) for those with mild Alzheimer's, and nearly twice as long, 605 days (~20 months) for those with very mild disease. To handle the situation, HMHL recommends broaching the issue early, "while discussing other aspects of care," and documenting the patient's driving patterns. "Although patterns of behavior are what matter, citing specific incidents [?] to make the case may help convince a patient to surrender the keys," according to HMHL. The newsletter also recommends having a third party, such as clinician or friend present during conversations about driving.

University of Minnesota's Center for Excellence in Rural Safety (CERS) has unveiled a new web site using Google Maps to display 2006 NHSTA motor accident data. SafeRoadMaps.org's widget lets you search the accidents by state or street address. [NB: The site's just been launched; it's a bit slow and kludgy.] The data shows the type of vehicle involved, whether or not a seatbelt or helmet was used, the presence or absence of alcohol, and speeding. CERS is hoping to "create greater levels of awareness, commitment, and informed decision making at all organizational levels, contribute to a change in thinking about the nature of the problem of road traffic injuries and what constitutes successful prevention, and strengthen institutions and create effective partnerships to deliver safer road traffic systems." Whew! But why the emphasis on rural safety? "Half of the 42,000 crash-related fatalities in the United States each year occur on two-lane rural roads."

A friend of mine killed a motorcyclist Sunday night. He was so out of it, either on beer, vodka, blow, crack, meth or god only knows what, that he simply drove into the young biker from behind on Route 9W, fast enough to squash him dead. Early word was that Jack left the scene, but if so, it was probably only because he was in a stupor, since at least the police don't seem to be charging him with that. He is in the county jail, though. Everybody in our small town knows that Jack is a doper and a drunk. He's the genial alcoholic still drawing from the reservoir of sympathy established when his own 16-year-old son died instantly in a car-versus-tree accident while racing a friend on a dark back road. It was long enough ago that my wife, who biked past the tree yesterday, said the “shrine” is gone— a football, a deflated party balloon, a small white cross, some faded we'll-miss-you-Bobby signs. At least we kicked Jack out of the ambulance corps, where he was one of our drivers. But there was even argument about that. Could we do it without proof, without specific evidence? Well, how about numerous arrests both for DWI and possession? Yeah, but… One of the frequent arguments against permanently suspending a confirmed drunk's license is that you're removing his or her livelihood. You're turning them into a contractor without a pickup, an appliance repairman without a van full of tools, a commuter stranded 30 miles from work. Last week, I watched the cleaning lady from our fancy health club climb wearily into a taxi in front of the gym's big marquee. I barely knew there were cabs in our small town, but the cleaning lady apparently couldn't afford a car and paid fares twice a day to get to and from work. Maybe the suddenly truckless contractor needs to find a new line of work and call a cab. I'm sure at least one 20-year-old motorcyclist would have agreed.

With full-sized pickups taking a hosing, manufacturers may be looking towards smaller trucks to stem the bleeding. But a recent test of five compact pickups by the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety (IIHS) shows that they don't share the crash safety advantages of their full-sized brethren.The IIHS' first-ever side-impact test of compact pickups shows that all but the barely-compact Tacoma (which scored a "good") offer sub-standard side protection in crashes. The Dodge Dakota/Mitsubishi Raider, Nissan Frontier and Ranger/B-series earned "marginal" ratings, while the Chevy Colorado rated a dead-last "poor." The IIHS says that side-impacts are the second most common type of fatal crash, accounting for 9k deaths last year. Accordingly, the Institutes say that small pickups have the highest rates of driver deaths in accidents "of any vehicles on the road, including minicars," and that the small trucks "aren't good choices for people looking for safe transportation…until they improve." Still, some of the improvements that the IIHS recommends (stability control, side airbags) will soon become standard on some of these trucks, and optional on others. But if you think a compact pickup is any safer than say, a compact car, this might just be your wake-up call.

The LA Times reports that a federal appeals court has ruled that the government may not withhold Early Warning data from the public. The info is collected in accordance with federal law requiring vehicle and component manufacturers to report information on their products (related to defects, injuries, deaths) to The National Highway Transportation Administration (NHTSA). The law was passed in 2000 in response to the Explorer/Firestone rollover scare. Until now, the information has been shielded from Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Public Citizen forced the fork-over. To which The Rubber Manufacturers Association said phooey [paraphrasing]. "With this decision, unverified information released by the government can be misinterpreted and thereby unnecessarily alarm motorists about products that are safe." The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers reckons "data that could cause a company commercial harm" should be withheld, including warranty and service information. The courts must still rule whether all Early Warning data should be made available, or just the information pertaining to cases involving injury and death.

That's what The Star-Ledger columnist Bob Braun (via nj.com) concluded when he drove the same 55-mile route two times: once keeping pace with traffic, and once at just above the 65-mph speed limit. If you've driven on the highway anywhere lately, I don't need to tell you the outcome (but I will anyway). Keeping pace with traffic, Braun drove 80 – 85 mph and had no cause for concern. Driving 68 mph, he was passed by almost everyone, tailgated and found himself in dangerous situations more than once. He quotes Charles Lave, University of California at Irvine economist: "I find that there is no statistically discernible relationship between the fatality rate and average speed, though there is a strong relationship to speed variance. Variance kills, not speed." Perhaps the lawmakers need to be reminded of this fact as they consider lowering speed limits in the name of saving fuel. (An aside: does that mean the more fuel-efficient a car is, the faster it'll be allowed to go?) If our elected representatives are stupid enough to drop the national speed limit back to the double nickel, accident rates will go up as the variance between those who want to get there in a reasonable time and those who drive the speed limit increases. It makes more sense to raise the speed limit for safety's sake. As Braun points out, "if everyone uniformly sped, or, if everyone obeyed the limits, then we'd be safer." And you know the majority aren't going to obey the limits.

iCasualties.org reports 4118 U.S. military deaths in Iraq from March '03 to July '08. In 2005 (the last year where full data is available), 43,443 American died in road accidents. The rate of deaths per 100 million miles driven has steadily decreased. But the increasing number of miles driven means that the total number of fatalities hasn't changed much over the past few decades. Get those drivers to drive less… ScienceDaily reports that Michael Morresey put together some tables on the topic. The public health professor at the University of Alabama reckons a 10 percent rise in the cost of gas trims traffic by 2.3 percent. His calculations suggest that $4/gallon gas equals 1k fewer monthly U.S. road fatalities. It's not clear if Morresey's assumptions factor in the effect of automobilists switching to a pair of wheels (with a much higher fatality rate per miles driven). It'll be a few years before we get the bottom line.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) hasn't revised their crash test rating system since Tonya Harding's ex-hubby ordered a hit on Nancy Kerrigan's right leg (1994). As a result, "starflation;" some 96 percent of all cars sold in America get a four to five star rating. The NHTSA will roll-out new tests and standards in the fabled year 2010. The International Herald Tribune reports that the agency's looking to unify front and side impact results into a single one to five star rating. This should provide a more apples-to-apples comparison of overall vehicle safety, and bring the U.S. in line with European and Japanese testing standards. The NHTSA will add new front-impact tests and a side-impact pole test (sure to provide the Youtube crowd with hours of hilarity). They'll also begin tormenting smaller female dummies, in hopes of improving safety for smaller passengers, and more closely monitor leg crushage. Finally, los federales will note standard safety equipment such as electronic stability control, lane departure and forward collision warning systems in safety rating summaries. Welcome changes all. 

Want to save the equivalent of 30 cents a gallon on gas? The Detroit News says anyone can realize those savings if they just drive five miles per hour slower than usual. In fact, Department of Energy researcher David Greene estimates you could save $12 by driving 10 mph slower on a 500-mile trip. The tradeoff: it would add one hour to the trip (that you'll never get back). Don't get too overly zealous with your penny-pinching, though. The AAA warns that driving slower than 55 when the rest of the traffic is zooming past at 70 – 75 is "a recipe for a potential crash." Drivers in some states won't have to worry about that, though– Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota and Vermont are in various stages of considering bills to lower the speed limits on highways, in some cases to 55 mph. We're monitoring sales of CB radios…

Today, as you know, is July 1st. To celebrate, California and Washington State have passed laws mandating handsfree devices; stick a phone to your ear and get a fine. Not just a fine of course. You have to (at least in CA) pay a gas surcharge fee, as well. These laws won't do a damn thing to increase safety; the supposed reason why they were passed. Here's my thinking… When you want to call someone, you still have to dial. Sure, lots of phones have voice recognition. With my supposed "smart phone" I say, "Call mom mobile" and get back, "Calling Tom Vogel." But here's the real cincher. This morning, for the first time, I used a handsfree device. I loved it. Normally when I'm driving I try to get off the phone as quickly as possible. I need a hand to shift gears and my arm gets tired. But with the ear dongle, I talked for half an hour– way longer than I normally would if I were holding a phone to my ear. So, does my State feel that the physical act of holding my hand to my ear is the danger? Because methinks these new laws will have more people driving and talking longer. Your thoughts?