Last month. we broke the news (to the English-speaking world) that Toyota's Hilux pickup truck failed Sweden's now infamous Älgtest (Elk test). News flash from the frozen north: Toyota has admitted the problem and is taking drastic if limited action to correct it. According to Teknikens Värld, Michel Koch of Toyota Europe confirmed that the Japanese automaker is halting sales of the Hilux with 16" wheels. Although the Swedes found that a Hilux shod with 15" wheels Elk-tested just as poorly as one with 16" wheels, ToMoCo "does not consider the 15" version to perform dangerously." When faced with the same issue re: their new A-Class, Mercedes fit ESP to the car, and retrofitted a few thousand customer cars at the company's expense. While Toyota has the technology to add stability control to the new Hilux, given the vast number of Hilux that have already hit the highway (hopefully not literally), the money needed to retrofit existing Hilux would make the A-Class expenditure look like pocket change. The extra (some say needless) expense would put the product at a competitive disadvantage/dramatically lower Toyota's profits. But this could be the start if a general move towards stability control on pickups– as U.S. federal law is already mandating the systems for SUVs. 

After a speeder killed toddler Bianca Leduc while she was playing in her baby-sitter’s backyard in a residential neighborhood west of Montreal, the Quebec government has decided to rush through the mother of all traffic safety bills. CTV reports the details: hand-held cell phones will be banned, the legal BAL (blood-alcohol level) drops from 0.08 to 0.05 (bringing it inline with other Canadian provinces), those caught under the influence will have their license suspended for three months (up from one month), 15 intersections will get red light cameras, all new drivers will have to take driving lessons and operate under probationary permits (not just those under 25), speeding fines in residential zones will double, license points for speeders will double and there’ll be a new offense called “major speeding” (which leads to an automatic license suspension). 

iAfrica reports on CARS' (Committee for Active Road Safety) on-going campaign to raise South Africa's automotive safety standards. The association claims that a recently released report from the National Vehicle Testing Association shows that 80 percent of vehicles on the Republic's roads are unsafe to drive. "This is a totally untenable situation and we fully support them in their call to have the regular testing of vehicles written into our statutes," announced CARS' chairperson Ian Auret. Yup, that's right: there is no annual, bi-annual or any kind of annual testing procedure for South Africa's privately-owned passenger vehicles. Stats on Africa's automotive carnage are notoriously hard to come by (reliable stats even more so). The UN's Global Road Safety Partnership estimates 111.4 deaths per 10k licensed RSA drivers. That's not bad compared to the Central African Republic's (under-reported) 339.2, but it's still a plenty heavy toll for automotive independence.

Let's say you're an American car buyer looking for the cleanest, safest and most fuel efficient vehicle money can buy. You can pop on over to www.fueleconomy.gov and research a vehicle's mpg and emissions, complete with side-by-side comparisons. You can then click across to www.safercar.gov and check out your prospective whip's crash worthiness, albeit one vehicle at a time. As of today, frugal, safety-minded, environmentally-conscious New Zealand car buyers have a much easier time of it. A box fresh Kiwi government website– www.rightcar.govt.nz— ranks, sorts and compares 2300 new and used cars according to their relative fuel economy, CO2, pollutants, Driver Safety, Others' Safety or a combination of all five. Yes, but– The Land Transport New Zealand (LTNZ) says it set-up the site to focus on just one of these criteria. Speaking to Stuff.co.nz, LTNZ chief executive Wayne Donnelly said reducing carbon dioxide emissions was his department's primary goal. Anyway, we can't help but wonder if inter-departmental rivalries and commercial "concerns" would prevent the U.S. government from providing the same sort of user-friendly car buying widget– especially one without a cupholder count.

Ahead of the Toronto Transit Commission's efforts to secure CA$6b for its proposed "Transit City" plan, The Globe and Mail is duly repeating the government's fear-mongering party line. "Exhaust pollution kills 440 each year, report finds," the headline trumpets. "Thirty-per-cent drop in traffic would save nearly 200 lives and $900-million in health costs, city's medical officer of health says." So, what else needs saying? The cure: 120 kilometres of new light-rail lines. After sounding a somewhat cautionary note, the Globe doesn't twist the "pollution kills" knife as much as use the report's conclusion to disembowel the rail project's opposition. "Children, too, feel the effects, with an estimated 1,200 cases of acute bronchitis a year caused by traffic pollution. Children are also more likely to suffer from asthma, and the report blames 68,000 'asthma symptom days' each year in Toronto's population on tailpipe emissions. It also found 67,000 'acute respiratory system days,' when people suffer from coughing, wheezing and other symptoms." Clearly, unavoidably, inevitably, something must be done!

If you use a tree-shaped car freshener, you either suffer from an overdeveloped sense of irony (fuzzy dice not  good enough?), share your motor with malodorous mates, or conduct mass murderer in the grand style of the  feature film "Se7en.". And if you're a smoker who uses a dangly car freshener to mask your habit, man, are you living dangerously. According to the German blog Autogazette, the head of the German association of Ear, Nose and Throat Doctors, warns that drivers who smoke multiply their chance of  developing cancer if they use a car freshener. "The gases of those 'friendly imitation trees' combine with particulates from tobacco  smoke," Michael Jaumann asserts. "Together, they are much more inclined to deposit themselves in the human body." Not without reason are deaths from cancer of the  throat and the mouth on the increase for German males, says Jaumann. He did not specify whether the "crowns" so popular among Euro cabbies were also toxic, but you just know they are.

Auto123.com reports that Transport Canada (TC) has decided to eliminate consumer confusion over automotive stability control systems. First, they're looking for carmakers to drop all their proprietary handling aids' names — ESP, VSA, DSC, etc. TC wants everyone selling cars in Canada to use ESC (Electronic Stability Control) ASAP. To that end, they're creating a "universal" logo for the various systems. Next, the government has decided to spend its taxpayer's hard-earned money to do the heavy lifting in the spread the gospel of handling nannies department. They're launching a public education campaign to extol ESC's virtues to Canadian car buyers. As Auto123 scribe Mathieu Lapointe points out, all this enthusiasm for a government push stems from a similar European initiative that included a publicity campaign by none other than F1 legend Michael Schumacher. In a striking reversal of traditional free market vs. regulatory intervention protocol, America's National Highway Transport Safety Administration has taken a different stance; they've mandated that every new vehicle sold stateside must have some form of ESC onboard by September, 2011. And… that's it. 

Geek alert! Tomorrow (Saturday November 3) at 7:30 am PST, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will be webcasting their 2007 "Grand Challenge." This year, the 11 robotic cars leave the old Mojave Desert course for 60-miles of simulated streets– complete with 50 human-driven vehicles– to compete for AI bragging rights and a $2m top prize. While the resulting crashes won't be NASCAR-grade, and anyone who's seen Lexus' self-parking LS do its thing won't find the parking portion of the challenge particularly entertaining, and not even an America's Cup race lasts six hours, it's yet another landmark in the move towards automated automobiles. As former Car & Driver editor and TTAC contributor Stephan Wilkinson pointed-out on these e-pages many moons ago, the effort to remove driver control from the safety equation is beginning to assume the mantle of inevitability. Of course, that's not the driving force behind the DARPA deal. Their challenge is specifically designed to simulate military missions. Surveying the carnage caused by Improvised Explosive Devices on military transport in Iraq, Congress has decreed that a third of military ground vehicles must be unmanned by 2015. That said, there is a civilian spin: contestants must "meet the same standards required to pass the California DMV road test." It's a shame they didn't set the bar higher.

You may remember Sweden's infamous Älgtest (a.k.a. moose or Elk test). A kamikaze professional driver guides a fully-laden vehicle (simulated passengers, genuine cargo) down a closed course at 35.5mph. He/she then swerves to avoid an object, then swerves back; simulating the manoeuvres needed to to miss both an errant moose and oncoming traffic. Back in '97, pictures of Mercedes' newly-launched A-Class flipping over during moose testing led the German automaker to retrofit every single car sold with a new Electronic Stability Program module. And now those crazy bastards at Teknikens Värld have put the Toyota Hilux through the same test — with similar results. (TTAC's American readers may remember the Hilux as the previous generation Toyota Tacoma pickup.) The video in the link brings back memories of the 1988 Consumer Reports exposé on the Suzuki "Somersault" Samurai. Anyway, hands-up anyone who thinks Toyota is going to retrofit ESP on old Hilux pickups? Yeah I thought so.

A new report from Brunel University's Driving Research Laboratory [UK] suggests that older cars provide more safety-enhancing sensory feedback than new cars, and that's a bad thing. "Cars provide timely ‘informal chatter’ such as engine noise and road noise, which keeps us attentive and informed of our situation on the road," posits the appropriately named Dr. Guy Walker. "If this feedback is removed through car design innovations, the whole nature of driving could change completely, potentially putting lives at risk.” Yes, well, the methodology used to reach this more-is-less conclusion involved just ten drivers using their own vehicles. "Drivers provided a concurrent verbal commentary as they drove around a defined 14 mile on-road test route, from motorways to residential streets. Analysis of the verbal commentary provided over sixteen thousand data points which were analysed in reference to the concept of situational awareness (SA)." Perhaps an analysis of the relative accident rates of an old S-class vs. a new model would have provided more relevant data. Or not.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Mlive.com reports that parts availability (i.e. lack thereof) has delayed Ford's recall of 1.25m cars for faulty cruise control wiring. Announced in August, the recall affects more than a dozen models built from 1992 to 2004. These include the 1992 – 1997 Lincoln Town Car/Ford Crown Victoria/Mercury Grand Marquis; the 1993 – 1998 Lincoln Mark VIII, 1993 – 1995 Taurus SHO and the 1994 Mercury Capri. To rectify the situation, Ford dealers install a fused wiring harness (there's your duct tape) into the speed control electrical system. Until the replacement parts arrive, Ford's inviting worried owners of these rolling relics to take their car down to their local dealer to have the cruise control system disconnected. For free! Speaking without a lawyer, Ford spokesman Dan Jarvis says there have been no deaths, injuries or accidents associated with the August recall. 

Agencie France-Presse (AFP) reports that Toyota is recalling 472k Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) vehicles for a faulty fuel systems. Although no related accidents or incidents have been reported to date, the defect could cause gas line leakages. All told, the company's recalling eight different JDM models, including the flagship Toyota Crown, which occupies the same slot in Toyota's JDM line-up as the Camry occupies in the good ol' USA. Arriving hot on the heels of Toyota's decline in Consumer Reports' reliability ratings, the news is sure to arm the pro-domestic crowd with more ammunition against the automotive world's new king of the hill. Interestingly, the recall includes models  manufactured from 1999 – 2004, when Toyota was thought to be the far-and-away leader in reliability and initial quality.

The European Union (EU) wants to cut the number of pedestrian fatalities caused by cars in half by 2010; Auto Industry reports some 8k Eurozone pedestrians and cyclists are killed by vehicles each year. The EU is proposing that all new cars be equipped with Brake Assist Systems (BAS). (Brake Assist systems monitor how fast the brake pedal is being depressed and when panic stops are detected; the system automatically applies maximum boost.) The EU figures “if the complete European car fleet is fitted with BAS, as many as 1,100 pedestrian lives may be saved every year.” According to EU Commission Vice-President Günter Verheugen, the new regulation would replace 27 national laws and two EU directives. It’s all spelled out (in language only a bureaucrat could love) in an EU white paper poetically entitled Directive 2003/102/EC.

Connecticut, New York and New Jersey all prohibit drivers from yakking on a cell without a hands-free device. A new study of 902 tri-state drivers commissioned by Parrot, a Texas-based manufacturer of said technology, reveals that 72 percent of these mobile mobile users now own a hands-free device. Now the bad news: only 14 percent of them use the equipment religiously (regardless of denomination). Jersey drivers are the worst offenders; 43 percent of their in-car calls are held via the handset. "The challenge of hands-free compliance is not only perception but also reality,” says the irony-loving Ed Valdez, president and COO of Parrot. “The reality is that the majority of tri-state drivers are still using their hand-held cell phones because they don't perceive that the law applies to them.” Reflecting the “it’s the other guy who’s driving sucks” gestalt, the debate over the statistical danger of cell phone distracted drivers (as opposed to tiredness, children, food, etc.) continues. Meanwhile, anecdotal evidence of cell-related tragedies– such as this morning’s report in the Houston Chronicle— sustains the momentum for outright bans against drivers using hand-held cells.

Although General Motors isn't saying how many subscribers they have, their OnStar system is currently logging some 1k car crashes a month. The system provides monitors with the vehicle’s exact post-accident location. It also logs the number of impacts, whether or not the vehicle rolled over, and which airbags (if any) deployed. Forbes reports that GM has teamed-up with the University of Michigan to see if OnStar can provide first responders with accident data that will improve their effectiveness. "When you show up at the scene, every minute counts,” Dr. Stuart Wang asserts. “If you can equip the responders, fire and EMS rescue folks with an idea of what to expect at the scene, you will help them.” The study will correlate some 200 crashes with medical records, with an eye towards creating a database of injuries common to a given type of accident.