Government’s solution to distracted driving: hold summits and tweet at Jersey Shore cast members. The OEM solution: run ads legitimizing unfocused driving and then sell an electronic solution (in the example above, a $2,950 “Driver Assistance Package” for the $49,400 Mercedes E350). Or argue that voice-controlled in-car Facebook updates pose no more of a distraction than, say, radios. Or roll out a “feature-disabling feature.” What Ray LaHood calls an “epidemic,” and “menace to society,” the automakers call big business. If LaHood is as serious about distraction as he says, should he not be calling out the trend towards increased in-car communication? And if he is exaggerating the problem, shouldn’t the automakers be more actively defending their decision to market distracting in-car technology?

If LaHood keeps his rhetorical War On Distraction alive long enough, the current OEM approach will inevitably come under the microscope. Given that private concerns generally prefer self-regulation to government regulation, what should the automakers do to keep the government off its back? Ignore LaHood and hope his crusade blows over? Fight him, commission studies, and definitively prove the safety of in-car communication? Or change course, risking a huge disadvantage but possibly carving out a new branding opportunity? Now that the least safe part of the modern car is the human doing the driving, everything has become a lot more complicated…

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s second annual distracted driving summit begins tomorrow, and the party’s getting started right: with the release of 2009’s distracted driving fatality numbers. 5,474 Americans died as a result of driver distraction last year, according to NHTSA data [PDF here]. 448,000 “traffic injuries” were attributed to the distracted driving “epidemic,” an epithet LaHood has employed since his crusade against driver distraction began last year. Strangely though, distracted driving deaths remained flat as a percentage of overall traffic fatalities (16%) last year.

But, argues LaHood in an Orlando Sentinel op-ed, police often don’t report the role of distraction in traffic incidents, so the actual number could be higher. That’s an argument we’d expect from the guy hosting a database that is infamous for its inaccuracy, but we’re still struggling how a statistically flat phenomenon (in an environment of improving highway safety) qualifies as an “epidemic.” More importantly, we’re not sure that LaHood’s conference will have any more of an impact than last years. But hey, at least it’s better than scolding Snooki on Twitter. A cabinet Secretary can only do so much…

Discovered by Discover Magazine, this “speed bump” in a Vancouver BC parking garage is the creepiest application of the “trompe-l’œil speedbump” technology to date. Apparently,

the girl’s elongated form appears to rise from the ground as cars approach, reaching 3D realism at around 100 feet, and then returning to 2D distortion once cars pass that ideal viewing distance. Its designers created the image to give drivers who travel at the street’s recommended 18 miles per hour (30 km per hour) enough time to stop before hitting Pavement Patty–acknowledging the spectacle before they continue to safely roll over her.

Toyota and the families of four people who died when dealership loaner Lexus ES crashed after a reported unintended acceleration event, have settled out of court reports Bloomberg. The crash gained national attention and helped spur on the media frenzy around unintended acceleration in Toyotas. Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda had previously apologized to the family of the driver, Mark Saylor, during congressional testimony. Needless to say, Toyota is not disclosing the terms of its settlement, saying only that

Through mutual respect and cooperation we were able to resolve this matter without the need for litigation.

Considering it was a Lexus dealer who had put non-standard mats in the Saylor car, and had previously been warned that it had a sticky accelerator, Toyota’s willingness to settle seems driven more by PR considerations than liability.

As The Wall Street Journal‘s Dan Neil explains, pedestrians aren’t just annoying, they’re also responsible (in part) for some of the most astonishingly dull designs in all of autodom… like the 2011 VW Jetta. Trends towards rising beltlines, strangely high hoods, reduced visibility, and general carved-from-cheese-ishness in automotive design can all be tied to European pedestrian crash test standards. With a little help from unimaginative designers, global product strategies and consumer apathy, of course.

I know the readers of Autoblog understand the dangers of distracted driving because you’ve been sounding the alarm on this deadly epidemic for years, long before I became Secretary of Transportation. Most Autoblog readers know by now that real drivers just drive.

And, because I appreciate the heavy lifting Autoblog and its readers has been doing on this issue, I’m making my appeal to America’s automotive fans right here…

…Like you, I love driving. I have a 1998 Buick Regal in Washington, D.C., as well as a Ford Escape back home in Peoria. And, also like you, when I drive, I want to do so on roads that are not full of people who simply don’t pay attention to their driving.

But, the sad reality is that people who drive distracted are causing harm to the rest of us.

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood takes to Autoblog to recruit support for his forthcoming National Summit on Distracted Driving (Tuesday, September 21 in Washington DC. BYOB), the second such event of his tenure. And what better way to catch the attention of automotive enthusiasts than by professing your passion for the dynamic delights of a ’98 Regal? Meanwhile, enthusiasts who are taken in by LaHood’s crusade should take note: the last Distracted Driving Summit ended with a ban on in-car texting by federal employees, a measure TTAC described as

a bit like fighting an epidemic (to continue Secretary LaHood’s metaphor) by telling federal employees to take an aspirin.

Having told the world that Onstar will allow users to update their Facebook profiles and listen to Facebook news feeds from their cars, bosses at the GM subsidiary reveal that they haven’t actually determined if these features are safe yet. Onstar Marketing boss Sam Mancuso explains the situation to AdAge

Today people are texting while they are driving. It’s not legal and it’s a very bad idea; 47% of people who are texting say that they have done so in their vehicle while driving. To do a normal text message takes 4.6 seconds, and at the speed of 55 miles an hour, someone can travel the length of a football field. We know that people want to use technology, but we are working on using it in ways that they don’t have to be distracted. Our goal is to minimize that distraction to virtually zero.

The litmus test we use is “Keep your eyes on the road, your hands on the wheel and your mind on the drive.” If we find that the texting service or Facebook audio update capability causes people to be distracted we’re not going to do it. We’ll vet those things out internally…We’d be very proud to talk to you, others in the media or family and friends and say we tested it, developed it and it’s not safe.

Does anyone actually believe that this will be the outcome, now that GM and Onstar have begun hyping these features?
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In the second bit of bad news for Toyota to break today, Corporate Counsel reports that former Toyota lawyer Dimitrios Biller has been cleared by an arbitrator to present evidence that Toyota claimed was protected by attorney-client privilege. That evidence reportedly proves that Toyota concealed safety information, although its value has been hotly debated. The evidence will be presented in Biller’s civil RICO suit against Toyota now that the arbitrator in that case has ruled that hey are not protected by attorney-client privilege. Biller tells CC

Attorney-client privileged information almost never gets to the finder of fact to determine the merits of the case. I am halfway there. The burden is now on Toyota to prove me wrong

But for full context, a retired federal judge clarifies that

The Arbitrator does not rule that a crime or a fraud has taken place. The ruling is simply that a prima facia showing has been made, so otherwise-privileged materials may be used in discovery and arbitration.

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Yes, despite the ever-present dangers of distracted driving and demonically-possessed Toyotas, US highways are safer than ever [full PDF report here]. Overall deaths in 2009 were at their lowest levels since 1950, even as vehicle miles traveled increased. Highway fatalities have been falling for the past four years, and in 2009 even motorcycle fatalities decreased for the first time in 11 years. At 1.13 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2009, fatalities per VMT fell to another all-time low. Why? It could be the market-fueled arms race to stuff ever more standard safety equipment into cars, or incessant pressure on OEMs from the IIHS (and its ilk)… or, if you’re Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, you might think that

the weak economy was a contributing factor as many Americans chose not to go out to bars and restaurants after work or on the weekend.

Yes, the man tasked with keeping our highway safe believes that his ongoing success is the product of Americans moping around the house because of a down economy. Even though VMT actually increased by .2 percent over 2008. In other words, despite “talking about safety more than anyone in Washington,” Ray LaHood is both clueless about the data, and convinced that a weak economy helps his crusade. Which makes you wonder what the man means when he says

While we’ve come a long way, we have a long distance yet to travel.

Ray LaHood is great, isn’t he? When that big nasty corporation, Toyota, was building those awful machines that were murdering people and their children in their sleep in the middle of the night, he urged everyone to “stop driving your Toyotas” (Ford also had a problem with unintended acceleration, but LaHood couldn’t go after them with the same vigor as he was busy dealing holding “Toyota’s feet to the fire” at the time). His useful piece of advice led to a calm and controlled recall and gave people the courage to come forward and give their horror stories of how their Toyotas went all “HAL” on them. Then came allegations that Ray and the NHTSA were suppressing a report that confirmed it wasn’t the cars but driver error. Well, Ray knew he was being stabbed in the back but you can’t keep a good man quiet for long… Read More >

The never-ending tension between the desire to give consumers more choices of in-car gizmos and the need to halt the advance of distracted driving took another confused twist this week, as Onstar announced that it is testing new features that could allow drivers to listen to text messages and update their Facebook status from behind the wheel. According to the DetN, the technology would read incoming text messages or a Facebook news feed to the driver, and could even allow the driver to update their own Facebook status verbally. Needless to say, GM and Onstar are hyping the updates as ways to keep up with Ford’s SYNC on the entertainment front, and because the features are all hands-free, they’re safe… right?
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The NY Times reports on a growing phenomenon: the crash tax. Though ambulance fees have long been born by those who use their services, Police, Fire Departments and other first responders in 26 states are reportedly charging users for their services, and they’re generating quite a bit of debate in the process. In one instance, Mr Cary Feldman of Chicago Heights was in an accident that he didn’t cause, did not use any emergency services, and was still billed $200 for the dispatch of a fire engine to the scene of his wreck. The AAA’s take on such fees

Generally, we see that public safety services are a core government function that should be properly budgeted for with general taxes and not addressed by fees after the fact

On the other hand, charging those who cause accidents for emergency response costs helps keep taxes lower for safe drivers and provides an incentive against reckless driving. So are fees worth the occasional misapplication, or are they an unfair tax on victims?

The citizen-led groups that want the public to decide the future of red light cameras are racist, according to lawsuits filed by American Traffic Solutions (ATS) in a pair of Texas cities. The Arizona-based photo enforcement firm filed in a state court in Baytown on Thursday and then an ATS-funded front group filed an identical case in a federal court in Houston on Friday. Residents in both cities signed petitions placing a ban on automated ticketing machines onto the November 2 ballot, but ATS cites the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a reason to block these votes.

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Ford was ordered by a Mississippi jury to pay $131m to the family of a New York Mets prospect who died in a rollover crash in 2001. The ruling came despite Ford’s insistence that Brian Cole had been driving at 80 MPH and was not wearing a seatbelt when his Explorer went off the road. Ford maintains that the judge in the case barred key evidence that would have absolved it of responsibility, and a spokesperson tells Reuters that

This was a tragic accident and our sympathy goes out to the Cole family for their loss, but it was unfair of them to blame Ford

Ford settled with Cole’s family immediately following the $131m award, and the family’s lawyer explained that the damages in this case were higher than other rollover cases because Cole was a professional baseball player.