We now know that OnStar is a PITA if you’re doing a quarter mile in a 700hp+ Hennessey-tuned Cadillac CTS-V (a.k.a. V700). The service doesn’t know the difference between a performance run and an accident. Har har. Even so, this incident raises some questions about GM’s Big Brother division.
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Category: Safety
Thanks to the laws regarding “fair use,” TTAC can blog on your behalf. Obviously, we don’t cut and paste entire articles. Except when we do. This is one of those cases where a misleading headline deserves the full monty [via ekathimerini.com]. Or, as the Greek sage/storyteller Aesop said, “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.”
Our politicians’ obsession with their public personae and the emphasis that they put on public relations stunts often causes serious problems for public policy and prevents political staff from doing their job properly.
The most recent example of this phenomenon was the government decision to replace public officials’ luxury gas-guzzling automobiles with smaller, more environment-friendly hybrid vehicles.
The decision has obviously not been thought through properly.
Edmunds Editor-in-Chief Karl Brauer apparently shares our ambivalence about GM’s in-car nanny, Onstar. And not for paranoid reasons either. He explains:
See, I like to think of myself as relatively self-sufficient. Sure, I’ll ask for help but I have to really need it first. However, on a semi-regular basis, when I’m in an OnStar-equipped car I find myself unintentionally activating the system, which in turn causes tremendous guilt because I feel I’m bothering an OnStar employee who could be helping another driver, maybe even someone with a true emergency.
A National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) study on Antilock Braking Systems (ABS) reveals that they’re not all that. In fact, the technology increases fatalities in certain circumstances. (Not that Frank Williams didn’t warn you back in 2006.) “ABS has close to a zero net effect on fatal crash involvements. Fatal run-off-road crashes of passenger cars increased by a statistically significant 9 percent (90% confidence bounds: 3% to 15% increase), offset by a significant 13-percent reduction in fatal collisions with pedestrians (confidence bounds: 5% to 20%) and a significant 12-percent reduction in collisions with other vehicles on wet roads (confidence bounds: 3% to 20%).,” “The Long-Term Effect of ABS in Passenger Cars and LTVs” reports [download pdf here]. “ABS is quite effective in nonfatal crashes, reducing the overall crash- involvement rate by 6 percent in passenger cars (confidence bounds: 4% to 8%) and by 8 percent in LTVs (confidence bounds: 3% to 11%).” That doesn’t sound . . . confidence inspiring. In fact, that nine percent increase looks even worse close up. A LOT worse.
The Mainstream Media has a thing about safety-related stories. It started with the “if it bleeds it leads” paradigm, and has become a predictable hobbyhorse thanks to the fact that you’d have to be the worst kind of sociopath to even consider arguing against more safety. If the MSM likes anything more than trench-warfare debates, it’s coming together afterward over a hot cup of won’t someone think of the children? But facts are facts, and as the WSJ reports, driving a car has literally never been safer. There were 1.19 deaths for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled in the second quarter of 2009, the lowest number since the NHTSA began keeping statistics in the 1970s. And the IIHS’s recent gee-whiz test results don’t even tell the whole story, although they do indicate that the lobbying group may be losing some relevance. Beyond passive safety features like improved steel, engineering and airbags, active safety features like stability and traction control are preventing a great number of deaths. As are roadway improvements like rumble strips and median dividers, not to mention increased DUI and seatbelt enforcement. In short, great strides have been made. Which means it’s time to think about changing the conversation about safety. As the video above proves, we’ll never completely wring the danger out of the practice of piloting tons of metal around at speed, but the latest statistics show that it might be a good time to consider prioritizing lower vehicle weights over a safety-at-all-costs approach. After all, even the most fanatical safety advocates are now focusing on distracted driving and motorcycle deaths.
Michael Copeland at Fortune has his priorities straight. “In my rusted jalopy, a 1991 Volvo 240 sedan, I have installed the future,” he boasts. His use of the “f-word” tells you he’s not talking about a V8, forced induction or any other fossil fuel-sucking upgrade. What then? An EV conversion? That would be too interesting. Too car-related. No, Copeland’s future shock was a simple feat: “All it took was a friend whose iPhone came along for a ride.” His argument is the same tired trope we hear every time a business writer dips a toe in the product-analysis game: make it more iPod-phone-y!
when you think about it, the car is the ultimate mobile device. And automakers need to start acting more like consumer electronics companies if they don’t want to cede one of their last great opportunities to Apple, Research in Motion or Google [Ed: as if!].
Sigh. Didn’t we go through this when Thomas Friedman called for Steve Jobs to take over GM? Incidentally, whatever happened to the Draft Oprah movement?
Toyota has taken a massive hit to its rep, due to reports of floor mat-related unintended acceleration, and the automaker’s subsequent recall. The headline case: a fatal crash on August 28th. As The LA Times reports, a “runway” Lexus ES350 slammed into another vehicle and embankment, killing California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor, his wife, teenage daughter and brother-in-law. The Times raises an important point: ” . . . a close look at the Lexus ES 350 raises questions about whether the car’s very design may have compromised Saylor’s skills. One obvious line of defense is to simply shut off the engine, a step that may not be intuitive on the ES 350. The car has a push-button start system, activated by the combination of a wireless electronic fob carried by the driver and a button on the dashboard. But once the vehicle is moving, the engine will not shut off unless the button is held down for a full three seconds — a period of time in which Saylor’s car would have traveled 528 feet. A driver may push the button repeatedly, not knowing it requires a three-second hold.”
Ford has announced that research conducted jointly with Auburn University shows the promise of GPS in enhancing active safety features like stability control. According to Ford’s press release:
Researchers have found potential for a GPS satellite to act as an early warning system that detects when a vehicle is about to lose control and communicate with the vehicle’s stability control systems and other safety features to prevent a rollover or other serious accident…Virtual reality tests show that GPS satellites can precisely monitor a vehicle’s motion, which could improve the speed and effectiveness of electronic stability control systems.
Having declared distracted driving an “epidemic” and “menace to society,” Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood moved to protect the American public with decisive leadership… by example. According to a DOT press release,
Last night, President Obama signed an Executive Order directing federal employees not to engage in text messaging while driving government-owned vehicles; when using electronic equipment supplied by the government while driving; or while driving privately owned vehicles when they’re on official government business. The order also encourages federal contractors and others doing business with the government to adopt and enforce their own policies banning texting while driving on the job.
Which is a bit like fighting an epidemic (to continue Secretary LaHood’s metaphor) by telling federal employees to take an aspirin. Unless LaHood decided that the problem wasn’t as big as was making it out to be…
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood kicked off the DoT’s first-ever “Distracted Driving Summit” in Washington today with a speech calling texting while driving a “menace to society.” LaHood cited just-released NHTSA data (PDF) showing that 6,000 road deaths, or about 15 percent of the 2008 total, were caused by distracted drivers as evidence of what he termed a “deadly epidemic.” According to the Detroit News, LaHood singled out drivers under the age of 20 as the worst offenders and called for “a combination of strong laws, tough enforcement and ongoing public education.” And though there seems to be little outcry over the singling out of young whippersnappers, the cell phone industry wants to make sure its products don’t become the scapegoat for LaHood’s ominous metaphors. Makeup, GPS systems, food and other distractions are being discussed as potential targets for action. The summit’s media facts page even points out that “distraction from cell phone use while driving (hand held or hands free) delays a driver’s reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent.” Sorry Ford! A Maine law banning all forms of driver distraction is being looked at as an example, but even LaHood concedes that “We cannot rely on legal action alone, because in reality, you can’t legislative behavior. There aren’t enough police on patrol to catch everyone who’s breaking the law.” Which is a fantastic point, but one that’s apparently not stopping LaHood from considering invasive enforcement techniques.
Before we jump into this one, it’s important to lay out a few caveats. The first is that, in general, TTAC doesn’t do recalls. It’s impossible to cover them with any fairness, and most of the time they’re inconsequential or hard to verify. The second is that TTAC really, really doesn’t do sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) scares. If someone tells you their throttle sticks wide open at precisely the same time as their brakes fail, they’re either covering for their own incompetence or looking for a buck. Period. Now, the proliferation of computer controls may have introduced a greater possibility of simultaneous system failures than existed on old, mechanically-actuated brakes and throttles. In fact, the recent rash of SUA complaints involving Toyota and Lexus models had me wondering if ghosts in the machine were rendering the time-tested SUA debunking test obsolete. No such luck. It turns out it’s the floormats, stupid. Toyota initially dismissed all SUA claims, but now Bloomberg reports they’re recalling floor mats on 3.8m Toyota and Lexus models for causing the gas pedal to stick.
Xerox Corporation announced yesterday that it would acquire Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) for $6.4 billion. ACS is a major, long-time player in the speed camera, red light camera, tolling and parking ticket business. Xerox, famous for its domination of the photocopying market from the 1960s to the 1980s, sees the purchase as a way to reinvent itself and dominate the business outsourcing market. “By combining Xerox’s strengths in document technology with ACS’s expertise in managing and automating work processes, we’re creating a new class of solution provider,” Xerox CEO Ursula M. Burns said in a statement. “A game-changer for Xerox, acquiring ACS helps us expand our business and benefit from stronger revenue and earnings growth.”
In case you couldn’t tell, I’m hardly the biggest fan of the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety. Corporate-backed safety nannies posing as quasi-governmental bodies with an ends-justify-the-means vendetta against speed, light weight and other admirable car qualities just rub me the wrong way somehow. But the enemy of my enemy is my friend (for at least a legislative session or two), and it turns out the IIHS and I can agree on something to hate: Neighborhood Electric Vehicles. Now, you might think that limiting an entire class of cars to 25 MPH is something the IIHS would consider a good first step, but you’d be wrong. A Wall Street Journal piece on the rise of these annoying little vehicles quotes an IIHS spokesman calling NEVs “souped-up golf carts,” and warning of the safety consequences of allowing them on public roads. In fact, the IIHS is threatening to perform another round of its patented “no shit, Sherlock” crash tests, “proving” that NEVs aren’t capable of protecting passengers in a collision with a real car. Despite the pointlessness of this gesture, TTAC wholeheartedly embraces the idea of NEV crash testing, purely for entertainment and schadenfreude-related reasons. If the portion of the video above (showing what appears to be a Chrysler GEM NEV) is anything to go on, this could be epic. Meanwhile, our suggestion to eco-freak “early adopters” is to skip the NEVs and buy a motorcycle-category three wheeler. You’re still going to die in a crash, but at least we won’t get stuck behind you going 25 miles per hour. Check out TTAC’s review of the Miles ZX40 NEV here.
For the past several years, the UK Department for Transport (DfT) has heralded the drop in the number of serious traffic accidents as evidence of the success of its speed camera policies. For the first time, the agency admitted last Thursday that injury numbers have dropped because its statistical method is incomplete. Although DfT reported 230,905 injury accidents took place in 2008, the agency now believes the true number of accidents is actually three times greater. “Our best current estimate, derived from survey data with cross-checking against other data sources, is that the total number of road casualties in Great Britain each year, including those not reported to police, is within the range 680 thousand to 920 thousand with a central estimate of 800 thousand,” Matthew Tranter with DfT’s Road Safety Research and Statistics wrote.
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