The IIHS still can’t believe A) how far safety features have come and B) how it cool it was for them to destroy a perfectly good car. Oh, and may you meet the Bel Air’s fate if you don’t get the headline reference. [via Autoblog]
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The Governor’s Highway Safety Association has just released a report entitled “Closing the Circle” [download pdf here]. The “study,” funded entirely by State Farm Insurance, is all about the ethnic outreach, baby. Why? Because non-whites need more highway safety more than whites, apparently.
Motor vehicle crashes are a public health threat for all Americans. However, the threat is more pronounced among multicultural groups who are disproportionately killed in traffic crashes. A recent report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) showed that 6.8 percent of Native American deaths, from all causes, were attributable to motor vehicle traffic crashes, and more than 4.7 percent for Hispanics or Latinos. For the non-Hispanic White population, the percentage of those dying from traffic crashes was just below 1.6 percent, and for African Americans and Asians and Pacific Islanders, the percentages were 1.8 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively.
Why would anyone want to go there? But go there they did . . .
This is a sick way for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) to “celebrate” its 50th anniversary, but we do love us some crash test video. Apparently, “the driver of the 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air would have been killed instantly while the 2009 Chevrolet Malibu’s driver would walk away with a minor knee injury.” As someone who suffers with that affliction (head fake Bob), I’d ask the IIHS to define “minor” and will henceforth avoid speeding to my local car show in a 1959 Bel Air. Meanwhile, note to the IIHS: in fifty years you couldn’t have added sound? Gary Numan’s Cars, anyway. [Thanks to DC Car Examiner for the link.]
The New York Times is running an Op Ed supporting Senator Charles Schumer’s anti-texting legislation. The Alert Driver’s Act of 2009 would compel states to enact anti-texting laws—or face the loss of 25 percent of their federally-supplied highway funding. The Gray Lady starts as it means to finish: misrepresenting the truth. “A leading road safety group, the Governors Highway Safety Association, has reversed field and announced its support for state laws banning drivers from sending and receiving text messages.” No, yes and kinda. GHSA Executive Director Barbara Hasha told TTAC that the organization hadn’t reversed itself. Before now, they simply “weren’t ready to endorse” the bill. And then they read the study cited by the NYT: a July 2009 Virginia Tech Transportation Institute report claiming truckers are “23 times more likely to cause a crash or near-crash than a nontexting trucker.” Why truckers? Because the stats are 10 times higher than those for car drivers. (How many truckers text vs. car drivers?) And while the GHSA is pro anti-texting laws, they are NOT in favor of Schumer’s threat to remove federal funding.
Distracted driving is fast becoming the bête noir du jour for hysterical “safety-first” types. Following the standard blueprint for these kinds of panics, the New York Times got pulses racing first with a series of articles aimed at making a general problem (most drivers suck) seem like a specific, solvable “crisis.” Then Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called for a “distracted driving summit,” and the campaign to get America to stop texting and start paying attention to the damn road before you kill us all was well underway. But these things never really take off until a major corporation smells a chance to make money, and signs on. Which Ford has apparently now done, by officially endorsing HR 3535 at its “The Ford Story” blog. But why?
The National Motorists Association (NMA) released its list of the top seven locations to avoid over the Labor Day holiday. This year, the drivers’ rights group highlighted areas where heightened use of automated ticketing machines threaten those who are just passing through.
GM is taking decisive action to rectify safety issues stemming from the sale of roughly 200,000 Chevrolet Malibus, Cobalts and Impalas without “standard” side airbags. The cars in questions were sold to fleet buyers with the bags deleted, saving purchasers $145 per vehicle. They then found their way into the resale market, including GM-certified franchises, where they’ve been sold as side airbag-equipped. No more, from one end of the food chain to the other. “Brian Latouf, director of GM’s Global Structure & Safety Integration Center, said the company wouldn’t allow the airbags to be deleted from the list of features available when they are bought by fleet buyers,” reports Detroit News. “He also said that vehicles without side airbags are clearly marked in the owner’s manual.” As for the cars already out there, somewhere, GM is making moves to address labeling issues for used car buyers. . .
As pro-bike protesters take to the streets of Toronto to protest the death of cycle courier Darcy Sheppard, a report from the CBC [sorry, no embed] reveals that Sheppard may have been intoxicated when he became involved in his fateful encounter. Cyclists’ anger towards former Ontario AG Michael Bryant could seem a bit misplaced if it turns out Sheppard was drunk and attempted to grab the wheel of Bryant’s car or put Bryant into a headlock. Ontario police say they are investigating both of these possible scenarios. On the other hand, Bryant has a well-established record of media manipulation dating back to his attempt to place harsh rules on street racers. Both sides are itching to be outraged at this story, but it might be best to get a few of the facts straight first.
[Thanks to James Frederico for the links.]
TTAC contributor Robstar sent us the heads-up on this New York Times Freakonomics post. The blurbette was plenty prescient; it was posted a few days before the death of a Toronto cyclist in an altercation with a zealously anti-street-racing former Ontario Attorney General. After revealing the startling fact that 52,000 bicyclists have been killed in U.S. traffic over the last 80 years, “the hidden side of everything” offers some non-startling analysis, based on a bicycle-biased source (projectfreeride.org) and an undated DOT report. Apparently, it’s all our fault. Well, mostly . . .
A former Ontario Attorney General who made a career crusading for severe auto safety laws is being held after witnesses say he killed a cyclist with his Saab convertible, according to the New York Times. Onlookers say Michael Bryant hit cyclist Darcy Allan Sheppard in downtown Ontario Monday evening, causing Sheppard to grab onto Bryant’s vehicle. Bryant then ran his Saab onto the sidewalk, apparently trying to knock Sheppard off by running him into streetlights and sign posts. He succeeded when Sheppard reportedly hit a mailbox and died. Bryant was best known for a 2007 law defining driving faster than 50 km/h as “street racing” with penalties including vehicle seizure. At the time, Bryant described cars as being “as dangerous as explosives.” Savor the irony.
[Thanks to TMcA for the link]
Update: According to the CBC, Sheppard may have grabbed Bryant or his car’s steering wheel and the two may have been struggling for control of the car.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has unveiled a new regulation mandating automatic reversal capability on power windows and panels with “express-up” or “one-touch closing” operation. The proposed reg [pdf here] extends the NHTSA’s power portal caveat, which currently directs manufacturers to fit their products with “recessed switches to minimize the likelihood of accidental activation.” The actual language of the public consultation doc is a bit, uh, misleading: “The amendment would require power windows and panels on motor vehicles to automatically reverse direction [through force-sensing technology] when such power windows and panels detect an obstruction to prevent children and others from being trapped, injured, or killed.” Anyway, according to the agency, “approximately 6 fatalities and 1,955 injuries result every year from the operation of vehicle power window systems.” The tales are as horrific as they are infrequent. Whilst welcoming the move, one wonders how many KSIs result from the “normal” operation of car doors.
Women are responsible for an increasing number of drunk-driving arrests, according to data released today by the NHTSA. FBI statistics (PDF) show that DUI arrests of men fell 7.5 percent between 1998 and 2007, while the arrest rate for women climbed by nearly 29 percent in the same period. In absolute terms though, men still drink and drive far more: 626,371 DUI arrests of men were made in 2007, compared to 162,493 for women. According to NHTSA’s new Alcohol Impaired Drivers Involved In Fatal Crashes study (PDF) though, state-by-state analysis confirms that women are working towards evening the score.
If you hate Hondas you’ll love watching them being repeatedly crashed and crunched. If you love Hondas, you’ll note that they do remarkably well in crash testing. And if you hate Coldplay, you’ll want to turn down the volume.
For $1,595, Ford will sell you a Blind Spot Information System (BLIS) which uses radar to detect vehicles approaching your “blind spot.” But, as Christopher Jensen points out at the New York Times, blind spots don’t have to exist in the first place. Summarizing an SAE paper on blind spot safety, he explains how to get rid of the pesky things.
“The driver leans his head against the driver’s window and sets the mirror so that the side of the vehicle is just visible. Then, the driver leans to the middle of the vehicle (between the front seats) and does the same thing with the passenger-side mirror.”
The Word Health Organization has come out with its 2009 Global Status Report On Road Safety (PDF), which reveals that traffic-related injury is the leading cause of death for 15-29 year olds the world over. Road traffic is the second leading cause of death for 5-14 year olds, and the third leading cause for 30-44 year olds. After age 45, it drops to the 8th most common cause of death thanks to an increase in driving ability and other death risks. The study also finds that though high-income nations have far more vehicle registrations per capita than low- and middle-income nations their road traffic death rate is disproportionately low. Even more interesting is the lack of relationship between higher income levels and a higher proportion of non-driver (or so-called “vulnerable road users”) deaths. One might assume that more cars and more safety equipment keeps high-income-nation drivers safer than pedestrians, but it just isn’t so.
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