Though I’m generally too much of a libertarian to be a huge fan of the work of the neo-prohibitionists at Mothers Against Drunk Driving, this in-car breathalyzing technology is definitely the kind of active-safety mandate I can get behind. After all, the social debate over the the effects of and responsibility for drunk driving has taken place, and despite heavy penalties against it, drunk driving still kills too many people. Unfortunately, since this technology won’t be usable for another ten years, we’re all going to have to live with the risk of drunk drivers for quite a bit longer… and by the time this hits the streets, you had better believe that distracted driving will be a far more relevant risk factor. After all, if the current state of debate over distracted driving were compared to the drunk driving debate, the automakers would still be arguing that in-car kegerators help keep the danger out of in-car drinking… and the government would be working to set voluntary safety standards for those kegerators.

The moral of the story: by the time we recognize societal safety problems as real problems, we are already halfway to solving them… and the final 50 percent of the problem can take years afterwords to solve.

Poor Ray LaHood. Having endured considerable embarrassment over his department’s handling of the Toyota Unintended Acceleration recall, all the Secretary of Transportation seems to want to do is talk about the “epidemic” of distracted driving. But, as TTAC has continually reminded, changing driver behaviors is a notoriously tricky task. The government’s choice: mandate intrusive measures like in-car cell phone blocking or continual surveillance of all vehicles, or go for voluntary “cures” that don’t even begin to address the underlying problem of increased driver distraction. And despite repeatedly referring to distracted driving in epidemiological terms, LaHood seems to prefer the “it’s actually your problem” approach, telling automakers [via AN [sub]]that NHTSA will

issue voluntary standards to handle the dangers of the connected car… in the third quarter of 2011.

Which means that nothing meaningful will ever actually be done about distracted driving. After all, the automakers contend that drivers will use cell phones in cars “no matter what,” and that in-car connectivity systems simply make the inevitable sin less dangerous. Of course, the evidence doesn’t seem to back up that position, as an IIHS survey shows no significant difference in safety after a hands-free cell phone ban. But, because the industry is under intense pressure to deliver profits from new connectivity systems, the logic that more systems will make drivers more likely to unsafely use phones in their cars is simply being ignored. And though the voluntary approach is better than intrusive government-mandated workarounds, is still nowhere close to living up to LaHood’s overblown rhetoric.

(Read More…)

After receiving an award from the Italian car magazine Quattroruote, Ralph Nader used the opportunity to tell the assembled crowd that

Now that Fiat has purchased Chrysler, it has the moral obligation to remedy the deadly fuel tank design in the Jeep Grand Cherokee before more innocent victims are burned today, not only in the United States, but also in Europe,

Nader’s beef according to Automotive News [sub]: the 1993-2004 JGC

“is a modern-day Pinto for soccer moms” because the fuel tank is behind the rear axle below the rear bumper… In addition, the 1993-98 Grand Cherokees are flawed because the filler hose goes through the frame rail and is pulled out of the fuel tank

NHTSA has been investigating the 3m or so Grand Cherokees built with this “design flaw” since August, based on evidence that this issue played a role in 22 “fiery crashes” and 14 deaths. Initial NHTSA reports claim the JGC has no disproportionate risk of fires, but Nader contests the claim, arguing that some 44 crashes involved the “design flaw” which he argues caused some 64 deaths. Given the many problems with NHTSA’s reporting system, it’s tough to tell who has the truth on their side in this conflict, but Chrysler insists that the investigation should end even though

it moved and shielded the fuel tank, starting with 2005 models

It’s a nice idea: Each car is equipped with a wireless beacon, transmitting speed, direction and whatnot to other cars. For years, people have been dreaming about this. Now they could have found the killer app for the technology: By mashing up that information, collision courses could be plotted and lives could be saved. Exactly that was demonstrated yesterday to federal officials in Washington. (Read More…)

With a new year, the do-gooders at Advocates For Highway and Auto Safety have produced a new rating of states performance in adopting the safety laws they espouse, including open-container laws, mandatory motorcycle helmets, ramped-up privileges for teen drivers and booster seat standards.  If you buy into the idea that more laws equals more safety, this iconographic is all you need to determine how “safe” your state is. If, on the other hand, you believe that some of AFHAS’s recommended laws are better than others, you’ll want to go through their complete report [in PDF here] to see whether your state’s laws measure up to your expectations. Sorry, but Democracy still isn’t a spectator sport.

The Tennessee General Assembly, which in past sessions has endorsed the use of speed cameras and red light cameras, is preparing once more to either expand or restrict their use. Bills introduced earlier this month provide the foundation for action that frequently takes a different turn after committee consideration.

Lobbyists for municipalities that use automated ticketing machines have a strong hold over the General Assembly and its committees. In 2008, municipalities joined forces with the camera industry to push through a measure authorizing photo ticketing. To deal with vocal opponents to the idea, then-state Senator Tim Burchett (R-Knoxville) drafted the bill in such a way that its wording appeared to be a ban on cameras. Similarly, attempts at placing limitations on camera use last year were watered down in the committee process to the point where the remaining “limits” merely reflected existing practices.

(Read More…)

High-profile traffic safety campaigns are being mounted at the state and federal levels against behavior that rarely causes the most serious types of accidents. In the past several years, lawmakers have enacted measures designed to increase the punishments for driving past stopped school buses in the name of protecting children. They have also enacted “move over” laws to stop police officers from being killed at the roadside. Statistics released this month by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) indicate that accidents involving either situation are exceedingly rare.

(Read More…)

Side head and torso airbags have greatly boosted driver safety in left-side impact crashes, according to a new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Side bags alone can make the difference between a “poor” result, and a “good” result, as they do in the case of the 2003 Accord, although structural integrity is also very important. Drivers in cars with a good rating were 70 percent less likely to die in such a crash than drivers in cars rated poor. Drivers of vehicles rated “acceptable” and “marginal” are 64 percent and 49 percent less likely to die in such crashes than drivers of poor-rated cars, respectively.
(Read More…)

Steve Edgett writes in:

Local activists are upset that Aurora, Colorado is doubling the size of its red light camera program even though the existing devices have failed to produce a demonstrable safety benefit. According to the public statements of officials, however, the sole motivation for the change is accident reduction.

“The city has approved plans to expand the system to cover ten additional intersections for the purpose of reducing the number and seriousness of accidents and injuries at additional intersections,” the police department’s annual report explained.

That reduction has never happened, according to official data obtained by the group Citizens for Responsible Aurora Government (CRAG) under a freedom of information request. The city admitted accidents increased at three of the four intersections monitored by red light cameras. All together, 168 accidents were recorded a year before installation and 169 documented a year after ticketing commenced. (Read More…)

The story of Dimitrios Biller has been one of the more colorful sideshows in last year’s media-scourging of Toyota, complete with a “book of secrets,” accusations of corporate criminality, counter-accusations of mental instability and a congressional pissing match. But with the Toyota media circus long gone, it now seems that l’affaire Biller was just another distraction from the mundane truth of the unintended acceleration scare. As the Detroit News reports, Biller and Toyota’s legal struggle is over… and Toyota, not Biller, is going to get paid.

Biller, a California attorney who worked at Toyota Motor Sales USA for four years, from 2003 to 2007, and Toyota had agreed to have their disputes settled by binding arbitration, which limits the grounds for appeal.

Biller had sued Toyota for defamation and fraud, while Toyota had sued him for violating confidentiality and severance agreements.

Gary Taylor, a retired judge serving as the arbitrator, concluded in a final award that Toyota should receive $2.5 million in damages from Biller for 10 disclosure violations, plus $100,000 in punitive damages.

“The evidence showed that Toyota suffered, and will continue to suffer, multiple harms from Mr. Biller’s contract breaches,” Judge Taylor wrote.

He also ordered Biller to return documents, including attorney-client documents, he’d taken from Toyota and allow the company to inspect his computers.

President Obama has been busy signing a number of bills into law today, including the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act, which, according to the Congressional Research Service

Directs the Secretary of Transportation to study and report to Congress on the minimum level of sound that is necessary to be emitted from a motor vehicle, or some other method, to alert blind and other pedestrians of the presence of operating motor vehicles while traveling.

But that’s not all. Once the SecTrans determines the minimum standard for alerting blind pedestrians to a vehicle’s presence, he is required to

initiate rulemaking to promulgate a motor vehicle safety standard

(1) establishing performance requirements for an alert sound that allows blind and other pedestrians to reasonably detect a nearby electric or hybrid vehicle operating below the cross-over speed, if any; and

(2) requiring new electric or hybrid vehicles to provide an alert sound conforming to the requirements of the motor vehicle safety standard established under this subsection.

Let’s hope Secretary LaHood takes the time to read David Holzman’s treatise on the topic before setting anything in stone. Read the whole thing here.

Longtime TTAC commenter/contributor David Holzman has a piece in Environmental Health Perspectives entitled Vehicle Motion Alarms: Necessity, Noise Pollution, or Both? tackling the problems and effectiveness issues associated with audible vehicle warnings. He writes

For all their ubiquity, backup beepers are poorly designed for their job, and some of their most annoying attributes are part of that poor design, says Chantal Laroche, a professor in the Audiology/Speech Language Pathology Department at the University of Ottawa, Canada, who has devoted much of her career to investigating the practical shortcomings of alarm sounds. Their single tones, with a typical volume of 97–112 decibels (dB) at the source, are loud enough to damage hearing and can be heard blocks from the danger zone, says Thalheimer. Their sound is so commonplace that their warning can lose its authority through the cry-wolf phenomenon. For reasons having to do with the physics of sound, they also are notoriously hard to localize, further undermining their utility, says Laroche.

Read the whole thing.

[This piece, by John Carr, was originally published by the National Motorists Association]

When complaints grow too loud, reporters ask public safety agencies for reassurance that traffic law enforcement really is all for the best.

Accused of running a speed trap, the sheriff explained his speed enforcement cut fatal accidents from three or four per year to zero. Police said right-angle collisions were down by half at intersections with red light cameras. The Department for Transport proudly reported that road injuries were down 30% since the introduction of speed cameras.

This is all compelling evidence.

This is all lies.

The government has unique access to safety data. We have to go digging for it if we’re allowed to see it at all. Out of the countless lies told by government to justify regulations or enforcement, these three are among the very few that were independently fact checked.

(Read More…)

The lame duck congress has adjourned for the year, and with it goes the effort to pass a suite of new auto safety regulations drafted as a reaction to the Toyota recall scandal of early 2010. Different versions of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act passed House and Senate committees earlier this year, but were attacked by industry groups and Republican lawmakers. When Republicans came out ahead in November’s midterm election, it was widely speculated that the MVSA might be one of the legislative casualties. Sure enough, the Detroit News reports that