The American people have a right to believe that the vehicles they purchase are as safe as they reasonably can be. They also have the right to believe that the government is on their side when it comes to safety. A major design concept requires vehicles to be crashworthy to the extent possible in most highway crashes. Adequate testing of design concepts is an important feature when it comes to auto safety. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been grappling with the problem of testing for the past several years. The following is an editorial appearing in the New York Times on the subject that I believe is on target:

The federal government is exploring ways to strengthen its tests and its ratings system for the crashworthiness of motor vehicles. The effort is long overdue but still likely to fall short of what’s needed. In far too many cases, the tests are weaker than they should be and fail to address current kinds of accidents, like what happens when one of today’s larger vehicles collides with a smaller one. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration tackles vehicle crash protection in two major ways. It sets minimum crashworthiness standards and requires the manufacturers to test their vehicles and certify that they comply. And it conducts its own more rigorous tests on a number of new-model cars and then converts the results into a five-star rating system to indicate which vehicles are more crashworthy and which are less likely to roll over. The theory is that consumers will be more interested in buying the safer vehicles, thereby giving manufacturers a strong incentive to surpass the minimum requirements.

There is little doubt that these efforts have helped to prod manufacturers to design safer cars. But the ratings are a victim, in some sense, of their success. Nowadays, a vast majority of vehicles get four or five stars, providing little way for consumers to detect differences and giving manufacturers little incentive to keep improving. Worse yet, the tests have not kept pace with the times as more sport utility vehicles, minivans and pickups have taken to the roads. Fortunately, the agency is belatedly exploring ways to upgrade its crash tests and strengthen the five-star rating system. The secretary of transportation, Mary Peters, announced last month that vehicles could be subjected to more stringent rollover, front- and side-crash tests. New ratings may also be developed for technologies that help drivers avoid crashes, like electronic stability control and lane departure warning systems. The agency signaled that it was not yet ready to address such important issues as collisions between large and small vehicles, collisions with narrow objects like telephone poles, and the protection of occupants in rollover crashes, on the grounds that more research is needed. For everyone’s safety, consumer advocates and vehicle insurers should press hard for the strongest possible tests and standards.

New York Times
February 3, 2007

It has become most obvious that the federal government has to do a better job of regulating the automobile industry. Real standards that mandate safety are a must and that’s the responsibility of NHTSA. The requirement of adequate testing has to be a part of any effective regulatory system. Unfortunately, that has been something that NHTSA has failed miserably to bring about. Congress must step in and make sure that safety is NHTSA’s top priority.

Source: New York Times

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