Car-SUV mismatch is on NHTSA's job list
3-year plan's goal: Reduce crash deaths
July 22, 2003
BY CRAIG LINDER
STATES NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON -- The nation's auto safety regulators plan to find ways to make collisions between cars and sport-utility vehicles less deadly -- but they won't act until 2005.
Under a 3-year plan issued Monday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will make crashes between cars and SUVs and other light trucks a longer term priority that will not see the bulk of research completed until 2005 or 2006.
Between now and the end of 2004, the agency will focus on boosting side-crash protection, preventing passengers from being thrown from vehicles involved in rollover crashes and reducing the glare headlights create.
Besides focusing on collisions between passenger cars and light trucks, the agency will spend 2005 and 2006 working to reduce driver distractions that can cause accidents and preventing crashes caused when vehicles veer off the road.
"Our resources and precious dollars must be focused on measures that will save the most lives and prevent the most injuries. Our safety data make our priorities very clear," said safety administration director Jeffrey Runge.
In collisions between cars and light trucks, the passenger-car driver is 3.5 times more likely to die than the driver of the light truck, mainly because light trucks are generally larger and heavier than passenger cars, according to administration data.
But the group that represents automakers in Washington said the agency may be working backward by considering regulations before engineers are done developing new safety technologies.
"We need more time and more flexibility to do it right," said Eron Shostek, a spokesman for the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers. "It's difficult to put a timetable on the emergence of new safety technologies because we just don't know when everything is going to be ready."
Shostek noted that members of the automakers' alliance are working on nearly all of the safety issues the administration identified as priorities.
NHTSA spokesman Tim Hurd said the agency will not necessarily issue regulations in each priority area. Instead it will focus its research and testing on those issues before deciding whether existing regulations need to be updated or new rules issued.
http://www.freep.com/money/autonews/nhtsa22_20030722.htm
3-year plan's goal: Reduce crash deaths
July 22, 2003
BY CRAIG LINDER
STATES NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON -- The nation's auto safety regulators plan to find ways to make collisions between cars and sport-utility vehicles less deadly -- but they won't act until 2005.
Under a 3-year plan issued Monday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will make crashes between cars and SUVs and other light trucks a longer term priority that will not see the bulk of research completed until 2005 or 2006.
Between now and the end of 2004, the agency will focus on boosting side-crash protection, preventing passengers from being thrown from vehicles involved in rollover crashes and reducing the glare headlights create.
Besides focusing on collisions between passenger cars and light trucks, the agency will spend 2005 and 2006 working to reduce driver distractions that can cause accidents and preventing crashes caused when vehicles veer off the road.
"Our resources and precious dollars must be focused on measures that will save the most lives and prevent the most injuries. Our safety data make our priorities very clear," said safety administration director Jeffrey Runge.
In collisions between cars and light trucks, the passenger-car driver is 3.5 times more likely to die than the driver of the light truck, mainly because light trucks are generally larger and heavier than passenger cars, according to administration data.
But the group that represents automakers in Washington said the agency may be working backward by considering regulations before engineers are done developing new safety technologies.
"We need more time and more flexibility to do it right," said Eron Shostek, a spokesman for the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers. "It's difficult to put a timetable on the emergence of new safety technologies because we just don't know when everything is going to be ready."
Shostek noted that members of the automakers' alliance are working on nearly all of the safety issues the administration identified as priorities.
NHTSA spokesman Tim Hurd said the agency will not necessarily issue regulations in each priority area. Instead it will focus its research and testing on those issues before deciding whether existing regulations need to be updated or new rules issued.
http://www.freep.com/money/autonews/nhtsa22_20030722.htm
