The Truth About Cars » Safety

Ask the Best and Brightest: What If We Didn’t Have Federal Safety Standards?

Robert Farago — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:02:05 +0000

Cell Phones And Cars: Stating the Obvious to the Oblivious”

Jim Sutherland — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:36:12 +0000

Sometimes” obvious” is a vague concept for people and nowhere is that more obvious than behind the wheel of a car. The basic rules of engagement on the road are subject to interpretation by many drivers whose personal universe exists within a tight gravitational pull of their physical location. I’ve compiled a short list of egregious [...]

Editorial: Distracted Driving Ban Faces Distractions

Edward Niedermeyer — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:10:16 +0000

For all of the uproar around distracted driving this week, nobody seems to know exactly what the problem is, let alone how to stop it. Everything from in-car makeup application to text messaging is being blamed for 6,000 deaths in 2008, some 15 percent of all road fatalities. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has heard [...]

The Dog Days of Summer

Jerry Sutherland — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:49:24 +0000

Most dogs love to go for a ride. Perhaps it taps into their genetic hunting imperative. Maybe it's a pack thing. One thing's for sure: a dog would never question why it has to ride in the back of an open pickup truck. Nor, unfortunately, do hundreds of thousands of pickup-driving dog owners. The Utah Humane Society estimates 100,000 dogs die every year from jumping out of moving trucks. At least as many dogs are seriously injured. And the number of chronic ear and aggravated eye injuries is even greater. So stand back fellas: I'm going to pour some hate on owners who think man's best friend should ride in the back of the truck.

Editorial: Between the Lines: NHTSA Hung Out to Dry By NYT

Robert Farago — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:07:54 +0000

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) woke up to a New York Times hatchet job. "In 2003, researchers at a federal agency proposed a long-term study of 10,000 drivers to assess the safety risk posed by cellphone use behind the wheel," the NYT begins, without specifying who, what, when, where or how. But we do get a general sort of why: "They sought the study based on evidence that such multitasking was a serious and growing threat on America’s roadways." And then, da da DA! "But such an ambitious study never happened. And the researchers’ agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, decided not to make public hundreds of pages of research and warnings about the use of phones by drivers — in part, officials say, because of concerns about angering Congress." Dive! Dive! Dive!

The Case for Power-to-Weight Graduated Driver’s Licenses

Jerry Sutherland — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:58:41 +0000

On October 31 2006, Orange County teen Nikki Catsouras had an argument with her father. When Mr. Catsouras left for work, the his daughter "borrowed" his Porsche 911. Approaching a tollbooth, Catsouras rear-ended a Honda at 70 mph. The California Highway Patrol took photographs of the gruesome results. The photos hit the net and went viral. Catsouras sued the police for invasion of privacy. Lost in the shuffle: why was Miss Catsouras--a young, inexperienced driver--- legally entitled to drive the Porsche?

Editorial: The Case Against GM

Steve Jakubowski — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:16:23 +0000

As part of its "reinvention," GM wants to leave behind products liability claimants. "New GM" wants to jettison its legal responsibilities to "old" customers who were seriously injured by defective products---including customers who bought products from pre-bankruptcy General Motors who haven't yet been injured. In this there is precedence. As I discussed here on my Bankruptcy Litigation Blog, Chrysler stiffed products liability claimants when they restructured post C-11. Is this going to be a case of deja vu all over again? Not if I can help it.

Editorial: Unsafe at Any Speed?

Robert Farago — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:58:03 +0000

I'll never forget my first ride in a BMW. I remember the excitement, anticipating a high speed run in an [echt] autobahn-tuned automobile. The driver never broke Nixon's double nickel. In fact, he stayed in the right lane for the entire trip. Flash forward to two hours ago, G-forcing through the S-curves into Providence. In the middle of the second bend, a Nissan GT-R zipped by my minivan like it was standing still. Hakuna matata. What a wonderful phrase. Hakuna matata. Ain't no passing craze. The GT-R driver was there. In the moment. In control. Safe?

Drive Fast — Responsibly

William C Montgomery — Mon, 25 May 2009 22:47:23 +0000

If speed killed, we would all be dead. After all, we are rotating around earth’s axis at up to 1038 mph (1670 kmh) and Earth is zipping around the sun at a whopping 66,660 mph (107,279 kmh). Speed’s not a problem. The problem is when we collide with objects that are moving at speeds that are substantially different than our own. Jack Baruth would have us believe that if we follow the advice he imparts in his "Maximum Street Speed Explained" series, that we can safely navigate American highways and byways, day or night while traveling at two or three times faster than the prevailing traffic norm. Unfortunately, his advice ranges from the obvious to absurdly dangerous (if he’s trying to be ironic or funny, he has very poor timing).

Maximum Street Speed Explained, Part III

Jack Baruth — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:45:39 +0000

It was just another day at the “Tail Of The Dragon” for the group of experienced sportbikers clustering around the Robbinsville, NC gas station. Fresh from multiple high-speed runs down the famed road, they were reliving their victories when a long-haired old man in some girly convertible asked them to “show him the fast way through.”

Maximum Street Speed Explained, Part II

Jack Baruth — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:18:45 +0000

The über-wealthy have many fascinating ways to speed on America’s highways, from night-vision goggles to convenient spotter planes overhead. But those of us who toil in the middle class have to earn our velocity by hard graft. Freeway speeding is the crack cocaine of fast-road driving---cheap, easy, addictive, and deadly---and nighttime freeway speeding is both more glamorous and annoying than its daytime counterpart.

Editorial: Maximum Street Speed Explained

Jack Baruth — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:53:03 +0000

Let us begin with this: it is possible to go much faster on North American public roads than the law allows. Much faster. If you are interested in exploring the upper limits of this possibility, read on. If you find this idea morally, legally, ethically or spiritually repugnant; please return to your regularly scheduled bailout coverage. If you're a member of law enforcement, please consider this a work of fiction. In theory, I've been driving “too fast” on public roads for more than twenty years. In that time, I may have learned a lot about what works and what does not. I will share this hypothetical knowledge---bought and paid for in terror, twisted steel and sleepless nights---with you. Or not.

Editorial: The Truth About Cell Phone Bans

William C Montgomery — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 12:43:45 +0000

I oppose driver cell phone usage bans on principle. It is already against the law to drive while distracted in every State of the Union. Even so, several states and many cities have enacted wholesale bans on the use of hand-held cell phones by drivers. Other states and local governments ban teenagers from using the devices or prohibit their use in school zones. So what’s the harm? The additional legislation is surely no worse than wearing a belt and suspenders – by itself either will keep your pants up, but it’s nice to know that there’s a backup in case one of the modesty preservation systems fails. Comforting, isn’t it? NO! It makes my liberty loving soul retch. I say, down with the tyranny of the Nanny State! Nonetheless, the more time I spend outside of my ivory attic and driving America’s highways and byways, the harder it is for me to maintain this ideal.

Editorial: How Forbes Spiked smart Safety Slam

Robert Farago — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:16:56 +0000

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) recently performed a series of crash tests to garner widespread MSM coverage to justify their enormous operating budget to the insurance companies that pay for the "don't tell anyone we're not from the government" organization's existence---I mean demonstrate the heretofore unimaginable fact that small/lightweight cars get the snot kicked out of them when they collide front-to-front with medium size cars, despite the fact that the small cars involved received the IIHS' best possible frontal crash ratings. All this came as no surprise to Mike Dulberger, founder of InformedForLife.org.

Editorial: The Truth About The Truth About Driver’s Ed

Joe Autera — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:08:07 +0000

In a recent editorial on TTAC, Jack Baruth described a harrowing incident that nearly led to the demise of his beloved Volkswagen Phaeton. The editorial claimed the incident was the masturbatory fantasy of every "driver training" and "active safety" advocate. He concludes that he lived to write another day not because of his driver training, but rather dumb luck. Not so fast, Mr. Baruth.

Editorial: A Case for Advanced Driver Training

admin — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:21:42 +0000

In response to Jack Baruth's editorial, Mike Stone writes:

I have been making the same 60-mile round trip commute for many years, my route consisting of rural 2 lane roads and expressways. During the course of every winter, regular as clockwork, I see 5 to 10 vehicles that have run off the road in icy, snowy or wet conditions. Some of these are clearly a result of excessive speed but on two occasions, I have been behind a vehicle that was travelling at or below a safe speed when it simply lost control. What could cause such a thing? A clue lies in a well-documented statistic that 93% of all traffic accidents are the result of human error.

Editorial: The Truth About Driver Training and the Myth of Active Safety

Jack Baruth — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:32:02 +0000

It's a bright Thursday morning on Interstate 95. I'm hammering my black Phaeton down the left lane at an indicated one hundred and twenty-three miles per hour. In the back seat, my brother and sister-in-law are sound asleep. Next to me, my wife idly flips through the pages of a month-old magazine. "I think the Wilderness Lodge is the worst hotel at Disney... of the acceptable ones, you know," she says. Before I can respond I notice that we're closing in on what looks like a high-speed multiple-car freeway accident. In progress.

Winter Driving Manifesto

William C Montgomery — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:28:08 +0000

Ah, the first snow of the year. The frozen blanket transforms even the ugliest landscapes into crystalline sanctuaries. Crisp air fills the lungs and the inevitable homey smell of a wood fire tells of a distant warming hearth. Earth’s annual metamorphosis triggers a few moments when we get to live a dream stolen from the cover of an old December issue Saturday Evening Post. But for too many, this winter wonderland fantasy is abruptly cut short by the sickening sound of exploding metal, glass and plastic, because the first snow of winter also invites a rash of traffic accidents.

Bad Drivers: Auto Pilot is the Answer

Stephan Wilkinson — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:29:36 +0000

I live in a hilly area of high-crowned, barely two-lane back roads. There are no center lines, lots of blind corners, hills and crests; and not much traffic. You could say it’s an enthusiast's paradise. But then… stupid drivers. It happened to me last week, for the third time in a year. A driver without the slightest situational awareness put me into a ditch, leaving me yelping moronically and bleating my horn while they sped off. This has got to stop.

The Truth About Europe’s Pedestrian Safety Legislation

Martin Schwoerer — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:54:48 +0000

Each year, automobiles kill more people than malnutrition, war and stomach cancer. That’s not including drivers and passengers. Obviously, the automobile - pedestrian toll is greatest in developing nations, where road safety is a strictly Darwinian affair. But the industrial world’s pedestrian “ksi” (killed or seriously injured) statistics are also pretty grim. Legislators in Europe, Japan and Korea have decided to take action. They’ve all developed legislative initiatives to force car makers to introduce new technology for reducing pedestrian deaths and injuries. America has no plans to get with the program. Should it?

The Truth About Automotive Electronics Pt 2: The Bad

Eric Stepans — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:49:27 +0000

Retired Israeli Air Force ace Giora Epstein flew Mirage, Nesher and F-16 fighter aircraft during his career. When asked by the History Channel which aircraft he preferred, he replied “In the Mirage and the Nesher, the pilot flies the aircraft. In the F-16, the computer flies the aircraft and the pilot is just another input to the computer.” Modern automotive electronics have transferred Epstein’s complaint to millions of cars. We may purchase and maintain our vehicles, but we no longer truly drive them. Increasingly, we’re mere inputs for the computers that do.

UK Speed Cameras RIP?

Robert Farago — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:54:13 +0000

As a “victim” of the UK’s anti-speeding jihad, I’ve been watching their “safety camera” campaign with morbid fascination. Here you have a reasonably democratic government unleashing a mega-tsunami of electronic surveillance to curb a behavior practiced by the vast majority of its populace. The results have been staggering: millions of licenses imperiled or revoked, tens of millions in pounds in fines collected, no appreciable diminution of violations and no increase in road safety. And yet, the jihadists remain determined to carry on. So when speed camera opponents launched a “scrapcam” petition, I expected a groundswell of support. Silly me.

The Truth About The International Used Car Trade

Robert Farago — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:41:01 +0000

It’s easy to get caught up in Inside Baseball speculation about the future of international automotive imports. Will a Chinese-made subcompact take the Western world by storm, or will Renault’s Integrated Manufacturing System (RIMS) venture in India eventually sate the industrialized world’s insatiable appetite for small, cheap, frugal cars? Meanwhile, we hear little or nothing about traffic flowing the other way: the millions of used cars flooding into the third world from developed nations. The dirty truth about this trade is just that: the vast majority of these cars are pollution-spewing death traps.

IIHS and NHTSA Agree: SUV’s Safer Than Cars

Robert Farago — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 16:13:01 +0000

So here we are, trying to convince American motorists to abandon their SUV’s for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, to do their bit to reduce global warming and eliminate the need for messy military entanglements. And along comes a scientific study from a reputable independent organization that concludes that you’re safer in an SUV than a passenger car. Nuts.

Memo to Volvo: Who R You?

Robert Farago — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 16:10:29 +0000

Time and time again, automakers flush with cash decide to grow their business by expanding their model lineup. Which is a bit like trying to improve a gourmet meal by adding more menu choices. That’s not to say brand extensions can’t be done, and done well. Volvo’s XC SUV’s were a logical and successful addition to the company’s safety-themed vehicles. But a performance tuned Volvo station wagon or sedan? Uh, no. At long last, the company has reached the same conclusion— for all the wrong reasons.