I’ve just spent five fun-filled days looking after two flu-filled sprogs whilst suffering from the selfsame porcine virus. And on the sixth day, I took my wife to the ER to stop, well, you don’t want to know (nor does she want me to tell you). Although I’ve managed to avoid buying a “I just spent five fun-filled days looking after two flu-filled sprogs and all I got was this lousy T-shirt” t-shirt, my experience has piqued my interest in media coverage of the viral outbreak. The MSM has decided that this is big story because 150 children have died from the swine flu. One-hundred and fifty? As a father, my heart goes out to the kids’ families. That said, “On any given day nearly 700 children are harmed due to accidents on our roadways,” Seattle personal injury lawyer Christopher M. Davis writes. “Of the 250,000 kids injured each year, approximately 2,000 die from their injuries. Children make up about 5% of total fatalities due to car accidents. In fact, for children between the ages of 2 and 14, motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death. . . The failure to wear a seat belt or use a child safety seat is a contributing factor in more than half of the cases involving children who die in car accidents.” As the Dixie Chicks were wont to sing, there’s your trouble.

Thanks largely to stimulus programs in the US and Europe, Toyota announced that it has eked out an operating profit of 58 billion yen instead of the average estimated loss of 63 billion yen from five analysts. Toyota now is forecasting a lower operating loss of 350 billion yen ($3.9 billion) for the year through March 31, and is presumably on track to a profitable following year. But with the stimulus programs’ end, Toyota continues to hunt desperately for cost savings, like its recently announced elimination of the F1 program, which cost a tidy $300 million per year. (Read More…)

The Brits have an expression for this situation: “When you’re in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging.”

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a statement today correcting inaccurate and misleading information put out by Toyota concerning a safety recall involving 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles:

A press release put out by Toyota earlier this week about their recall of 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles inaccurately stated NHTSA had reached a conclusion “that no defect exists in vehicles in which the driver’s floor mat is compatible with the vehicle and properly secured.” NHTSA has told Toyota and consumers that removing the recalled floor mats is the most immediate way to address the safety risk and avoid the possibility of the accelerator becoming stuck. But it is simply an interim measure. This remedy does not correct the underlying defect in the vehicles involving the potential for entrapment of the accelerator by floor mats, which is related to accelerator and floor pan design. Safety is the number one priority for NHTSA and this is why officials are working with Toyota to find the right way to fix this very dangerous problem. This matter is not closed until Toyota has effectively addressed the defect by providing a suitable vehicle based solution.

(Read More…)

Not taking a page out of Audi’s playbook, Toyota has decided that the best defense is a strong offense. The risk of the accelerator getting jammed is strictly a problem of unintended loose or ill-fitting floor mats, according to Toyota Bob Carter, general manager of the Toyota-brand division of Toyota Motor Sales USA. Letters are on the way to owners of certain Toyota and Lexus models warning them about the errant mats as part of a safety recall. More certainty after the jump: (Read More…)

We now know that OnStar is a PITA if you’re doing a quarter mile in a 700hp+ Hennessey-tuned Cadillac CTS-V (a.k.a. V700). The service doesn’t know the difference between a performance run and an accident. Har har. Even so, this incident raises some questions about GM’s Big Brother division.
(Read More…)

Thanks to the laws regarding “fair use,” TTAC can blog on your behalf. Obviously, we don’t cut and paste entire articles. Except when we do. This is one of those cases where a misleading headline deserves the full monty [via ekathimerini.com]. Or, as the Greek sage/storyteller Aesop said, “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.”

Our politicians’ obsession with their public personae and the emphasis that they put on public relations stunts often causes serious problems for public policy and prevents political staff from doing their job properly.

The most recent example of this phenomenon was the government decision to replace public officials’ luxury gas-guzzling automobiles with smaller, more environment-friendly hybrid vehicles.

The decision has obviously not been thought through properly.

(Read More…)

Edmunds Editor-in-Chief Karl Brauer apparently shares our ambivalence about GM’s in-car nanny, Onstar. And not for paranoid reasons either. He explains:

See, I like to think of myself as relatively self-sufficient. Sure, I’ll ask for help but I have to really need it first. However, on a semi-regular basis, when I’m in an OnStar-equipped car I find myself unintentionally activating the system, which in turn causes tremendous guilt because I feel I’m bothering an OnStar employee who could be helping another driver, maybe even someone with a true emergency.

(Read More…)

A National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) study on Antilock Braking Systems (ABS) reveals that they’re not all that. In fact, the technology increases fatalities in certain circumstances. (Not that Frank Williams didn’t warn you back in 2006.) “ABS has close to a zero net effect on fatal crash involvements. Fatal run-off-road crashes of passenger cars increased by a statistically significant 9 percent (90% confidence bounds: 3% to 15% increase), offset by a significant 13-percent reduction in fatal collisions with pedestrians (confidence bounds: 5% to 20%) and a significant 12-percent reduction in collisions with other vehicles on wet roads (confidence bounds: 3% to 20%).,” “The Long-Term Effect of ABS in Passenger Cars and LTVs”  reports [download pdf here]. “ABS is quite effective in nonfatal crashes, reducing the overall crash- involvement rate by 6 percent in passenger cars (confidence bounds: 4% to 8%) and by 8 percent in LTVs (confidence bounds: 3% to 11%).” That doesn’t sound . . . confidence inspiring. In fact, that nine percent increase looks even worse close up. A LOT worse.

(Read More…)

The Mainstream Media has a thing about safety-related stories. It started with the “if it bleeds it leads” paradigm, and has become a predictable hobbyhorse thanks to the fact that you’d have to be the worst kind of sociopath to even consider arguing against more safety. If the MSM likes anything more than trench-warfare debates, it’s coming together afterward over a hot cup of won’t someone think of the children? But facts are facts, and as the WSJ reports, driving a car has literally never been safer. There were 1.19 deaths for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled in the second quarter of 2009, the lowest number since the NHTSA began keeping statistics in the 1970s. And the IIHS’s recent gee-whiz test results don’t even tell the whole story, although they do indicate that the lobbying group may be losing some relevance. Beyond passive safety features like improved steel, engineering and airbags, active safety features like stability and traction control are preventing a great number of deaths. As are roadway improvements like rumble strips and median dividers, not to mention increased DUI and seatbelt enforcement. In short, great strides have been made. Which means it’s time to think about changing the conversation about safety. As the video above proves, we’ll never completely wring the danger out of the practice of piloting tons of metal around at speed, but the latest statistics show that it might be a good time to consider prioritizing lower vehicle weights over a safety-at-all-costs approach. After all, even the most fanatical safety advocates are now focusing on distracted driving and motorcycle deaths.

Michael Copeland at Fortune has his priorities straight. “In my rusted jalopy, a 1991 Volvo 240 sedan, I have installed the future,” he boasts. His use of the “f-word” tells you he’s not talking about a V8, forced induction or any other fossil fuel-sucking upgrade. What then? An EV conversion? That would be too interesting. Too car-related. No, Copeland’s future shock was a simple feat: “All it took was a friend whose iPhone came along for a ride.” His argument is the same tired trope we hear every time a business writer dips a toe in the product-analysis game: make it more iPod-phone-y!

when you think about it, the car is the ultimate mobile device. And automakers need to start acting more like consumer electronics companies if they don’t want to cede one of their last great opportunities to Apple, Research in Motion or Google [Ed: as if!].

Sigh. Didn’t we go through this when Thomas Friedman called for Steve Jobs to take over GM? Incidentally, whatever happened to the Draft Oprah movement?

(Read More…)