Government Wants "More Oversight" On Automotive Electronics
A panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences is calling for NHTSA to “become more familiar with and engaged in”. What does this mean for you? More government intervention in new cars, of course.
“The panel recommended that regulators require event data recorders in cars and that the safety agency research the design and placement of accelerator and brake pedals to minimize the risk of drivers mistaking one for the other. NHTSA plans to propose a rule requiring data recorders and to update its accelerator-control safety standard to require a so-called brake override system in a few months, Lynda Tran, an agency spokeswoman, said.”
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never ever confused the brake and gas pedals in my life. As for the event data recorded law? Well, I’m sure the Best and Brightest will have lots to say about that. Maybe Ronnie can give Ray LaHood a piece of his mind on behalf of TTAC next time they run into one another.
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Of course as we all know, the problem is not mistaking the accelerator pedal for the brake pedal, but mistakenly hitting the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal. I really don't see the problem with studying accelerator/brake placement to see whether that can be optimized and standardized. Or do you like seeing reports of old people smashing into crowds of people when they make that mistake? And yes, old people should be regularly tested for their driving capacity. And while we're at it, we can start building a public transportation system so that old people don't have to drive to the grocery store. As to automotive black boxes - not so keen on that. But I will bet that it will happen sooner or later, no matter who's making the decisions.
How'd that clown ever get past third grade?
The ultimate goal would be cars that are linked to central computers, 24/7. Just imagine the possibilities for regulation, tax, and control. Monitoring of the masses is already well underway thanks to the personal computer and handheld devices used by 300 million people, let's take it all the way to their cars.
It's quite obvious that having the gas and brake pedals in the same place in every main stream vehicle since the Model A onward has lulled us to sleep as to their location. Clearly we should swap their locations in all vehicles in order to draw everyone's attention to their location again. Even better, we could only swap 50%, so every time you got in a new car you'd have to check which was which. Then everyone would be thinking about it and no one would get confused. Is he serious? Even if there are 100 unintended acceleration deaths a year, which isn't even close to the reality, that is still an incredibly low number compared to the amount of trips taken by drivers on US roads each year. I'm sure it will require a few multi-million dollar studies though.