We Need Another Ralph Nader To Save Us From Ourselves

In 1966, nascent federal automotive safety regulators recalled 982,823 vehicles. For the week of Oct. 25-31, automakers announced recalls of 2,727,205 vehicles. In 2014, the so-called “year of the recall,” more than 72 million cars were recalled by automakers in 902 separate recalls. On average, there are 2.5 times more cars on the road today than there were in 1966.

By most measurable statistics, vehicle recalls are more frequent and more costly to automakers and, according to safety data from NHTSA, fatal crashes happen proportionately less since their peak in 1972 — in short, recall repairs work and serve a purpose. Ralph Nader’s 1965 book, “Unsafe At Any Speed,” which accused automakers of intentionally delaying now-standard safety equipment, such as airbags, seatbelts and passive safety features, was met with fierce criticism from automakers. By 1972, several of Nader’s key points, including the federal oversight committee that would become NHTSA, had become commonplace. Automotive safety was already moving in the right direction, but Nader punched the throttle.

Like Nader’s call for mandatory safety equipment and tests in the ’60s and ’70s revolutionized automaking, a new call to revolutionize and modernize is needed. However, instead of focusing on defective and unsafe cars, there needs to be new focus for this future safety revolution: defective and unsafe drivers.

Recent trends ought to concern everyone: Electronic hacking, defective airbags and myriad safety issues dominate reasons to recall millions of vehicles, yet those defective vehicles only account for roughly 2 out of 100 crashes.

According to safety data compiled by the NHTSA between 2005 and 2007, 94 percent of vehicle crashes could be attributed to at-fault drivers. Of those driver-error crashes, 41 percent could be attributed to recognition errors (including distracted driving), 33 percent to decision errors (driving too fast, etc.) and 11 percent were performance errors (overcorrecting, etc.).

And even out of the 2 percent of crashes that could be attributed to faulty vehicles, 57 percent of those crashes could be attributed to tires and brakes, critical components that are the responsibility of vehicle owners to maintain.

Much like Nader called on governments to force the auto industry to consider the safety of its passengers when designing their cars, a new force should call on government to force the auto industry to remove increasingly distracted drivers from vital functions of their cars.

In just over a decade, cars have transformed from 2-ton steel missiles into rolling Internet-enabled devices that are still 2-ton-or-greater steel missiles. As automakers roll out more connected apps, features and distractions into their cars, it’s clear the pace for a safe separation between drivers and others on the road has not kept up. It was only this year that the NHTSA announced a voluntary agreement among 10 major automakers — Audi, BMW, Ford, General Motors, Mazda, Mercedes Benz, Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo — to install mandatory Automatic Emergency Braking in their cars by some future date. Those manufacturers sell just over half of the new cars that find homes in America.

According to studies and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, AEB systems could reduce insurance injury claims by up to 35 percent — yet the agreement between the automakers is merely voluntary.

Similar deals for autonomous driving features, vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-road communication, and active crash avoidance systems seem decades away, despite the existence for years of technology for those systems. Google’s autonomous driving technology appears to be heading “to market” rather than heading to “the masses.”

A study this year by J.D. Power suggested that young car buyers are willing to spend, on average, $3,073 for safety features such as blind-spot detection, night vision, crash avoidance systems and visibility upgrades — and so far regulators have yet to take the hint to make those systems mandatory for new cars. Instead, car buyers are treated with a laundry list of options to upgrade sound systems, horsepower or appearance — typically with higher profit margins to the automaker — rather than safety features they’ve indicated they’re willing to pay for already.

“If an automobile buyer elects to accept a damageability risk in exchange for an appearance gain or some other benefit that is important to him, that would seem to us to be his decision and not a matter of public policy,” John J. Nevin, Ford vice president, said in 1968.

That antiquated logic hasn’t changed — even today. In 2012, the Alliance of Automotive Manufacturers quietly opposed a measure to mandate event data recorders because it was “genetically opposed to mandates” despite their near-universal use already.

It’s clear that automakers are responsible for catastrophic defects in their cars that could be deadly. Few —if any — jail sentences have been handed out to auto industry executives convicted of wrongdoing despite significant regulatory oversight, but thousands of individuals are punished for vehicle-related crimes without meaningful change to the way we interact with our cars. The number of fatal crashes may be going down, but like Nader testified to Congress in 1968: “Do you give credit to the burglar because he doesn’t burglarize 99 percent of the time?”

We don’t, and we shouldn’t.

Likewise, even though fatal crashes are proportionately declining, year-over-year, the least-reliable components of cars — drivers — are still the least regulated.

To be safe at any speed, it’s clear that automakers should be held to a higher standard to reduce human interaction or increase driver attention. That only comes from competent and comprehensive oversight. Market forces weren’t fast enough in the ’60s and they’re not fast enough now.

We need someone to save us from the nadir of ourselves.