We know that trucks and SUVs cause disproportionate damage to cars because of the differences in profiles between them. In moderate to high-speed accidents, because they are so high they hit above the areas that provide the most protection in cars and cause quite a few more injuries and fatalities than in car-to-car crashes.
Given that driving is a privilege, not a right, you would think that the government would limit the ability of other people to choose to drive a vehicle that is more likely to kill you. However, it doesn't.
The effort to set voluntary standards grew out of a 2002 agreement between top automakers and Jeffrey Runge, then chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The idea was that the fastest, most efficient way to make sport-utility vehicles and pickups safer was to leave the regulation to industry. But concerns about the costs of redesigning vehicles to meet standards and about product liability have nearly killed those efforts.
But of course, we know that big industries almost never come through on promises to do what's right, and Ford is no exception.
But Ford Motor recently has sought to disband industry efforts to set voluntary standards for how automakers can reduce deaths and injuries, according to three automaker officials involved in the talks.
They say Ford told colleagues in an industry work group that the process of jointly reducing the risks trucks pose to cars in crashes is too costly. A related group has also faltered in efforts to reduce the risk of being ejected and killed in a rollover crash.
Ah, yes, it's "too costly". Because our lives aren't worth as much to them as the sales they make off of their trucks and SUVs. Yes people, this is what happens in America when you don't regulate industries.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
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4 comments:
Sad to say, but these guys apparently think it's less expensive to be repeatedly sued in court then it is to make safer vehicles. That may be true, but that's exactly the kind of profit-incentive thinking that means we can't leave some essential conditions up to the market. The safety of people riding in cards should not be simply a matter of profit.
You would think that most people would recognize the SUV phenomenon as having gone beyond the bounds of common sense, and given that vehicles are nowhere mentioned in the Constitution some regulation might already have been introduced, yet it has not. Not that all people are ignorant of the problems such vehicles cause, yet a great majority are (and even those in the know don't often include damage to residential roads caused by these greatly overweight vehicles). While I don't believe in conspiracy theories, I do believe that because of the profit margins on these vehicles, the automotive industry has done everything in its power to minimize or negate the negative image these vehicles might have. I fully understand that some people will make thoroughly bad choices even when well-informed, but when we have so many Americans making this choice, I think they've been misinformed and misled as to the negative impact these vehicles have on us. That, combined with the fact that the auto companies drop a lot of money on politics means that nothing has been done about the problems these vehicles cause. We definitely need people to get more informed about the issue.
You know I was reading an article in the Washington Post just the other day, talking about how American car manufacturers are falling behind yet again, because they geared themselves for a market dominated by SUVs. And yet higher gas prices are creating a market for smaller, leaner cars, which of course the Japanese are rushing into fill. It's like a repeat of the 70's all over again.I guess the car manufacturers thought cheap gas would last just as long as the rest of us did. Anyway, if we're lucky, the SUV, at least as we could understand, may be at the end of its days of glory.
I hope so, but I would also hope that it would spur a general change in our car economy towards more hybrid-electric vehicles and alternative fuels.
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