Monday, 24 September 2007
Safer vehicles may prompt new tougher crash tests
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If you pay attention to car advertisements you’ve undoubtedly heard many manufacturers boasting “five-star government crash ratings” for various vehicles in segments across the industry. It seems that everyone is scoring well one way or another when it comes to protecting occupants, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate competing models from one another. Which is why Nicole Nason, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, wants to toughen up the testing criteria to better reflect comparative performance.
“When 90 percent of the vehicles are getting four or five stars in front-impact tests, it's time to make improvements,” remarked Nason. This tendency for success is both a result of vehicles becoming safer, and automakers learning the tricks to score well. A new battery of tests would alter speeds and crash characteristics, evaluate potential injuries more closely and present the results differently.
Currently, front impacts occur at 35 mph, side impacts involve a barrier traveling at 38.5 mph and rollover resistance is determined by vehicle dimensions (Static Stability Factor) and resistance to tipping on a dynamic maneuvering rollover test.
Nason recognizes that automakers are reaching the limits of physical protection a vehicle can provide, and she supports systems that will help avert collisions all together. “The future of automotive safety is crash avoidance technology,” she explained. “If you can prevent the crash altogether, that's the ideal.” Applicable systems include adaptive cruise control, lane departure warnings, blindspot warnings, collision-sensing brake systems and adaptive swiveling headlights.
Analysis: All of the avoidance technology being implemented in vehicles should somehow be included in the NHTSA’s evaluation criteria, assuming it can be measured properly. Reporting “physical” collision results is one thing, but shouldn’t vehicles with more passive systems score higher than vehicles without pre-emptive technology? Or is the impact of hitting the barrier and resulting damage still the key factor? We’ll have to see what the NHTSA decides.
Source: Automotive News [Subscription required]
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