BRAZILIAN CARS CRITICIZED
A big story by the Associated Press excoriates Brazilian-made cars for being built to substandard safety standards. While traffic fatalities in the U.S. have fallen 40 percent in the last decade, they leaped by 72 percent in Brazil. The problem is a lack of safety standards. Brazil’s first mandate for airbags only starts next year, a quarter of a century after they were mandated in the U.S. But meeting crash standards involves a lot more than airbags. Vehicle structures need to be beefed up considerably, which adds weight and cost. And therein lies the problem. This is not an issue only with Brazil. It’s a problem facing every emerging market. They don’t want to drive up costs for the auto industry or car buyers, and so they live with higher fatality rates. But the day of reckoning is coming, and the industry would be smart to get out in front of it before it has a public relations disaster on its hands.
The problem has less to do with the cars' potential safety issues, and more to do with the drivers themselves. With their newly emerging middle class, many of which never drove before, now suddenly able to afford cars that outperform their abilities and their observance of traffic laws, I say a lot of the blame goes to the drivers. Sure, safer cars could potentially save some lives, but what would save the most lives is driver education and traffic enforcement.
The reason why traffic fatalities are trending down in the U.S. but skyrocketing in Brazil? The number of drivers in the U.S. during the past decade had been relatively flat, while the number of drivers in Brazil during the same period blew up like a balloon, a majority of which are new drivers.
I beg to differ. If you look at the impact safety changes in vehicles in the 15 years, there is a big difference in collision surviveability in new cars, built to meet the latest and greatest safety standards, and cars that have not been built to meet those standards. It's a big reason that the weight and price of modern vehicles has risen so much. As each "leading cause of traffic collision fatalities" is addressed and mitigated, the next likely cause of death injury is left standing proudly above the rest, drawing attention which eventually results in design changes meant to address it.
You can look at active crash avoidance radar as the next phase of safety changes - potentially reducing the likelihood of collisions by addressing the root cause in taking driver error out of the picture. It may not be all that long before autonomous vehicles garner lower car insurance rates than 16 year old males.
'08 Jeep Liberty 6-Speed MT - "Last of the Mohicans"
Rope-Pusher wrote:You can look at active crash avoidance radar as the next phase of safety changes - potentially reducing the likelihood of collisions by addressing the root cause in taking driver error out of the picture. It may not be all that long before autonomous vehicles garner lower car insurance rates than 16 year old males.
I believe Mercedes has something similar to this, which automatically brake if you get too close to something...
I agree with you, of course safer cars can save more lives. It's just that, if people drove better, there would be less accidents to survive from.
