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What vehicles get low scores in IIHS crash testing?

Auto companies make a fuss when their vehicles get high crash-test ratings, but they're much quieter when they don't. Some vehicles aren't doing so well in the updated ratings at the IIHS, and my story in Driving.ca tells you all about them.

Ten auto innovations that flopped

Automakers are always trying new things, and while many of them turn out to be hits, there are a few that make it to market but then don't make it in the market. How about retractable steering wheels, heartbeat sensors, or in-car record players? Find out more in my story at the National Post (Driving.ca).

Today's rant: When you're turning right, LOOK to the right!

If your head turns to the right, you should be turning it that way, every time you make a right-hand turn. And far too many drivers don't, and so far too many pedestrians and cyclists get hurt. See what I'm talking about in my rant over at AutoTrader.

Auto insurance fraud: What you need to know

Do you know what a "stoop-n-squat" is? Or a "left-hand bullet," or a "parking lot rammer"? They're all moves that criminals can make to try and get cash out of your insurance company -- and it's a scam that can go all the way up to body shops, tow truck operators, and even the medical profession. Find out more in my story at AutoTrader.

Do you need winter tires?

You have all-wheel drive, you have high-tech safety features, and it doesn't snow much where you are, so you're good to go without them ... right? Find out why that ain't so in my story at the National Post.

Is it a car crash, or insurance fraud?

Insurance fraud is a huge issue, and it's easy to become a victim. And it's not just the crash itself: the tow truck operator, the body shop, and even the rehabilitation clinics might be in on the scam. Find out more in my "How It Works" column at the National Post.

Why do the cops close the road for hours after a crash?

They seldom do, although it may seem that way if you're inconvenienced by a road closure. But there's a good reason for it. They're likely investigating a fatal or near-fatal collision, and they've got one chance to do it right.

They're not just looking for who's at fault -- although that's part of it -- but at factors like the road and conditions, to see if similar crashes can be prevented in future. Find out more in my "How It Works" column at the National Post.

What does it take to fix a car that's been hit?

A lot more than in the old days, before cars had all sorts of lightweight materials and high-tech sensors and cameras. Find out more in my "How It Works" column in the National Post.

How Ralph Nader changed the auto industry

Many people think his book Unsafe at Any Speed was just about the Chevrolet Corvair, but Nader went after the entire auto industry, as well as the government and insurance companies. His actions didn't just result in safer cars, but in federal standards, NHTSA, better crash testing, and better recall information. Find out more in my "Rearview Mirror" column at the National Post.

Why do new cars crumple up when they're hit?

It's not to make body shops rich, but to save your life. "Crumple zones" first appeared in 1959, although it took a while before automakers around the world started using them. Find out more in my "Rearview Mirror" column at the National Post.

Drivers versus the World: We ain't always the bad guys

Yesterday, I played tour guide in Toronto for some visiting relatives. The city was packed, as the city always is, and it wasn't always easy to drive there, as is always the case.

I almost hit two people: one a pedestrian, the other on a bicycle. And I came away angry as hell, because each of them did something stupid that put them in my path.

The pedestrian was a jogger, running along the sidewalk toward a curve in the road where I, a driver, had to veer left. It is a confusing intersection, because cars make that turn and then come to a stoplight (for those familiar with Toronto, it's the Don Valley Parkway exit onto Bloor, which takes you around the curve to Castle Frank). But that doesn't excuse what this woman did.

Although there is a sidewalk, pedestrians should be on the opposite side if they want to cross, because then they're not jaywalking across a three-lane road where cars are not required to stop before making the curve. But jaywalk is exactly what my jogger did. Fortunately, I spotted her on my left, running toward the road. I also noted that she was looking straight across at the opposite side, instead of to her right to see if there was a car about to flatten her.

Just as I figured she would, she ran right out and directly in front of my car. Since I'd anticipated her doing that, I was already on the stoppers. If I hadn't already been braking, I would have hit her.

A little while later, I was making a right-hand turn, on a green light. There were a lot of pedestrians in the area (Spadina and Nassau) and so I checked to my left, as well as to my right. That's when I saw a cyclist coming, and realized that even though he was looking at a red light, he had absolutely no intention of stopping. I did, which avoided him smashing into my driver's door.

In both instances, if I hadn't anticipated these people doing something incredibly stupid, there wouldn't have been time to hit the brakes and avoid the collision. In both instances, I blew my horn. I scared last night's dinner out of the jogger; she wasn't paying attention and had no idea she'd run into traffic. The cyclist, whose bag indicated that he was delivering food for some app-based service, didn't bat an eye. It was obvious he didn't give a fiddler's fart about traffic rules, or how close he came to being a statistic.

And what would have happened in each case, if I hadn't looked both ways, and hadn't anticipated what these people were going to do? The papers would have reported tragic cases of pedestrians or cyclists versus traffic. People would have brought flowers to the site, or set up a ghost bike. Activists would have wrung their hands about how vulnerable road users don't stand a chance in the city.

I would have been The Bad Guy. Because no one would have asked, "Well, who set it up for that collision to happen?"

People: it's a city. There is traffic. There are a lot of drivers who are at fault, who turn right while looking to the left, who run red lights, who turn in front of cyclists. As drivers, we have to look in every direction, no matter what, no matter if the light's green or if we're not required to stop. We have to anticipate situations, not react to them. We have to drive as if everyone is going to walk against the light, or dart out into traffic, or ignore the rules.

But vulnerable road users -- pedestrians and cyclists -- have to do their part, too. Take the damn headphones out of your ears and listen for traffic. Put down the goddamn phone and watch where you're going. Obey the lights. Obey the signs. Because if you don't, you're going to meet up with someone in a car. And believe me, no matter who's at fault, you're going to lose.

Seatbelt safety: Let's teach from other's mistakes

Okay, I'm going to go out in a direction that may make some people uncomfortable. And if you know the people in my story, I'm sorry that you're dealing with this grief. But I think it needs to be said.

Earlier this week, a 17-year-old girl was killed, and her 17- and 18-year-old friends were airlifted to hospital in critical condition, when they were involved in a single-vehicle crash in the Toronto area.

The girl who was killed, and one of those critically injured, were ejected from the van because they weren't wearing seatbelts.

The three attended a Catholic school, and so in addition to offering grief counsellors for other students, the school held a meeting to pray for the three.

And I say, all that is fine. But after the prayers were done, there should have been a police officer brought up in front of all the students to say, "This is what can happen when you get into a vehicle and you don't wear your seatbelt. This is why it's the law, and this is why we tell you, over and over, to buckle up. No one should have died in this crash. Wear your seatbelt, so you don't end up dead as your classmate did."

Tough love? Oh, yeah. But sometimes, that's what people need. No one expects they'll ever crash, or be ejected from a vehicle. But when there's an empty desk in your class, when you realize your friend isn't coming back, that it happened to someone you know - then the message has a chance of getting through.

When incidents like this happen, we should use them to educate that person's peers. We often do things that may initially be unpopular, or even seem heartless, but we temper them with, "but if it saves one life, it's worth it." This tragedy, had it been used to educate, could have done exactly that.

IIHS: Better truck guards can save lives

 

If you hit a tractor-trailer with your car, you're going to lose. Still, the U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) wants to increase your chances with better truck guards. And frankly, I was surprised at the news, because I didn't realize how bad some of them are.

These so-called "underride guards" are the metal cages that you see on the backs of the trailers; they're intended to prevent a car from sliding under, which will in turn put the trailer square into the passenger compartment. Canadian standards for these guards are stronger than U.S. ones, but don't be too smug: while a Canadian-spec guard did a good job of protecting a vehicle's occupants in a straight-on crash test, it didn't fare so well in an offset crash, and the driver would pretty much have been decapitated.

You can read all about it by clicking on the IIHS website, and then go to the upper right-hand side and watch the video.

If you've ever tailgated a tractor-trailer, I'm guessing that film will make you think twice about it next time.

Old cars and safety: These are the good old days

I'm still getting letters over an opinion piece I wrote in the Toronto Star about how old cars are a lot of fun, but they're nowhere near as safe as the cars built today. The newspaper illustrated my story with pictures from a crash test performed by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), in which it banged up a 1959 Bel Air against a 2009 Malibu to show how far cars had come in the 50 years the IIHS had been around. (You can see the video here.)

What surprised me was how many readers said the test "wasn't fair," because the cars didn't hit precisely head-on. The reality is that the standard is what's known as the "frontal offset," where the cars hit with each vehicle's front quarter at the middle of the other vehicle's hood. It's done this way because this is how most so-called "head-on" collisions occur. The cars don't hit each other directly face-to-face. Rather, one driver veers across the line where he's hit by oncoming traffic, often by drivers who are swerving to avoid him, making the possibility of a straight-on hit even less likely.

The Bel Air's driver probably wouldn't have fared much better in a direct head-on that these readers might have considered to be more in the car's favor anyway. In old cars, it's the "secondary collision" that was often responsible for death or serious injury. Since these cars didn't crumple up, crash force was sent straight into the cabin, where the driver was crushed by or crashed into the interior panels. New cars "disintegrate," as one reader put it, because they're supposed to do that. By crumpling up, they help prevent crash energy from reaching and deforming the cabin.

Fewer people are killed on U.S. roads these days, and it certainly isn't because we're all much better drivers. It's primarily because cars are doing a better job of protecting us.

None of that will probably get through to most of these readers, of course; you stand a better chance standing between a bear and her cubs than you do when you criticize old cars. Hey, I love old cars. I've played with them for almost 30 years now, and as you can see by clicking on the link to the right, I still own a couple. I'm also realistic about how time marches on. A 2009 car is vastly superior, safety-wise, to a 1959. And in 2029, we'll look back and say my goodness, look how far we've come in twenty years.

NHTSA's camera proposal: More Band-Aids on an untreated wound

In the news: the U.S. government is proposing a ruling that would require all vehicles 10,000 pounds and under to have a device that expands the view behind the vehicle. NHTSA says that it "believes automobile manufacturers will install rear-mounted video cameras and in-vehicle displays to meet the proposed standards." Short of hiring someone to sit on the bumper and call out when he sees something, or making the entire rear end out of glass, I can't imagine what else NHTSA "believes" the automakers would use.

The ruling, if it goes through (and does anyone think it won't?) will require all vehicles to be compliant by the 2015 model year. It's one more mandated device in a list of devices NHTSA requires. Some really are good ideas as far as mandatory requirement goes, others questionable: seatbelt buzzers, airbags, tire pressure monitoring systems, anti-lock brakes, electronic stability control. This latest proposal stems from a situation where a man backed over his two-year-old son in the driveway. Children, who are generally small enough that they're hidden behind vehicles, make up a disproportionate number of such fatalities. (Why elderly people, who are slower but usually taller than children, make up the second-largest group is harder to figure out.)

But as NHTSA plunges forward with its ruling, it also says, "drivers must remember that no technology can, or should, replace full attention and vigilance when backing up." And that's the key to all of these mandated devices: NHTSA is putting on Band-Aids when it should be treating the festering sore under them.

Simply put, we are nations of bad drivers, and neither the U.S. nor the Canadian government is willing to really put some teeth into the issue and start at the beginning. I can look on utility poles in the city and see sheets of typing paper advertising driving schools that guarantee I'll pass my test, starting at just $99. I don't even need to go to driving school before showing up for my examination (in fact, I never did). I never need to go to any advanced driver training once I've passed my test (and it was only when I did get advanced training that I realized I hadn't been a good driver).

As the participants on Canada's Worst Driver prove, it is possible to get a legal driver's license without actually being able to drive. I have a friend who drove a total of eight blocks and had to back up once in order to pass her test and get her license. And unless you do something catastrophic in a vehicle, or live to be 80 and reach mandatory retesting, you'll never be asked to prove your ability again.

If NHTSA and other government agencies really wanted the roads to be safe, they would put as much concern into safe drivers as they do into safe cars. They would tighten up licensing regulations, set limits on who is qualified to teach, set strict minimum requirements for ability, and require drivers to learn about car control, which is not the same as learning just enough to pass the exam.

The agencies would crack down on cell phone use -- you'll never convince me that allowing just-as-dangerous hands-free calls wasn't due to lobbying on the part of automakers and electronics companies that had sunk so much money into on-board Bluetooth -- with serious penalties, rather than the $155 slap on the wrist that drivers face in Ontario. They would crack down on coffee shops and burger joints that let drivers pull up to a window and then head out to the street with food and drink in hand. And they would pay attention to the single most important safety item on any vehicle: its tires. Mandate winter tire use and pull cars off the road when they have insufficient tire tread.

 On the other hand, maybe NHTSA is working toward safer roads with all these mandates. Once cars are filled with all of the required electronic devices, they'll be so expensive that no one will be able to afford one, and we'll all be on public transit where we won't be able to smash into each other.

 

Regular driver testing: The time is now

I was having lunch in a restaurant on Sunday, and my table overlooked the parking lot. I noticed a lovely white Cadillac there, circa 1990, driven by an older woman. She talked to a man there for a while, and then drove out.

Following my meal, I caught up with her again about a block away. Someone had backed a Honda CR-V out of a driveway, and it was obvious that neither Cadillac nor Honda driver had seen the other, possibly because there was a parked car in the way. It broke my heart to see that otherwise immaculate Cadillac: the passenger headlight was  broken, and the car was heavily gouged down its side all the way to the back bumper. Given its age, it's probably a writeoff.

Two things should not have happened. The Honda driver shouldn't have backed out blindly, and the Cadillac should not have been scraped from stem to stern. Assuming the driver hadn't been able to avoid the crash entirely, the Cadillac shouldn't have sustained much more damage than just its lights and possibly its front fender. This was a driver who didn't react once her car was hit. Rather than slam on the brakes, it appears that she continued to drift along. Her car was stopped easily 70 feet up the block from where the impact had occurred.

I don't know why the Honda driver backed out blindly: given the seat height in those vehicles, he or she should have been able to catch a glimpse of the Cadillac over the compact car parked at the curb. I don't know why the Cadillac driver didn't stop: perhaps a distraction in the car, perhaps looking the other way, perhaps old enough that her reaction time isn't sufficient anymore.

No matter what, this didn't have to play out the way it did. When are our governing bodies going to stop worrying about emissions tests on five-year-old cars, and stop ticketing tuner car owners for having little blue lights on their windshield washers, and focus instead on first passing only competent first-time drivers, and then periodically testing all drivers, regardless of their age?

This time it was only sheet metal, but either one of those vehicles could have instead been a bicycle or a motorcycle. And somewhere, a family might well have received that knock on the door, and a police officer on the other side going over the words he has to say.