Category: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
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Star Safety Ratings, long helpful to car buyers, now languish in the breakdown lane
ByEric Kulisch FairWarning Grade inflation in school makes it difficult to distinguish who is actually achieving in the classroom. The federal government’s vehicle safety rating system suffers the same problem.
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ATV deaths top 15,000 threshold in latest government report
By Eli Wolfe and Myron Levin FloridaBulldog.org Since the early 1980s, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has conducted a grim census, tracking reports of deaths from crashes of all-terrain vehicles, or ATVs. Now the body count has risen above 15,250, according to the agency’s latest annual report, with more than one in five of the…
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Amid rush to deploy driverless cars, federal regulators urged to keep hands on the wheel
By Paul Feldman FairWarning The era of driverless vehicles appears to be rapidly approaching, raising a bevy of urgent questions about how to prevent the emergence of new hazards on the nation’s roads.
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Don’t drive distracted, wireless industry says, but safety advocates want more than talk
By Myron Levin FairWarning In recent years thousands have died on the nation’s highways, mostly in ones and twos, as a result of drivers fiddling with their phones. Despite more crashworthy vehicles, 2016 U.S. traffic deaths reached 40,000, the highest number in years, according to an estimate by the National Safety Council.
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Headlight recall turns high beams on GM’s safety vow
By Christopher Jensen FairWarning Three years ago, General Motors chief executive Mary Barra vowed a new pro-safety attitude after admitting that for years the automaker had concealed an ignition-switch defect now linked to at least 124 deaths. But today federal safety regulators are investigating whether GM has been adequately handling a 429,000 vehicle recall for…
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Gridlock on Anti-Lock Brakes Baffles Motorcycle Safety Advocates
By Rick Schmitt and Paul Feldman FairWarning After a long downward trend, U.S. traffic deaths are on the rise again, and a key factor is the stubbornly high fatality toll among some of the most exposed people on the road: motorcyclists. Nevertheless, federal regulators have balked at requiring a safety measure that, many experts say,…