Vehicle safety bills reflect compromise between legislators and automakers

[Robbien]

Source: Washington Post

Automakers have reached a series of compromises with lawmakers over both the House and Senate versions of auto safety legislation aimed at forcing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to set and enforce stricter standards, according to records and interviews.

The bills were drafted after congressional hearings in February that pointed to agency weaknesses in handling probes of runaway acceleration problems in Toyota vehicles that led to dozens of deaths and hundreds of serious injuries.

The proposed legislation, known as the Motor Safety Vehicle Act of 2010, would require the agency to set standards for the first time on electronic components in vehicles, increase penalties for automakers who lie or mislead the agency about safety defects and bar agency officials hired by automakers from working with the agency for three years.

Since the bills were introduced, lawmakers have made changes that eliminate or extend deadlines for setting some of the new safety standards; give the transportation secretary the discretion to set rules that had been mandated in earlier versions; and require safety standards to "mitigate" runaway acceleration rather than "prevent" the problem, records show.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/07/AR2010060704683.html?wprss=rss_print/asection

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How much runaway acceleration is acceptable and how much should be "mitigated"? How does one go about mitigating runaway acceleration.

Compromise is fast becoming a dirty word.

[FiveGoodMen]

1. "Compromise is fast becoming a dirty word"

It's been a dirty word to the right wing for at least 30 years.

Which means that 'compromise' has been synonymous with 'Democratic capitulation' for that same time period.

That ought to make it a dirty word for us!

[AndyA]

2. I just don't get the electronically-controlled parts on today's cars.

Accelerators that are pedals, but they control electronics. What was the matter with the accelerator pedal that was attached to a metal rod that pivoted to control speed? There was a spring or two on it that was pulled tight during acceleration. When you took your foot off the pedal, the springs returned it to the normal position, and the car slowed down. No need for electrical anything.

And...if it got stuck for some reason, you put your foot under it, and pull it away from the floor. Car stops. :shrug: (And it's probably less expensive, too.)

[liberation]

3. It is a tradeoff between electronic abstraction to gain efficiency and mechanical simplicity

Most engines are now governed by an on board computer, which dictates the proper firing rate for the cylinders, number of cylinders to operate to save fuel, rate of flow to maximize torque at a specific gear, etc. The electronics allow for a flexibility and efficiency which is almost impossible to attain with simple mechanical gearing (or even mechanical computers in some cases).

And it is not just about engine control, most modern cars have very advanced traction control to help reduced the driving complexity. Which means the computer has to do a lot of real time adjustments for compensate for driving conditions, so that the average driver does not have to worry their pretty minds... try driving an old rear-drive car with a lot of horsepower through a rained on tight curve, and you will see the fun and games of direct control.

As usual it is a trade off, you don't have direct control... but for 99.9% of the time the electronics are very helpful. The problem is in the 0.01% when things go bad.

Also, most American drivers are simply not trained correctly to operate moving vehicles. Most people in the road in California at least, have not been exposed to any sort of defensive driving training at all. And most of these situations could be easily avoided if people had the correct training to deal with stuck accelerator: shift to neutral, let the car decelerate, regain control, move over to the shoulder, and cut off the engine. I was reading, that some of the drivers that found problems with the accelerator did the worst thing in that case: turn off the car, thus rendering the power steering useless and locking their direction with too much momentum to do anything about it.

[HillbillyBob]

4. We now have a Versa with CVT trans

I still keep wanting to shift.
I learned to drive on a John Deere tractor, a 67 Chevy flatbed cattle truck, 64 Simca and VW 412 and a 66 GTO..Only been in a handful of accidents and only one was at fault..ran into a ditch trying to avoid a herd of deer on a wet slick curve..at least I went into the inside..the outside was a rather long drop into a river in WV where I grew up.

I liked the control a manual transmission gives, then again I leared to drive in the mountians.

Todays folks do not know how to drive, rarely know the laws of the road. Like passing on the right or making a left turn from the right lane and giving you the finger because you were where you were supposed to be.

I have been rear ended abou 8 times in the last 20 years and every time I was stopped or stopping at a traffic light and I mean 'train' stops where I show brake lights and come to a controlled slow stop, not like I get 40 ft from the light then stand on the brakes.

[skyounkin]

5. LOL-

How about the lawmakers do their damn job- they tell auto makers what to do and the automakers DO IT!

Fuck...why are the automakers even in the room?