GOP Question Vehicle Safety Features-Vehicle r Too Expensive

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
1

From WSJ:
Senate Republicans in January plan to criticize requirements for safety technology, such as automatic emergency braking and alarms to remind drivers that a child is in the back seat, arguing they are ineffective and will unnecessarily drive up the cost of cars, according to people familiar with the situation.

They aim to head off future requirements touted by safety advocates and argue instead for advancing autonomous vehicle technology.

Vehicle safety advocates argue such mandates save lives and don’t go far enough when some 40,000 people a year die on American roads.

What is an acceptable number of deaths?

“Regulation is the best way to make sure everybody’s got this technology that’s highly effective,” said a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Wrong! Many vehicles on the road are older. Don’t even have backup cameras.

Republicans on the committee plan to contend that the most effective vehicle-safety advancements—seat belts and steps to improve vehicle crashworthiness—occurred between the 1960s and 1980s, and that benefits have dwindled since, the people said. Safety technology, such as sensors, can be ineffective and costly to repair, they will argue.

I agree. Of course I am one that is agin a nanny state. Some safety items should be offered as options. I’m sure I will receive criticism from board members.
Of course I am one that bytchs about standardized items that once were options or never existed in the 1960’s.
1)power windows. I have replaced 2 on my cars. A crank operated window NEVER failed me.
2)Electric powered actuators that shift the doors that direct where the air flows in your vehicles. I replaced one. Several hundred dollars in cost. In some vehicles it can cost @ grand. The 1960 vehicles had a steel cable attached to a lever or button that one pushed to move the door to redirect the air. I NEVER had one fail me.

One of the more controversial safety mandates is for auto-braking technology systems, which use sensors, cameras and software to detect potential crashes and automatically apply the brakes. NHTSA last year required automatic braking systems in new cars starting in 2029; automakers have tried to block the rule from taking effect, arguing NHTSA’s standards are impractical and could cause rear-end collisions by braking before drivers expect. The agency said this year that it was considering extending the deadline.

1 Like
2

So are the builders at that apartment complex that’s in flames in Hong Kong. “No, really, bamboo is a safe material to enclose and entire building. What could go wrong?”

55 dead people (and counting) could explain it better.

Putting seat belts in cars on the assembly line adds about $100-$150 in cost to the car. Having one installed individually costs from $300 to $800 per seat .

Just curious: are you against speed limits in school zones and neighborhoods? That’s somebody else telling you what to do, isn’t it?

10 Likes
3

When I was a kid, 1poormom had a 1960-something car that had only lap belts on the front seats, and no belt of any kind in the back. How many people reading this have even seen a lap belt outside an airplane? I don’t know when that changed, but I’ll hazard a guess that it was due to a government regulation.

I know that’s how airbags came to be. They were an option for a while until government mandated them. The automakers couldn’t be relied upon to install them standard until they were forced to. I wonder how many lives that simple regulation has saved…I’d say probably over 1M since airbags became mandatory, but wouldn’t be surprised if the number is even higher. They aren’t free, but neither is a visit to a trauma center.

10 Likes
4

Safety equipment & other stuff on my vehicle I don’t want-air bags, rear backup camera, electric powered windows electric powered actuators, tire pressure monitors, seat belt reminder, ABS, forward collision warning system, Adaptive cruise control, Lane departure warning system, Heads-up display, and automatic braking.
All the above costs money to install and repair plus the pollution from excavating all the material to make & it depose of it.

I utilize a brain, eyes, & hearing, & defensive driving & driving at a speed based on driving conditions thus far avoiding an accident or tickets. Though I do have a speeding ticket obtained in 1969 for 45 in a 35.

1 Like
5

Still have it … unpaid after all these years?

3 Likes
6

I’ve slid off the road going 65 mph plus in winter driving 3 times so far in my 54 year driving career. Both vehicle and me suffered no damage in each incident (though I had to pay for a tow to get me out of the ditch in two of the incidents.

Once the vehicle starts moving down the interstate perpendicular to the traffic flow, there’s not much you can do except relax and hope for a soft landing.

intercst

2 Likes
7

No
They don’t want the ticket; just the money.
And no I don’t have the receipt either.

8

So black ice? Or too fast for weather condition.

I was driving to town in snowy weather-rare in my neighborhood. I was driving 45 in a 65 mph on 4 lane US hwy. A woman blasted by me at very fast speed, speeding for sure.
She lost control and spun 540 degrees and across the median into the opposing traffic but she was headed in the right direction but at oh 35mph. That’s when I saw it was a woman.

9

It was black ice in all 3 incidents. I was just moving along at the speed of traffic.

intercst

2 Likes
10

You’re talking apples and oranges. Bamboo scaffolding in Hong Cong has absolutely nothing to do with automobile safety in the US.

You missed the biggest safety improvement which I think was the first one. Safety glass was invented and required long before seat belts were. I agree that safety glass, seat belts, and windshield washers have probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives. However, each and every added “safety feature” increases the cost of cars with a declining ROE. Where do you draw the line? Automobiles are already too expensive for most people. The average age of autos on the road continue to increase because most people can’t afford to buy new cars.

I hate all the sensors that are on the new cars and I actually feel that some of them make the cars less safe to drive. Something has to be done to make autos more affordable and adding more and more safety systems is not the answer.

1 Like
11

You can still get relatively basic cars without too many bells or whistles. Here’s Road and Track’s list:

https://www.roadandtrack.com/rankings/g43770268/cheapest-new-cars/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=dda_ga_rt_md_bm_prog_org_us_g43770268&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20076516152&gbraid=0AAAAACZRB910_r5CWp7b9JNv-5RCdl44I&gclid=Cj0KCQiAiqDJBhCXARIsABk2kSnHVHycLNiqfBe7kmoi7aOjFq4ONBbctRIC9eAYFSO4dAAvufyTdGoaAotjEALw_wcB

Though, I have to disagree with you about the sensors. The driver assist features are extremely helpful. Especially as a person gets older (like me). It doesn’t have to be a full Tesla suite to notify me if someone is in my blind spot, or that I’m drifting out of my lane. Just today I had to deal with a drifter…if they had the lane-keeping feature, I wouldn’t have had to swerve a bit (and slow down) as he came a full tire’s width into my lane a half a length ahead of me.

2 Likes
12

A guy I worked for used to rail about the requirement that he wear a helmet while driving his Harley. He was a talk show host, and had plenty of chances to complain about it, and got much agreement from his listeners. Then…

Never shy with an opinion, he could sometimes be convinced to look at things in a new way -- although it might take a near-death experience to do the trick. In 1998, while riding his beloved Harley with his buddy Jon Burnett, Cigna was seriously injured in a crash. The accident ended his harsh criticism of the state's then-mandatory helmet law. "There was a crack in the helmet," he explained. "That would have been my head had I not been wearing a helmet."

Suddenly his criticisms ended because he learned the hard way - but luckily lived to tell about it. He worked for me. Great guy, terrific talent, hated regulations - until one saved his life.

It’s my parable of the donkey and the 2x4. I hope you don’t have to learn the hard way. All those things you think are enough … aren’t enough.

I utilize a brain, eyes, & hearing, & defensive driving & driving at a speed based on driving conditions

John’s motorcycle accident came on a road with gravel - gravel that was never there, shouldn’t have been there, but after a heavy rainstorm some days earlier had washed onto a roadway he knew well. Except it had changed. I’m glad it saved his life - he got a little bit smarter for it.

9 Likes
13

I have always been cognizant around kids and animals because one cannot predict when they will dart out in front of you.
In 6th grade [1963] I was a safety patrol patrolman. We had to report early to school and stay after school. We were stationed at crosswalks. We would yell at any kid attempting to cross while the light was green for traffic or jaywalking. We had a 10 foot pole made out of light wood with a canvas flag at the end with the word STOP in bright red letters. We would swing that pole out along the crosswalk in front of the cars that had stopped for the light.

1961-Trinity-Lutheran-School-Yearbook-Safety-Patrol
1961-Trinity-Lutheran-School-Yearbook-Safety-Patrol1024×912 195 KB

Today in my berg we have adults [women of working age & retired old men geezers] at crosswalk points. They wear bright orange vests and step out into the crosswalk. Once all traffic is stopped they direct the children to cross.

14

A recent study showed backup cameras have reduced pediatric backover fatalities by 78%.

6 Likes
15

I wasn’t talking about how you drive, I asked if you are against speed limits in school zones and neighborhoods. It’s a simple yes or no answer. If it’s “no”, then why are you against other simple safety measures, like seat belts. If it’s “yes”, then you trust that every driver drives as you do, automatically slowing down and taking care in every situation where it might be required.

If so, are you against regulations requiring explosives factories to be located somewhere out of an urban area, not next to schools or other densely populated structures? Obviously you wouldn’t, but do you want to trust your child to a school where someone else might not?

This is not a theoretical question. Before such regulations traveling salesmen used to carry explosives samples in their baggage under their seats on trains, and it was only through laws that governed where explosives could be manufactured and deployed that they moved farther out, or shipped with safety protocols in place.

Laws aren’t made for the automatically careful, and perfectly perfect in every way (Thank you Mary Poppins). They’re made for people who aren’t; that they are sometimes ignored (people refuse to wear their seat belt because “it’s uncomfortable” for instance) doesn’t mean they shouldn’t exist for the rest of us at reasonable price

6 Likes
16

As far as I am aware, neither of these are mandated by government. That means that you can choose to put whichever type of windows or airflow regulators into your car, or find a manufacturer that will do it for you. Just as those of us who like those things choose cars that include those things.

The only things that you are absolutely required to have in your car are the things that are mandated by government (like ABS, rear view camera and display, some airbags, etc).

We all say that at various points in our lives. But most of us eventually realize that our senses deteriorate as we age. I’m only in my early 60s right now, but I know for a fact that I don’t drive as well as I used to. Especially at night when I’m blinded by all those bright LED bulbs that I’m sure you also hate. But on the other hand, those bright LED bulbs light my path ahead by a way longer distance than the old style bulbs did, and allow me to see much further ahead. Not only that, but most of my current cars have adaptable matrix headlights (only available with LED technology) and they will automatically dim in the regions of an opposing driver’s eyes. This is a GREAT improvement. And they will brighten up the way in the direction I am moving, so when I turn into my street, it’ll focus more light in the direction I am going so I can see if anyone happens to be in the street in the shadows (well, the former shadows, because these cars can light up those formerly very dark areas). Thus LED headlight technology improves the driving experience in TWO ways, despite it also having one negative effect due to vehicles that haven’t implemented the FULL capability of LED headlight technology (they just add in the bright LEDs but fail to add the matrix capability).

Anyway, you may think you still drive as well as you’ve always done, but it VERY likely isn’t true.

4 Likes
17

This is something motorcyclists too often learn the hard way. I stopped, with coercion from husband and sympathy from older motorcycle friend who had already quit. It was not a happy moment…. but it was right.

4 Likes
18

Obviously, you are not going to do those things yourself. You are going to take whatever the manufacturer offers. And to the best of my knowledge, no new cars available in the US have manually operated windows as an option. Ditto for air flow controls. You are going to take what the manufacturer gives you. And most of them give you some level of electronic operation.

And here I enter the realm of Steve’s rants. I would like a much simpler car. I’d prefer to be without a lot of things that are in modern cars. I don’t want touch screens, or automated climate control, or some level of crude AI driving me around. I can handle turning my headlights on and off as well as my windshield wipers.

Sure many of those can be nice to have, but every one of them adds to the cost and weight of the vehicle, and they all are expensive to fix when they break, making the car more expensive to own as well.

I do like many of the safety features that have been mandated over my lifetime (seat belts, ABS, air bags, automatic emergency braking, better crash protection for occupants, for a few examples). And yes, those add to the cost, weight, and maintenance expense of cars as well. They also provide a measurable, tangible benefit to everyone. Back in the 70s and 80s, it was a given that about 50,000 people would die each year in car accidents. With the improved safety requirements, that number is down to about 30,000 deaths a year. And while I haven’t checked, I highly suspect we are driving more miles per year now that we were 50 years ago. So deaths per miles driven has to have fallen even more significantly.

But back to the rant, I can’t get a car today without a lot of these questionable bits of automation that add to both the initial and maintenance costs of a car today. And while you say I have that option, I really don’t. If I wanted simple crank windows in my new car, I have to design, engineer, and fabricate them myself, because virtually no new car for sale today in the US has them as an option. And that simply isn’t going to happen.

The rant portion is that all of these doo-dads and knick-knacks add to the cost and profit on cars. And current automotive management doesn’t seem to be interested in making good, inexpensive cars. They‘re mostly interested in maximizing profit for themselves, and sometimes shareholders (when that is consistent with maximizing their personal profits).

I’m not really sure I want to buy any new car these days.

–Peter

2 Likes
19

You’re right, but that has nothing to do with regulation. That’s because consumers have shown an overwhelming preference for power windows, and it’s cheaper to put them in all cars than take orders for a few without them, and design an entirely different apparatus for using the crank (including lift mechanism, side panel where the crank fits through, etc.)

That’s also true of seat belts, which are cheap if you put them on everything, expensive if you don’t. Consumers have shown a preference for backup cameras, too. And “lane follow” and such have proved quite popular as well.

You’re complaining because you can’t get a cheap car. Have you tried used cars? Lots of choice. More than with new cars, actually. Go back far enough and you can find one that doesn’t even have a starter motor to go bad. You just use a crank. Easy peasy.

8 Likes
20

A prime example of terrible design is the heat/cool actuators on the ford explorer and expedition. They have a metal gear interacting with a plastic gear, with predictable results. To make matters worse, the actuator motor is buried behind the glove box/ console area. I have seen a wire through the ductwork used to move the door seasonally. Push in for air pull out for heat.

2 Likes