Posted by Benji Riggins on February 9, 2010 under Safety | 
Toyota owners should place safety first and follow the car manufacturers’ instructions regarding the recalled vehicles, insurers say. After the recall of some 8 million Toyota vehicles, insurers are urging vehicle owners not to hesitate on contacting Toyota dealers.
“If Toyota drivers experience any issues with their accelerator pedal, they should contact their Toyota dealer without delay,” said Robert Passmore, senior director of claims for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI).
In the event that a driver experiences an accelerator pedal that sticks or returns slowly to idle position, Toyota says the vehicle can be controlled with firm and steady application of the brakes. The brakes should not be pumped repeatedly because it could deplete vacuum assist, requiring stronger brake pedal pressure. The vehicle should be driven to the nearest safe location, the engine shut off and a Toyota dealer contacted for assistance.
“Consumer safety is a top concern for the insurance industry and we are encouraged that Toyota dealers nationwide are beginning to make repairs on the vehicles involved in the recall,” said Passmore.
Insurers want consumers to know that if Toyota’s recalled part causes an accident, the driver’s automobile liability or physical damage insurance will provide coverage.
“This type of unforeseen event is what insurance is for,” said PCI’s Passmore. “If the pedal is a factor, the insurer will pay the claim for the driver and then likely seek to be reimbursed by Toyota. This is one less thing for the consumer to worry about.”
There is also good news for consumers because a vehicle recall by itself will generally not cause insurance rates to increase, Passmore said. “Looking forward, it is unlikely that rates would be affected by the recall.”
Over the years Toyotas have had a good safety record as evidenced by their popularity, so it is unlikely that there will be enough accidents caused by the faulty pedals that rates will increase, according to Passmore.
“Insurers look at the cost of claims over a period of time for vehicle,” he added. “They are interested in how much it costs to repair a vehicle and how often the vehicle is involved in an accident.”
While Toyota is pursuing repairs to recalled vehicles, the nation’s largest auto insurer says Toyota vehicle safety has been a concern for some time.
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Posted by Benji Riggins on January 12, 2010 under Safety |
New crash tests from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety are raising questions about the safety of child booster seats.
After the tests, only 25 percent of the booster seats got a “good” or “best” rating from the Insurance Institute. Eleven booster seats are not recommended because the belts don’t provide a good fit.
Officials said children 4-8 years old in booster seats are 45 percent less likely to suffer serious injuries in accidents.
However, even kids in booster seats who aren’t properly belted in are at risk. Seat belts that cross the stomach can cause abdominal injuries. Plus, belts that cross the neck or are too low on the chest can cause spine and head injuries.
Twenty five states have laws requiring a booster until the age of eight. Three states — Florida, Arizona and South Dakota — don’t require booster seats at all.
Crash tests show seat belts alone do not protect a child, which is why safety experts say even booster seats that don’t get the top safety recommendation can still protect kids.
Officials said age is not the most important factor. It’s actually based more on the child’s height and how well they fit into adult seat belts.
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Posted by Benji Riggins on November 23, 2009 under Safety |
As regulation continues to swirl regarding texting while driving, a recent survey suggests that children and road rage provide larger threats to drivers.
Conducted by LeaseTrader.com, the survey of more than 3,000 drivers found that for 18.3 percent of men, road rage was the most dangerous distraction, followed by eating/drinking at 14.7 percent, watching other drivers at 10.9 percent, and children in the car at 9.8 percent.
For women, kids in the car ranked highest at 26.3 percent, followed by putting on makeup at 16.6 percent, the radio at 10.4 percent and navigation at 9.5 percent.
Finally, only 7.6 percent of men and 4.2 percent of women said texting while driving provided a dangerous distraction.
Posted by Benji Riggins on August 18, 2009 under Safety |
Many drivers over age 70 realize that their reaction time is slower so they naturally compensate by driving more carefully, says Matthew Romoser, who studies age-related physical and cognitive function and driving skills at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The problem, according to his latest research, is that many older drivers don’t realize that danger is coming at them sideways, not from head-on as they assumed.
For his recent doctoral dissertation, Romoser’s study at the university’s Human Performance Laboratory found that drivers 70 to 89 years old can best learn to use more side-to-side glances when executing turns at intersections when they practice adding more side glances in a hands-on driving simulator, compared to hearing a lecture.
As people age, Romoser explains, they begin to process information more slowly, including visual information. This in turn makes it harder to process moving objects in the visual periphery. “The statistics reflect this,” he adds. “Rear-end, head-on, single-car and car-pedestrian accidents actually decrease among older drivers in this age group, probably because they do self-regulate. But side-impact crashes increase markedly over age 70, and findings from our head-movement studies suggest a reason: older drivers fail to compensate for the loss of peripheral processing. They don’t use enough side-to-side glances at intersections so they’re having accidents.”
“The problem is that, for some older drivers, once they cross the threshold into the intersection while making a turn, side-to-side scanning stops altogether. This is worrisome because without an additional quick glance over the shoulder at the beginning of a turn, older drivers are likely to miss the sudden emergence of a previously unseen car. Compared to younger drivers, older drivers tend to focus only in the direction of the turn once they commit themselves to an intersection,” he adds.
Romoser and colleagues tested three groups of 18 subjects each, ages 70 to 89, who either received:
classroom lectures on using more side glances at intersections (passive group)
active behind-the-wheel training in a driving simulator (active group)
no training (control group)
When comparing the results of a field drive before and after training, the active training group significantly increased side-to-side scanning from 44 percent of opportunities before active training to 83 percent after training, nearly doubling their use of additional side-to-side scanning in intersections (the target behavior). Meanwhile, both the passive training and control groups demonstrated no significant change in side-to-side scanning.
An unexpected and refreshing outcome of this study, says Romoser, is that he and colleagues did not meet the resistance or skepticism they had expected from drivers who, in essence, had to face up to significant driving mistakes. With only a single exception, the researcher says, “People were very receptive to learning more and doing better.”
Romoser said this willingness to receive instruction encourages him and colleagues as they develop a driving instruction course specifically geared toward older drivers. Expecting that as the population ages and states consider additional screening programs for testing older drivers, Romoser and colleagues plan to have a “training refresher” option available.
Romoser favors a tiered approach in which motor vehicle licensing agencies could screen drivers first on relevant variables such as response-time, peripheral information processing and cognitive workload capacity, for example, before re-licensing. The vast majority will pass without incident, but some drivers might be diverted for further instruction in a “safe driving after 70″ course to improve their performance and keep their operators’ licenses, for example, while others might be referred to a physician for further testing.
“We’re now designing a training program for older adults that is deployable to a driving instruction school,” says Romoser. As for the driver performance study, a one-year follow-up with the drivers in the active study group is just starting at UMass Amherst’s Human Performance Lab to see if these drivers are still using the new skills a full year or more after learning them.
