Posted by Benji Riggins on December 20, 2010 under Insurance News | 
The United States is lagging behind nearly every other high-income country in reducing annual traffic fatalities, said a report released this week by a U.S. government research panel.
There’s some good news: U.S. traffic fatalities fell 9.7 percent in 2009 to 33,808, the lowest number since 1950. In 2008, an estimated 37,423 people died on the highways, a decline of 9.3 percent from the previous year.
But dramatic declines in traffic fatalities in the U.S. over the last several years are likely due to a sour economy in which people drive less, rather than lasting changes in behavior, the report suggests. As the economy improves, researchers said, fatalities are likely to rebound.
“The experience of the past three years is not grounds for concluding that sustainable progress has been made on traffic safety,” the report said.
In the 1970s, the U.S. fatality rate was the lowest in the world. But because safety efforts have improved more slowly in the United States than elsewhere, most high-income countries have now matched or gone below the U.S. rate, said the report by the Transportation Research Board.
Countries with comparable living standards where fatality rates per mile (kilometer) of travel were substantially higher than in the United States 15 years ago are now below the U.S. rate, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway, France and Britain.
“The United States can no longer claim to rank highly in road safety by world standards,” the report said.
From 1995 to 2009, fatalities dropped 52 percent in France, 38 percent in Britain, 25 percent in Australia, and 50 percent in 15 high-income countries for which long-term fatality and traffic data are available, the report said. But they dropped only 19 percent in the U.S.
The dramatic declines in fatalities in other nations have been achieved in part through the kinds of programs that have sometimes generated opposition in the U.S: speed cameras and speed measuring devices, sobriety checkpoints and mandatory motorcycle helmets, for example.
If such programs were widely adopted in the U.S., it’s probable that thousands of lives could be saved each year, the report said.
Researchers estimated that nationwide, sustained and frequent use of checkpoints to detect drunk drivers could save 1,500 to 3,000 lives annually. Systematic speed control programs applied nationwide could save another 1,000 to 2,000 lives, the report said.
If every state required all motorcyclists to wear helmets, about 450 deaths a year could be avoided, the report said. Increasing the rate of seat belt use just 5 percent — from the present 85 percent to 90 percent — would save about 1,200 lives.
“Where is the public outcry against these preventable deaths?” said National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman.
“Americans should strive for zero fatalities on the road. We should be leading, rather than following the international community when it comes to roadway design and safety measures,” Hersman said. “But it is a sad fact that the U.S. is in their rear view mirror and falling further behind the rest of the world when it comes to highway safety.”
By Joan Lowy
November 17, 2010
Read more: http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2010/11/17/114965.htm#ixzz161pfFiRD
Tags: auto ins, auto safety, car ins, driver safety, insurance, insurance agency, insurance agent, motorcycle ins, road safety, traffic, vehicle ins
Posted by Benji Riggins on June 1, 2010 under Safety |
As more states are allowing souped-up golf carts and other low-speed vehicles on public roads, safety researchers for the insurance industry say they should apply the brakes to this trend even though the carts may be eco-friendly.
Crash tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety show that the mix of low-speed vehicles (LSVs) or minitrucks and regular traffic is a deadly combination.
LSVs are designed for tooling around residential neighborhoods, and minitrucks are for hauling cargo off-road. While these vehicles have a lot of appeal as a way to reduce emissions and cut fuel use, they don’t have to meet the basic safety standards that cars and pickups do, and they aren’t designed to protect their occupants in crashes, researchers note.
“By allowing LSVs and minitrucks on more and more kinds of roads, states are carving out exceptions to 40 years of auto safety regulations that save lives,” says David Zuby, the Institute’s chief research officer. “It’s a troubling trend that flies in the face of the work insurers, automakers, and the federal government have done to reduce crash risk.”
Practically every state allows LSVs, also called neighborhood electric vehicles, on certain roads, mostly with 35 mph or lower speed limits. Eight years ago just over a dozen states permitted them but now 46 do.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) defines appropriate performance and safety standards but has no say in where LSVs are driven. The same goes for minitrucks, which are legal to operate on some roads in 16 states, even though they weren’t designed to meet U.S. safety or emission standards. The trend to grant minitrucks access to regular roads began in 2007 and is growing at a quick pace.
“On one hand you have NHTSA saying these vehicles were meant for low-risk, controlled environments or farm use, and on the other hand states are pushing them out onto the highways,” Zuby points out.
LSVs were envisioned as a low-cost, eco-friendly way to tool around gated communities in the Sun Belt where they would have little interaction with larger vehicles. NHTSA doesn’t require LSVs to have airbags or other safety features beyond belts since they’re intended for low-risk driving. Most minitrucks in the United States are used right-hand-drive vehicles imported from Japan, where they can operate on roads as long as they pass inspection every 2 years. Vehicles that fail often end up exported to North America. Also known as Kei-class vehicles, minitrucks are smaller than conventional pickups and weigh about 1,500 pounds. They must be imported with governors to limit speeds to 25 mph or less to be exempt from Clean Air Act provisions but can go much faster.
NHTSA in 1998 established safety standards for LSVs to be used on “short trips for shopping, social, and recreational purposes primarily within retirement or other planned communities with golf courses.” They must be able to go at least 20 mph but no faster than 25 mph. Basic features are required: headlights, taillights, stoplights, turn signals, reflectors, parking brakes, rearview mirrors, windshields, safety belts, and vehicle identification numbers.
Minitrucks weren’t an issue when NHTSA wrote LSV rules. The agency in 2006 amended the standards to include vehicles with gross vehicle weight ratings up to 3,000 pounds, and now 4 states require minitrucks to meet LSV standards. Still, NHTSA believes minitrucks should keep off the road. In a July 2009 letter of interpretation, the agency said that because “these vehicles are not manufactured to meet U.S. safety standards, NHTSA cannot endorse their use on public highways.”
The Energy Department estimates there are 45,000 LSVs on U.S. roads. New LSVs qualify for up to a $2,500 tax credit under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Many states also offer tax incentives.
“Lost amid the talk about so-called sustainable transportation is any regard for the safety of people who ride in LSVs and minitrucks,” Zuby says. “We’re all for green vehicles that don’t trade safety for fuel efficiency.”
For eco-minded consumers, a better choice for regular traffic is a crashworthy hybrid like the Toyota Prius or another fuel-efficient car. Also worth a look are the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt, two battery-powered cars slated for delivery later this year, researchers say.
Crash Tests
To show that LSVs and minitrucks are no match for even the smallest of regular cars and pickups, Institute researchers tested two GEM e2 electric vehicles and a Changan Tiger Star minitruck. The GEMs were in side tests, one using a moving deformable barrier and the other using a Smart Fortwo as the striking vehicle. The Smart is the smallest passenger vehicle on US roads that meets crashworthiness standards. The Tiger struck a Ford Ranger XL regular cab pickup in a frontal offset test. The Ranger is one of the least pricey small pickups on the market. It earns an acceptable rating in the Institute’s frontal crashworthiness test, the lowest rating in its vehicle class.
The test dummies in the GEMs and the Tiger recorded indications of seriously debilitating or fatal injury to drivers in real-world crashes. In contrast, the Smart performed well and the Ranger reasonably so in similar crash tests.
“There’s a world of difference between vehicles that meet crashworthiness standards and those that don’t,” Zuby says. “It may be time for Congress to step in to extend federal passenger vehicle safety standards to LSVs or else restrict them to the low-risk traffic environments they were designed to navigate.”
Read more: http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2010/05/20/110034.htm#ixzz0oVAahTGf
