An Amendment To Automotive Safety

By DJ DeVeau via GovTrack.us & Medium.com / July 10, 2016

This story really started in February of 2016 after discovering a Senate Bill to update the Safety Ratings Automotive Sticker. It instructs the Secretary of Transportation to add Crash Avoidance next to Crashworthiness. After reading the Bill it was like I was hit in the back of the head and all my ideas came pouring out.

Before that, in fact since May of 2010 I was trying to sell my patented automotive safety feature to the automotive industry but all of them had answered thanks but “no thank you our vehicles already meet all the safety standards”. The NHTSA had answered “we do not make the regulations” and the IIHS stated they like the idea but went on to explain “we can only test what the manufactures build for the public”. It looked like I was surrounded with contention to keep the status quo and that there was no way to improve automotive safety.

This bill gave me the ideas for an opportunity to improve these safety standard regulations. I could see how to add the language to increase collision testing speeds that would hopefully lead the industry toward actually using my automotive safety feature.

After more than 40 years in professional engineering I know how to write standards from my safety design responsibilities and even more importantly I know how to read down into the laws that regulate these standards.

The other part of getting it all before our own senators is also a little easier. These days the internet offers plenty of resources to include these web sites that educate us and promote public involvement. This time I even have my own state senator that is not only very active in public safety issues but he is also a co-sponsor on this bill.

Having a graphic arts background in an engineering profession has also given me many opportunities to design warning stickers and the like. After I did some research into the existing safety sticker it became very apparent it is not expandable. The existing safety sticker design is also very obscure. The NHTSA had to even include their phone number on the sticker so you can call to find out what it all means when you need to compare the safety of vehicles.

It has become very apparent that the updates to these laws in this bill will also need a complete overhaul of the safety sticker ratings system in order for all of this to work.

The language in this law is all about the information program for developing the safety information on passenger motor vehicles. It goes on to explain that both crashworthiness and crash avoidance need to be rated the same in one system on a single sticker. It does not mention that all these tests are based on collisions at speed but this is obvious in the context of the regulation. So the common measurement point that needed to be defined is at what speed is the technology tested and passed.

The cool part is that I was able to design a sticker that is clear to the consumer and promotes increasing motor vehicle safety by encouraging manufactures to try to pass higher speed collision tests. This new sticker has one rating system for both crashworthiness and crash avoidance. I also went on to define the pass and fail conditions of the crash dummies and the measurement levels of crash avoidance technologies.

We also need to have both the NHTSA and the IIHS use this ratings system. The NHTSA can not test every vehicle and then they substitute their sticker with the IIHS sticker and presently they both use separate ratings systems making it impossible to compare safety features.

For myself and anyone else that has either type of vehicle safety technology, this system allows for it all to be rated under the same testing parameters. This will also give all the collision testing labs a chance to increase the ability of their testing facilities for higher speed tests with a clear measurement system that we can all understand.

The sad part is with all the other things going on in congress that collision safety is not on their list of priorities. I am still hoping that my senator will introduce this bipartisan senate bill that already has a duplicate bipartisan house bill to the floor of both chambers before the end of the 114th Congress so this will not have to start all over again next year with the 115th Congress.

I am thinking this should be an easy bill to pass on to the president to sign into law. I have also been thinking how automotive safety is in the headlines enough that people will be interested. Not just happy to see this clean and clear safety sticker next time we go shopping for a new vehicle but also after giving it a little thought that there is a clear way to progress toward a safer future, at least in our vehicles.

I am hoping that everyone that has the interest to read this will also help by learning more and contacting their own senators and representatives to co-sponsor this bill and these proposed solutions.

Proposed Amendments:

S. 1535 Safety Through Informed Consumers Act of 2015
Duplicate Bill H.R. 2702
114th Congress
http://www.DEVCO-DeVeau.com/garage/projects/asf/title-49-amendments.pdf

Proposed Simplified Solutions:

Higher Safety Through Clearer Regulations
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
Existing Vs Proposed Safety Ratings Sticker System
http://www.DEVCO-DeVeau.com/garage/projects/asf/asf_regulators_sticker.htm

Higher Safety Through Clearer Consumer Information
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
Proposed 10 Star Safety Ratings System
http://www.DEVCO-DeVeau.com/garage/projects/asf/asf_regulators_10-star-system.htm