4 Crossovers Score Well

FOUR compact crossover utilities received the highest ratings in recent crash tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The four vehicles that received “good” ratings in all three tests — for front, side and rear impacts — were the 2009 Ford Escape, 2008 Mitsubishi Outlander, 2008 Nissan Rogue and 2009 Volkswagen Tiguan. The Escape’s rating applies to several structurally identical models: the Mercury Mariner, Mazda Tribute and hybrid versions of all three vehicles.

The institute, which is financed by the insurance industry, gives ratings of good, acceptable, marginal and poor.

The Escape, Outlander, Rogue and Tiguan received the institute’s Top Safety Pick designation. To be a top pick, a vehicle must also have electronic stability control, which helps drivers to avoid skids. These vehicles also have standard side air bags.

Five years ago, most small S.U.V.’s did not have either stability control or standard side air bags; most were rated marginal or poor for side impacts.

Three previously tested vehicles are also Top Safety Picks: the 2008 Honda CR-V and Element and 2009 Subaru Forester.

Also tested but scoring lower were the Suzuki Grand Vitara, Jeep Patriot (with and without optional side air bags), Chevrolet Equinox/Pontiac Torrent and two-door Jeep Wrangler. The Wrangler, which was tested without its optional side air bags, did worst in the side-impact test, for which it got a “poor” rating. The Wrangler scored lower than it did before it was redesigned for the 2007 model year. And its driver’s door opened during the test.

The detailed ratings are at

iihs.org. CHERYL JENSEN

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THE BLOG; '59 vs. '09: A Safety Lesson

IT was no way to treat a senior citizen: sending a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air hurtling into a collision with a 2009 Malibu, with both cars traveling 40 miles an hour. As the video produced by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows, the outcome wasn't pretty.

The windshield dislodges, the driver's door opens and the front half of the Bel Air goes through something between crumbling and what looks like imploding as the dummy in the driver's seat flies around like Peter Pan.

''The Bel Air collapsed,'' said David Zuby, senior vice president for the institute's vehicle research center. ''The area in which the driver was sitting collapsed completely around him.''

The test was staged in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the institute, a group financed by the insurance industry. The idea was to show how much automotive safety has progressed in five decades.

While some people still think that the big steel bodies and sturdy frames of old cars meant they were stronger vehicles with good crash protection, the institute's crash test shows that just wasn't the case, Mr. Zuby said. Sophisticated engineering and high-strength steel give modern vehicles a huge advantage.

Here's how the institute described what happened to the Bel Air:

''This car had no seat belts or air bags. Dummy movement wasn't well controlled, and there was far too much upward and rearward movement of the steering wheel. The dummy's head struck the steering wheel rim and hub, and then the roof and unpadded metal instrument panel to the left of the steering wheel.

''During rebound, the dummy's head remained in contact with the roof and slid rearward and somewhat inward. The windshield was completely dislodged from the car and the driver door opened during the crash, both presenting a risk of ejection. In addition, the front bench seat was torn away from the floor on the driver side.''

Mr. Zuby said he did not know of any vehicle that performed worse in tests than the Bel Air.

The institute rates vehicles as Good, Acceptable, Marginal or Poor. The group looks at how well the structure of the vehicle held up and the likelihood of injuries to the head, chest and legs. The Bel Air got a Poor rating in every category.

The 2009 Malibu got Good in every category except for the left leg and foot, which was rated Marginal.

And what does this mean to owners of 1959 Bel Airs? Mr. Zuby said driving in a parade was probably safe because the speeds were slow and it was a controlled environment.

''I wouldn't recommend that anybody use an antique car like this for their daily driving around,'' he said.

PHOTO: MISMATCHED: A 2009 Chevy Malibu slicing through a 1959 Bel Air during a crash test. (PHOTOGRAPH BY INSURANCE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHWAY SAFETY)

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Delaware bans the use of hand-held phones and text messaging by all drivers

Texting bans don't reduce crashes; effects are slight crash increases

New booster ratings: 21 Best Bets and 7 Good Bets; 8 out of 72 seats evaluated aren't recommended

Cadillac Escalade, Ford F-250 pickup, and Infiniti G37 top list of highest insurance claims for theft

New rollover test results: Honda Accord Crosstour and 4 other midsize SUVs are rated marginal

Low-speed vehicles and minitrucks shouldn't share busy public roads with regular traffic

Institute calls on government to mandate antilock brakes for all new motorcycles

Motorcycles with antilock brakes have fewer fatal crashes and lower insurance losses than bikes without antilocks

First time Institute ratings small pickups for rollover protection; only one model rates good in test that assures strength of roof

Laws banning cellphone use while driving fail to reduce crashes, new insurance data indicate

Jonathan Bennett is elected IIHS board chairman

Bill Reddington is elected HLDI board chairman

Market your law firm online

Remarks at the National Transportation Center Academy Graduation

Remarks by Anne S. Ferro
FMCSA Administrator
National Transportation Center Academy Graduation
San Marcos, TX
September 2, 2010

I'm thrilled to share this most wonderful occasion with you and your families. I'm honored that you've included me in this ceremony marking a new beginning in your careers.

Today belongs to you and we are here to celebrate your achievement. Tomorrow you embark on a career of service to others as inspectors enforcing highway safety laws involving large trucks and buses. It will be a career that calls for physically demanding work and at times it will be isolating. But it has a clear and direct impact on saving lives and that reward makes it all worthwhile.

FMCSA's commitment to safety as our primary mission is predominantly unmatched in any other profession - either inside or outside of government service. We are proud of our safety mission and the steady progress we are making toward achieving our safety goal.

Our mandate is to reduce deaths and injuries as a result of large truck and bus crashes. We want the American people to travel with the confidence that they will reach their destination safely whether they are going to work, a trip home, an errand or delivering a load of shipped goods.

With your training behind you - and as you begin new duties; I want you to know that you have my full support.

You are on the front-line of FMCSA's work and at the core of our mission. Along with our state and local partners, you have become the force multiplier that enables us to fulfill our mandate.

I expect you to live up to your personal pledge to do your best and be your best everyday; to use what you have learned here. You, in turn, should expect me and your supervisors to be open to your feedback, thoughts and opinions on how we can help you perform your crucial work.

At Headquarters, my job is to give you the tools, trained supervisors, resources and partnerships to do your job. In return, I ask you to keep your enthusiasm level high and stay above any daily frustrations that may follow.

Every inspection you will do counts. CSA drives that point home. Also, know the CSA program. Drivers will ask.

For this occasion I want to pass along a few words from American writer H. Jackson Brown, Jr., the author of Life's Little Instruction Book:

"I've learned that if you spend your life always looking forward to something else, the present just slips away. I've learned that a shoeshine box made by my young son is my most prized possession. I've learned at age 25 you're finding yourself, at age 45 you know yourself and at age 65 you can be yourself.

I've learned that the only thing you can be sure of improving is yourself. I've learned that when you begin to ask yourself if it's your fault, it usually is.

I've learned that people tend to rise to accomplishments they thought were beyond them if you show by your confidence that they can do it."

These past six weeks have provided the foundation for the journey ahead as safety inspectors. I believe in you. I believe each of you will improve highway safety one driver and one vehicle at a time. The public is counting on you.

Be safe in the discharge of your duties. Get home safe everyday. Good luck in your new assignments. On behalf of Secretary LaHood and President Obama, you have our sincerest thanks and the thanks of the American people for the important work you do.

Thank you again. Congratulations.

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Truck Rated Safe, With Asterisk

WHEN the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced the latest list of what it considers the safest vehicles last week, there was a surprising newcomer: a pickup truck.

This is the first time a pickup has been on the list since the institute began giving out the Top Safety Pick designation two years ago. The institute had not tested pickups for side-impact protection until recently because it said it did not have the time. Now, pickups are undergoing the complete round of tests.

The newcomer is the Toyota Tundra, which beat its domestic competitors from Ford, Nissan and Dodge. The Chevrolet Silverado and a close relative, the GMC Sierra, were not among the vehicles tested.

To be named a Top Safety Pick, a vehicle must receive a score of good ? the highest rating ? in the institute?s front, side and rear-impact tests. By combining these tests ? which the institute says cover the most common collisions ? into a single award, the institute says it believes it is easier for consumers to identify vehicles that offer the best overall protection.

Starting last year, the institute added a crash-prevention feature, electronic stability control, to its criteria. Stability control, a computerized system designed to keep vehicles from skidding out of control, must be either standard equipment or available as an option. Studies have shown that a stability system significantly reduces single-vehicle crashes caused by a loss of driver control. The institute estimated that if all vehicles were equipped with such systems, as many as 10,000 fatal crashes could be avoided each year.

The Tundra got the top pick designation even though its stability control system doesn?t work when four-wheel-drive is engaged. That has drawn criticism from Consumer Reports.

?It?s troubling to me that the one time you would really need E.S.C. ? in the snow ? that there is no E.S.C. available,? said David Champion, senior director of auto testing for Consumer Reports.

Of course, stability control can still be valuable when a vehicle is in two-wheel drive on dry pavement, especially in a pickup with a high center of gravity, Mr. Champion said. If a driver loses control, a stability system can help prevent a slide and keep the truck from rolling over.

Mr. Champion noted that pickups like the Silverado and Dodge Ram had stability control systems that continued to work in four-wheel drive.

Toyota said its stability control would not work in four-wheel drive because the company chose a particularly rugged design that does not incorporate a center differential. In most four-wheel-drive vehicles, the differentials deliver power to all the wheels. Toyota said that a heavy-duty truck like the Tundra wouldn?t benefit from having a center differential because that?s just one more weak part that can break.

The insurance institute was unaware that Toyota?s system did not work when four-wheel drive was engaged, a spokesman, Russ Rader, said. But ?the Tundra has electronic stability control and it gets the award.?

The Tundra is one of 11 new winners for 2008, joining 23 previous Top Safety Picks. Other winners for 2008 include the Audi A3 and Honda Accord in the midsize-car category and the Subaru Impreza in the small-car category, but only those models that are equipped with optional stability control. With the addition of the Honda Odyssey minivan and the Honda Element to the list, Honda and its luxury division, Acura, now have a total of 7 of the 34 Top Safety Picks. Ford and its Volvo subsidiary have eight vehicles on the list.

Several midsize S.U.V.?s have been added, including the BMW X3 and X5 and the Toyota Highlander. Also named were Hyundai Veracruz models built after August 2007, when changes were made to the head restraints, and Saturn Vue models that will be built after December because of changes being made to a side- curtain air bag that didn?t deploy properly. Information on when a car was built can be found on the frame of the driver?s door.

Another 23 vehicles would have made the Top Safety Pick list if they had better seat and head restraint designs. Those 23 earned good ratings in front and side crash tests, but not in the rear impact test, which evaluates seats and head restraints for whiplash protection.

The institute tested three other full-size pickup trucks: the Nissan Titan, Ford F-150 and Dodge Ram. The Titan and Ram have stability control as an option; the F-150 does not. None of these, however, qualified as a top pick because none received a rating of good for rear impact, meaning their head restraints did not provide what the institute considered good protection in a rear-end collision. Other full-size pickups will be tested in 2008, the institute said.

The institute said that front and side impacts were the most common fatal crashes, killing nearly 25,000 of the 31,000 vehicle occupants who died in 2005, the latest numbers available. Rear-end crashes are usually not fatal, but they result in a large proportion of injuries. About 60 percent of insurance injury claims in 2002 reported minor neck sprains and strains, a common complaint of people involved in rear crashes.

Information about the Top Safety Picks is on the institute?s Web site, www.iihs.org.

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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Announces New Anti-distracted Driving Regulations, Employer Policies, and Preliminary Results from Pilot Enforcement Campaigns

U.S. Department of Transportation
Office of Public Affairs
1200 New Jersey Ave., S.E.
Washington, DC 20590
www.dot.gov/affairs/index.html

USDOT 175-10
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Contact: Olivia Alair, Press Secretary
Tel: (202) 366-4570

WASHINGTON - U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood kicked off the 2010 national Distracted Driving Summit today by announcing new anti-distracted driving regulations for drivers transporting hazardous materials, commercial truck and bus drivers, and rail operators, and by identifying more than 550 U.S. companies - employing 1.5 million people nationwide - that have committed to enacting anti-distracted driving employee policies in the next twelve months. The Department of Transportation also released interim data this morning from its pilot enforcement campaigns in Hartford, Connecticut and Syracuse, New York, showing that its "Phone in One Hand, Ticket in the Other" enforcement efforts have already dramatically reduced distracted driving behavior in both cities.

In kicking off the 2010 national Distracted Driving Summit this morning, Secretary LaHood announced that he is initiating a new rulemaking to prohibit commercial truck drivers from texting while transporting hazardous materials. In addition, Secretary LaHood announced that two rules proposed at last year's summit have now become the law of the land. Rules banning commercial bus and truck drivers from texting on the job and restricting train operators from using cell phones and other electronic devices while in the driver's seat have been posted today.

"We are taking action on a number of fronts to address the epidemic of distracted driving in America," said Secretary LaHood. "With the help of the experts, policymakers, and safety advocates we've assembled here, we are going to do everything we can to put an end to distracted driving and save lives."

The U.S. Department of Transportation has also been working with the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety (NETS) to engage the private sector to promote anti-distracted driving policies in the workplace. NETS, which was created by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), is an employer-led public-private partnership dedicated to improving the safety and health of employees by preventing traffic crashes. The USDOT and NETS today announced that almost 1,600 U.S. companies and organizations have adopted distracted driving policies to date, covering approximately 10.5 million workers nationwide. An additional 550 organizations have committed to adopting policies that will cover another 1.5 million employees within the next 12 months.

"I am thrilled that businesses across the country are making anti-distracted driving policies an integral part of their employee culture," said Secretary LaHood. "President Obama led by example last year by banning four million federal workers from texting behind the wheel. Employers across America are doing the same to help us set an example and keep our roads safe."

Today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) also released interim data from its pilot enforcement programs currently underway in Hartford, Connecticut and Syracuse, New York. Dubbed "Phone in One Hand, Ticket in the Other," the year-long pilot campaigns were launched in April to test whether increased law enforcement efforts combined with public service announcements can succeed in getting distracted drivers to put down their cell phones and focus on the road.

During two week-long periods of stepped up enforcement to date, police in Hartford have written approximately 4,956 tickets and Syracuse police have issued 4,446 tickets for violations involving drivers talking or texting on cell phones. Before and after each enforcement wave, NHTSA conducted observations of driver cell phone use and collected public awareness surveys at driver licensing offices in each test and comparison site. Based on these observations and surveys, hand-held cell phone use has dropped 56 percent in Hartford and 38 percent in Syracuse to date. Texting while driving has declined 68 percent in Hartford and 42 percent in Syracuse.

"Good laws are important, but we know from past efforts to curb drunk driving and promote seatbelts that enforcement is the key," said Secretary LaHood. "Our pilot programs in Syracuse and Hartford are critical pieces of our overall effort to get people to realize distracted driving is dangerous and wrong. I want to commend the police in Hartford and Syracuse for their excellent work keeping our roads safe and serving as a model for other communities."

In 2009, nearly 5,500 people died and half a million were injured in crashes involving a distracted driver. According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) research, distraction-related fatalities represented 16 percent of overall traffic fatalities in 2009.

To tune into the 2010 Distracted Driving Summit via live webcast and learn more about the U.S. Department of Transportation's efforts to stop distracted driving, please visit www.distraction.gov.

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A Dead End in Eradicating Drunk Driving

OSSINING, N.Y.

There was, of course, Diane Schuler, and the horrific accident on the Taconic State Parkway in which she drove the wrong way for almost two miles before crashing her minivan into a sport utility vehicle on July 26. The crash killed Ms. Schuler, her 2-year-old daughter, her three nieces and three men in the S.U.V. An autopsy showed she had a blood-alcohol level of 0.19 percent, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent, and indications of marijuana use as well.

Then there was Gregorio Pena, 44, of the Bronx, arrested after he drove north in the Taconic’s southbound lanes for almost two miles alone in his livery cab on Sept. 9, the police said. Officials said his blood-alcohol level was 0.20 percent.

And last week, there was Henry M. Garcia, a 19-year-old from Ossining who is in the country illegally. He was arrested and held on multiple charges and a $100,000 bond on Thursday, accused of driving six miles the wrong way on the Taconic. His blood-alcohol level was 0.27 percent, the police said.

At the least, this may indicate that an upgrade of signage on the Taconic now under way is long overdue. But beyond one road, it is yet one more reminder that almost three decades after drinking and driving first popped up in a big way on the national radar screen, we’ve reached a depressing dead end in eradicating it. That’s why, given the degree to which we seem incapable of keeping drunken idiots out of cars, making cars idiot-proof is increasingly being seen as the only hope of changing our culture of highway carnage.

Not that there hasn’t been progress. In 1980, alcohol was involved in about 28,000 car crash deaths a year. That has been reduced to around 13,000. But it has been about that number since the mid-1990s.

And forget the Taconic. You just have to pick up any suburban newspaper to be reminded just how commonplace drunken driving remains. So when my local newspaper, The Journal-News, reported Mr. Garcia’s arrest on Friday, there was also an item on the same front page about a playground in Mahopac dedicated to a father and daughter killed in 2004 by a drunk driver and another article inside about a woman accused of driving drunk with a 10-month-old infant in the back seat. The woman, Melonie Lendor, 41, of Walden, had already been convicted of two previous drunken driving charges.

So it goes. For three decades of public concern, driving drunk still can have the feel of a cultural misdemeanor. Hence, we have one football player, Plaxico Burress, about to receive a two-year prison sentence for carrying a concealed weapon with which he accidentally shot himself in the leg and another, Donte’ Stallworth, sentenced to 30 days in jail, two years of house arrest (which usually allows a person to go to work) and probation for killing someone while driving drunk.

And if the image of the driving-while-intoxicated offender remains some guy leaving the bar hammered, Ms. Schuler was not all that much of an aberration. According to the F.B.I., between 1998 and 2007, the number of men arrested for driving drunk or while on drugs fell by 7.5 percent. The figures for women rose by 28.8 percent. And women are more likely to be driving drunk with kids in tow.

SINCE we cannot seem to save us from ourselves, the growing consensus seems to be that maybe technology can. Eleven states now require ignition interlocks, devices that prevent cars from starting if the driver’s blood-alcohol level is unacceptable, for all convicted drunk drivers, including first-time convicted offenders, with blood-alcohol levels over 0.08 percent. There are 180,000 interlocks in use.

But those affect only people already convicted of offenses, who make up only a third of those arrested for drunken driving. A study released last week by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that about two out of three respondents said that they would support the use of less obtrusive advanced technology, now being developed, to prevent any driver from starting a vehicle after drinking too much. That is probably a decade and many thousands of highway deaths down the road. And given the rise of driving-while-texting accidents, who knows what new distractions we’ll have by then in our rolling pleasure domes on the road.

For now, it seems, we’re mad at everything — Acorn, bailouts, banks, liberals, the wars, the president, the idea of decent health care. But a little drunken driving is something we can live with. Except when we can’t.

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