Automakers Vow To Improve Safety

December 03, 2003
Fifteen automakers say they'll support new voluntary safety standards for reducing the harm done in collisions, especially when a light truck hits a car.

Participating manufacturers are BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Co., General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Isuzu, Kia, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Suzuki, Toyota and Volkswagen.

The voluntary safety plan represents “industrywide cooperation that we could only dream about a few years ago,” said Robert Strassburger, vice president for safety of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents nine of the companies

Critics weren't impressed.

"While we are pleased that the automakers are finally confronting the dangers of SUVs, the voluntary program is a diversionary tactic to stave off meaningful federal regulation and standards that consumers can rely on," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen and former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

“Any progress is progress,” said the current NHTSA Administrator, Dr. Jeffrey Runge, who has been highly critical of SUV's safety shortcomings.

Runge has warned that he would seek tougher regulations if the industry did not act to reduce the threat posed by bigger vehicles to occupants of smaller vehicles, known as the compatibility issue.

The voluntary standards are actually performance criteria. That means a manufacturer can use any meansa it wants to limit the risk of injuries in side-impact crashes and head-on collisions.

Most manufacturers are expected to use head-protecting, side-impact airbags as well as changes to the front ends and frames of light trucks to lower the points at which they would hit other vehicles in frontal impacts.

Claybrook said the performance criteria should be federally mandated.

Auto manufacturers "want to write protocols on their own terms, behind closed doors," she said. "Not only would the protocols be unenforceable, any company could abandon them at any time it chose without telling the public. For the public, this simply is not good enough."

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