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Feds Find Backup Sensors Ineffective

By Joe Benton
ConsumerAffairs.com

November 14, 2006

Auto Safety • Study: Vision Checks Cut Fatal Accidents • Is Your Vehicle Child-Proof? • Teen Misjudgment Major Factor in Highway Accidents • New Auto Safety Legislation Aims to Protect Children • Insurance Group: Supersport Motorcycles Deadly • Feds Consider Tougher Auto Safety Ratings • Congress Urged to Protect Children from Vehicle Deaths • Motorcycle Death Rates Rising, Safety Chief Warns • Feds to Require Additional Minivan Door Latch • Survey: Teens Still Driving Dangerously • Feds Propose Recorders to Monitor Truckers' Hours • Feds Propose New Auto Safety Tests • Consumers Choosing Tiny Cars Despite Safety Risks • IIHS: Bigger is Better in Car Safety • NHTSA's Dirty Little Secrets • Feds Find Backup Sensors Ineffective • Simpler Dashboards Might Make Cars Safer • States Struggle to Cut Highway Fatality Rate • Ford Makes Stability Control Standard for 2009 • Feds Require Safety Info on New Car Window Stickers • Motorcycle, Pedestrian Deaths Rising • Safer Cars, Not Safer Drivers, Reducing Highway Deaths • Former Lobbyist in Driver's Seat at NHTSA • Must-Have Safety and Convenience Features for New Car Shopping • More ...

Federal safety regulators have told Congress they need more time to study back-up sensors -- the new devices being used on vehicles to warn drivers when they are about to back over children or other persons and objects.

As is often the case, the safety regulators are bolstering the auto industry's positions. Automakers have been fighting efforts to make the back-up sensors mandatory, saying the systems would cost hundreds of millions of dollars while saving few, if any, lives.

Instead of relying solely on back-up sensors, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) chief Nicole Nason called for "a comprehensive solution to a tragic problem -- children who are backed over by motor vehicles."

NHTSA reported camera-based systems may offer the greatest potential to give drivers "reliable assistance in identifying people in the path of the vehicle when backing."

Camera systems and back-up sensors are available to consumers as options in an increasing number of new vehicles. NHTSA reported however that sensor-based parking aids used to detect children behind the vehicle are "typically poor, sporadic and limited in range."

The NHTSA report was required by the transportation bill approved by Congress last year.

"The pain caused by the loss of a child or loved one due to a vehicle back-over is every parent’s worst nightmare," Nason said in a statement.

NHTSA told Congress the agency "will continue research to analyze the safety problem more thoroughly and better understand the various scenarios under which such incidents occur. Additional research will be aimed at making technology-based countermeasures more effective."

Parents and safety advocates swarmed over Capitol Hill earlier this fall, backing "Kids and Cars bills" that they say could save hundreds of children a year at a minor cost to automakers and consumers. The group puts the death toll from back-over accidents this year alone at 167 -- mostly preschoolers. SUVs and other high-riding vehicles have made the problem worse.

The parents won a legislative skirmish at the end of September, when Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, the head of the Senate Commerce Committee, indicated the bill could be considered after Election Day.

The Kids and Cars bills address three common ways children get hurt around vehicles -- by shifting them out of park, getting trapped by power windows and being backed over. Back-overs appear to be the most prevalent and the most deadly, but no one knows for sure.

That's because NHTSA collects reports on injuries only from vehicles in motion on roads and highways, not driveways or parking lots.

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