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Car Industry "Buried Report Showing US Car Safety Flaws Over Fears For TTIP Deal"
schwit1 writes: The American auto industry has been accused of withholding a report that showed U.S. cars are substantially less safe than their European counterparts. It is alleged that releasing the study would hamper the drive to harmonize safety standards as part of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal. The research was commissioned by the car industry to show that EU and US safety standards were similar, but the research actually showed that American models are much less safe when it comes to front-side collisions. András Bálint, Traffic Safety Analyst at Chalmers, told the Independent: “The results of our study indicate that there is currently a risk difference with respect to the risk of injury given a crash between EU specification cars and US models. Therefore, based on these results, immediate recognition of US vehicles in the EU could potentially result in a greater number of fatalities or serious injuries in road traffic. The potential impact is difficult to quantify because it depends on a number of other parameters.”
Retaliation for the whole emissions standard thing.
Not that either is ok: neither should VW have cheated, nor the U.S. automakers ever have been so lax w/r to crash safety.
The Volkswagen computers are only safe in testing mode.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Cars in both places are very safe in general. There is always room for improvement, but if you meet the requirements, and don't make inaccurate claims, then what is the problem? This just looks like an attempt to capitalize on the current VW drama.
Go with the cynical view: the goal is to make the weaker US standards appear compliant with/equal to the stronger EU standards so the US makers could sell to Europe under a negotiated treaty.
Short version, "we're already risking American lives by having less safety, so why not risk EU lives and pretend the safety standards are the same".
This way instead of building one set to Euro-spec, and one to US-spec, you get the US-spec certified as "close enough". In the process you undermine the Euro-spec.
It's using a treaty to make an end-run around regulations, which is what most of these damned treaties seem to be doing lately.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"but a motocyclist doesn't have to wear a helmet."
This is somewhat misleading. Almost every state in the U.S. has some type of motorcycle helmet law:
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...
For the states with "partial" laws, this is usually the requirement that the rider maintain a $10,000 insurance policy, as well as an age requirement.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
I wouldn't worry at all. IIHS procedures are very cut and dry. They do 40% overlap and 20% overlap tests. The 20% had results all over the damn place from cars form all makers. If I remember right, Toyota fared the worst in that crash mode.
I actually like the IIHS. Their goal is to reduce the costs of insurance payments. That means they look at both the low-speed and the high-speed modes, low speed to minimize crash damage, and the high-speed to minimize passenger injuries. They're not beholden to the automakers and they're not government, so they can develop new tests whenever they want and the results of those tests push manufacturers to make their cars safer to try to avoid bad press.
It's one of the few instances where the private sector 'regulation' works better than public sector.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I thought the same thing, but in TFA:
I suspect there is a bias towards driver safety in the US standards, since cars tend to have a single occupant.
This is part of the problem with the TTIP and other 'negotiated in secret' trade agreements. Populations in different cultures and populations have different priories for them, so a government is penalised for trying to be stricter on companies, than in another geography, there is a problem. The TTIP just encourages the lowest common dimonator to rule the board, since that is going to make it easier on corporations, rather than protecting the interests of citizens in a given location.
The only winners for TTIP and the sister trade agreements are US centric multinationals, at least from what I have read.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
It would cut both ways, as European cars probably don't meet US standards either.
The problem is safety is not a single variable. Improving one measure of safety might decrease another. EU and US regulators simply have different concerns about what is safe. EU regulators are concerned about pedestrian collisions, but making a car safer for pedestrians might make for worse accidents when you run into a Hummer.
There are other factors too, like US regulators test for what happens when people don't wear seatbelts, in the EU they just assume people do (because oddly Europeans actually use the things).
Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. --Herbert Hoover
Good riddance.
The reason why riding a motorcycle without a helmet is a good idea is that, when you die in a crash, only your head is destroyed and all your body organs are probably available for transplants. OTOH, if you die in an automobile crash while not wearing a seatbelt, then you have probably messed up your internal organs and have lost your chance to do SOMETHING for society. Therefore, seatbelts are mandatory while helmets are not.
-- John Dierdorf, Austin TX
well, I choose to not spend it on a bunch of self-important idiots that feel that they don't need insurance and then go leach off of everyone else when they get an owie and have to go to the emergency room.