Crash tests for cars getting tougher

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NTHSA) announced revisions to its 5-Star Safety Rating system to include a new crash test and crash-test dummies, measures for pedestrian protection, and ratings for crash avoidance technologies.

Additional crash tests are planned and the use of new, more human-like crash test dummies will provide researchers with better data on the effects on the human body.

Rosekind said he hopes that adding a pedestrian-safety component to ratings will give manufacturers an incentive to bring pedestrian protections to USA models that they’ve already incorporated into their fleets elsewhere in the world.

When you see a crash rating on a new car’s window sticker, that’s a result of hard work from the folks at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The government’s new tests measure how well vehicles fare in crashes at different angles and how well people inside the auto protected.

Following the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), NHTSA wants to add a test that evaluates safety in frontal oblique or angled crashes.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said at a press conference that the overhaul is part of the agency’s strategy to spur the development of more safety technologies.

The system came under fire last year after a New York Times investigation revealed that almost all vehicles in recent years had been awarded four or five stars.

The agency will ask industry and safety groups to comment on the proposed changes to the safety ratings system over the next 60 days and plans to issue final rules by the end of 2016.

Be Civil – It’s OK to have a difference in opinion but there’s no need to be a jerk. For example, a vehicle might get a half star for technology that automatically warns drivers of an impending frontal collision, but a whole star if the system automatically applies the brakes, he said. NHTSA estimates that many new trailers sold in the United States subject to FMVSS Nos. Among the current technologies that will be included in the ratings are forward-collision warning, automatic emergency braking, lane-departure warning and blind-spot detection systems. “The changes provide more and better information to new-vehicle shoppers that will help accelerate the technology innovations that save lives”. Similarly, a new pedestrian safety rating will use tests that assess how well vehicles protect pedestrians from head, leg and pelvic injuries when struck by a vehicle.

Federal policy also is moving more toward self-driving cars as automakers and tech companies race to build them, with the Department of Transportation planning a position update in the next several weeks, according to Foxx.

“This is a big step and it is a needed step”, he said, adding that the changes indicated auto safety regulation was being taken more seriously than in the past. “Whether these technologies are mandated in the future or not, we think this is market-changing stuff that’s going to impact safety for the good”.