By G.R. Whale
Last year some professional automotive journalists bottomed a Z06 Corvette hard enough to crack the oil filter. Not content with such abuse, they kept driving amidst an array of warning lights suitable for Times Square, and the oil-pressure gauge stuck at "0" until they literally smoked the motor. Yet another good reason to call those lamps "idiot lights"?
Are you an idiot? Have you ever ignored a warning light? It's easy. I've been ignoring the "check engine" light in my truck for 15 years, hoping it would burn out. But I'm not that much of an idiot--when the "brake" light came on, I pulled over first chance to investigate.
As an increasing number of systems go on our cars and trucks, so do more warning lights. It's reached the point where the safety gurus at NHTSA have to decide if we want more or fewer of them.
NHTSA has been in hot water since Explorer owners stopped checking tire pressure or reading owner manuals, faced with trying to change behaviors in a society as unbending as a carbon-fiber bank vault. But in a 2006 address to Congress, recently appointed NHTSA boss Nicole Nason attempted to minimize politics and partisanship as relates to highway safety by using the simplest terms. Among the notable issues:
•In 2006, more than 43,000 dead and 2.7 million injured on U.S. roads (a 15-year high, ranking the U.S. behind many developed countries, most of which have higher speed limits).
•A cost to society of $230 billion annually.
•The goal to triple the funding to states to counter "impaired" driving, responsible for the loss of 17,000 lives.
•$500 million for safety-belt-use incentives.
Using the $230 billion figure and 2004 government stats, that's $1150 for every driver on the road. And the cost to society really means to you: your tax dollars for first-responders, hospitals, road clean-up crews, and insurance. That $1150 would also buy a full day or two of advanced driver training, but curiously, the money-raking insurance industry would rather pay the big bucks on the cure rather than pennies on the ounce of prevention.
Nason asked Congress to "imagine a car with a forward-collision warning system that can detect when the vehicle in front of it has slowed or stopped. This device can help prevent the most common type of crash, the rear-end collision. Or imagine a car with a road- or lane-departure warning device that can alert drivers when they stray from their lane. This device can be especially useful in combating drowsy driving, which is a significant problem. Imagine a vehicle with a blind-spot warning system that can signal to the driver when another vehicle is in close proximity. Such a system would be invaluable on our congested Interstates, where changing lanes at high speeds is common."
Finally, "Each year," Nason continued, "three percent of crashes involve rollover, but they account for about a third of occupant deaths. NHTSA estimates that electronic stability control will save up to 10,600 lives annually." NHTSA wants it on all new vehicles by 2012.
There's no need to imagine any of this. Congressional members can try such devices right now and may realize they're merely attempts by technology to correct human error. One eye and a four-year-old's brain "can detect when the vehicle in front of it has slowed or stopped." I can think of five reasons why a car departs its lane: mechanical failure, collision, planned lane change, distracted driver, or incompetent driver (if maintaining a lane is beyond your skills, I say you get no license or driving privilege). Note that lane-departure warning systems can "correct" only the last two, both driver errors.
It seems, however, NHTSA has recently discovered the downside to technology, expressing concern that too many warning lights and systems might themselves become distractions. There's no need to imagine this, either. I've experienced lane-departure systems that warn me I'm straying from my lane, even where none was marked and I was still on my side of the road. This diverts your attention from the road to a warning light (frequently off to the side) and further diverts attention to find the "off" button so that won't happen again. You can't see the oil pump, brake cylinder, or alternator, but you can see the lanes and road.
My most recent drive was with one of those "everything in the mirror cars" that had eight lit buttons, icons, and messages in and on the rearview mirror, when all I wanted was an unimpeded view behind me.
Nason's got a miserable job. She's charged with making the roads safer, with little help from a Congress controlled by lobbyists (insurance industry, anyone?), a citizenry that refuses to be held accountable for its own actions, and a government that splits rules, regulations, and enforcement among more than 50 states and agencies.
The record says she's been pulled over once in her life, by her own father, for speeding. When she learned she'd installed her kid's child seat incorrectly, she admitted it, fixed it, and probably became more interested in how difficult child seats are to put in. Personally, I'm thinking two to three buckles or one belt aren't that difficult to manage. Even chairman Jim Champagne of the Governors Highway Safety Association, frequently at odds with NHTSA, thinks her relationships can only help.
And he nailed the problem when he noted, "Society very often doesn't want traffic laws enforced." Call it the NIMBY attitude if you like, but it's apparently easier to pass the buck--or 1150 of them--or add cost, weight, and complexity, than it is to make a small initial investment in early driver education or break through political clutter and statistical nonsense to inform the public with a unified message.
Lest you've forgotten, you are the public and this is your Congress and NHTSA. How many lives or warning lights are too many for you? At what point does an idiot light say less about the car and more about the driver?