Not Enough To Meet Standards At Time of Mfr.??

The NHTSA says that it isn't.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/07/nhtsa-administrator-says-compliance-with-standards-at-time-of-production-not-enough/#more-495259

This will go over well, doncha think?

Does anyone up there have a brain that they use?

“It really is based on the notion of unreasonable risk. And that is an evolving notion”

In other words, any risk will become unreasonable as time goes on. Now, where are my bubble wrap pants?

In reply to Keith Tanner:

I think you left them in the closet with your bubble wrap helmet surround.

What we have here is an uncontrolled bureaucracy who passed diminishing returns on their project about a decade and a half ago, so they make up ludicrous (to those in the know) stuff as a means of job security.

Ditto on the EPA.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: What we have here is an uncontrolled bureaucracy who passed diminishing returns on their project about a decade and a half ago, so they make up ludicrous (to those in the know) stuff as a means of job security. Ditto on the EPA.

You could also apply that statement to any number of gooberment agencies.

I thought we were talking about automotive over regulation, not runaway gov in general. You could dedicate a whole domain extension to that.

Why does this guy...

Remind me of this guy...

Keith Tanner wrote: “It really is based on the notion of unreasonable risk. And that is an evolving notion” In other words, any risk will become unreasonable as time goes on. Now, where are my bubble wrap pants?

Isn't this what killed the light aircraft industry in the US? Manufacturers were being held accountable for standards placed into effect many years after production?

In reply to Knurled:

For a while. Then this happened;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Aviation_Revitalization_Act

It seems odd that GARA could still be in effect but auto manufacturers could face what happened to GenAv back in the 80's.

bravenrace wrote: In reply to Keith Tanner: I think you left them in the closet with your bubble wrap helmet surround.

I can never remember, does the foil go over or under the bubble wrap?

Keith Tanner wrote:

bravenrace wrote: In reply to Keith Tanner: I think you left them in the closet with your bubble wrap helmet surround.

I can never remember, does the foil go over or under the bubble wrap?

both.. you can never be too safe.

Knurled wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: “It really is based on the notion of unreasonable risk. And that is an evolving notion” In other words, any risk will become unreasonable as time goes on. Now, where are my bubble wrap pants?

Isn't this what killed the light aircraft industry in the US? Manufacturers were being held accountable for standards placed into effect many years after production?

You beat me to it

Gm and ford best get to recalling all them vehicles from the 30's to 60's without seat belts.

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Gm and ford best get to recalling all them vehicles from the 30's to 60's without seat belts.

"Where do a tap my exhaust to install my CARB compliant oxygen sensor into 47 Chevy pickup"

LOL

The possibilities. Internal combustion engines will be BANNED by the time I get my 308 going!

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Gm and ford best get to recalling all them vehicles from the 30's to 60's without seat belts.

i'm waiting to get the recall noticed to install airbags and ABS into my 84 Regal, 86 Camaro, and 87 GMC...

Welcome to the modern world...Its already this way in medical devices, and in many other industries as well.

While I'm against more government regulation (an I'm not trying to defend the idea of them being able to retroactively implement new standards), I think more responsibility and voluntary action on the part of the manufacturers may have avoided the potential for this.

For example: As part of risk management, medical device companies need to monitor complaints (i.e. injuries, failures, improper operation). This includes complaints when used according to mfg instructions and also "Foreseeable misuse". If your device has a significantly higher number of complaints than other similar devices there is a requirement to investigate and fix it.

The reason is that in many cases the risk of a particular harm occurring on a new product is an educated guess. You may have data from similar designs, but until its in the field you don't have a lot of actual data to use.

While it is likely the NHTSA is going to overreach and hurt the industry, if implemented correctly it could help make the road safer. It needs to be well defined and limited to the expected life of the vehicle, evaluated in comparison with vehicle of similar age/model years, and the type/severity of harm/injury that is likely to occur. That is different than saying that they have to go back an implement newer technology like ABS or Airbags.

For example the Jeep incident- if Jeeps have a statistically significant higher number of fires and gas tank punctures when involved in rear end collisions than the other manufacturers then it should be investigated and if it was a design issue it should be fixed. Even if they met the minimum requirements during the testing, it is possible that their test setup doesn't accurately simulate the real world and they missed a potential cause for serious injury that should have been mitigated.

If it only happens when a Prius is doing 110 and rear-ends the jeep while on two wheels with 3 government employees on their way back from a spa weekend that's being charged to the taxpayers, then it wont show up as statistically significant.

In other words, it all comes down to implementation, and we all know how well the government handles that... so to show my trust in the government I'm going to go shopping for old, inexpensive, and unsafe cars to stockpile for the next "Dollars for Deathtraps" program.

This seems to be a case of trying to solve one problem and creating a worse one, although there is a second legitimate issue here too. The NHTSA seems to imply that certain standards are in the hands of Congress, and it seems right now all they can agree on is renaming post offices. Ok, the best fix for that seems like it would be to give some bureaucrats general guidelines and the authority to update standards as needs arise. I'm not a fan of bureaucrats in general, but that is what they're there for: to administer handling laws.

Then there is a problem that sometimes regulations can't anticipate problems. But a reasonable option there would be to have clearly defined guidelines stating where a recall is justified. Such as "If X% of rear impact crashes result in gas tank failure, it's an automatic recall."

novaderrik wrote:

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Gm and ford best get to recalling all them vehicles from the 30's to 60's without seat belts.

i'm waiting to get the recall noticed to install airbags and ABS into my 84 Regal, 86 Camaro, and 87 GMC...

Retrofit the model A!

Could you imagine Henry Ford trying to build the Model T with all the bullE36 M3 private businesses have to go through today?