Category: Automotive

WF650-C three-wheeled “motorcycle” manufactured by Taixing Sandi Motorcycle Co Ltd, sold by Wildfire Motors

Alternative Vehicles Gain Popularity, But Skirt Regulations

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Reprinted from The Safety Record, V5, I4, July / August 2008

STUEBENVILLE, OHIO -Don’t bother trying to buy a three-wheeled, two-passenger vehicle off the dealer’s lot. Motorists who want to get their hands on Wildfire Motors’ WF650-C will have to plunk down the full $7,064 purchase price in advance, and wait three months for delivery. As gas prices rise, consumers are turning to high-mileage alternative vehicles, such as three-wheeled motorcycles or mini trucks or small electric passenger vehicles in increasing numbers. They are marketed as “cars” or “trucks” with most of the capabilities of a passenger vehicle, but they are built to safety standards far below those required of traditional passenger cars and light trucks. Continue reading →

Ohio Importer Recalls Six Million Chinese Tire Stem Valves As NHTSA Opens Probe into 30 Million More

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OXFORD, NORTH CAROLINA — The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating Chinese-made replacement tire valve stems sold by Dill Air Controls for potential defects, while an Ohio importer of the product recalls six million valve stems made by the same company, because of cracks that can occur in as little as six months.

Dill has acknowledged that 30 million of the suspect and hard-to track replacement valves may be on shelves of tire retailers and distributors and on vehicles. And the scope of the problem is likely to expand – more recent evidence has emerged that appears to show that defective valve stems were also used as original equipment on some 2007 model year vehicles. Continue reading →

After Long Delay, NHTSA Issues Advisory Addressing Tire Aging

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Eight years after the Explorer/Firestone rollovers pushed the problems of tire aging to the fore, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued its first consumer advisory that addressed the dangers of aged tires.

On June 2, NHTSA released the advisory as a kick-off the summer driving season. The all-purpose warning for motorists to check their tires – including the spare – for signs of wear, under-inflation and age, was an important public acknowledgement of a safety hazard the agency has long understood. While NHTSA’s Consumer Advisory did not define any tire age limit, it did refer to vehicle and tire makers age recommendations. Continue reading →

Fatal Rollover Prompts Probe into Chinese-Made Tire Valve Stems: Safety Groups Urge Consumers to Have Tires Checked

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June 19: Dill Air Controls added a bulletin to their website with instructions for inspecting valve stems.

ORLANDO, FLA — Safety advocates are urging motorists to inspect their valve stems for cracks and to check their tire pressure in the wake of one distributor’s recall of defective valve stems made in China by Shanghai Baolong Industries Co. and a federal probe into premature cracking prompted by a fatal rollover crash.

As many as 30 million replacement rubber valves stems, imported to the U.S. from China beginning in August 2006, can crack prematurely, causing tires to lose air. Air loss at highway speeds may result in a tire failure and loss-of-control crash. (The valve stem is a rubber tube with a metal valve used to inflate the tire with air.) Continue reading →

Evenflo Discovery Recalled One Year After Consumers Union Urges Its Removal from Marketplace

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VANDALIA, OHIO – One year after Consumer’s Union called for its removal in a controversial article and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration defended its safety, the Discovery Infant Car Seat has been voluntarily recalled in advance of a possible defect investigation.

Evenflo announced in early February that it was recalling models 390, 391, 534, 552 – a total of 1 million car seats – based on “recent laboratory tests conducted by Evenflo and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which show that this car seat could potentially become separated from its base in high impact side collisions similar to those in the tests.” Continue reading →

NHTSA Proposes Upgrades to School Bus Regulations; Big Yellow Buses Get another Pass on Three-Point Belts

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Five years after it issued a comprehensive report on its school bus safety research, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration declined to propose a requirement that three-point seatbelts be installed in full-size school buses – which agency research has shown to provide better occupant protection than lap belts or compartmentalization alone – because its is too expensive to implement, it said.

Instead, the agency is proposing to require shoulder/lap belts on small buses, to improve compartmentalization on large school buses and to establish lap/shoulder belt requirements for districts that wish to install them voluntarily. Continue reading →

New Drowsy Driving Report Raises Profile of Emerging Issue

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Sleep Foundation has released a report showing that states have made some progress during the last decade in identifying drowsy driving as a hazard to the motoring public, through police training, driving education and legislation. But states still have a long way to go in developing a coherent strategy to reduce drowsy driving and the resulting deaths and injuries.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drowsy driving results in 100,000 police-reported crashes, 71,000 injuries, and 1,550 deaths each year. But these estimates are thought to be conservative for a variety of reasons: there is no test for drowsy driving, states have inconsistent reporting practices, few police departments are trained to identify drowsy drivers, and self-reporting is unreliable. Data from other nations, such as Australia and England, show that drowsy driving is a factor in 10 to 30 percent of all crashes. According to the NSF, 60 percent of drivers have driven while drowsy in the past year, and 20 percent, or about 32 million people, admit to having actually fallen asleep behind the wheel.

Drowsy driving is often compared to drunk driving because drivers operating while fatigued have slower reaction times, reduced vigilance and deficits in information processing, similar to alcohol impairment. Continue reading →

Tire Recalls and Tire Safety: The RFID Solution

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The current tire recall system designed to alert and capture defective models is ineffective and outmoded. Despite many technological advances, consumers trying to identify a defective tire still rely on a 38-year-old recall system that rarely averages more than a 20 percent return rate, leaving millions of potentially deadly tires on consumers’ vehicles.

Other important tire safety issues ranging from aging to counterfeiting can benefit from an improved identification system. Radio Frequency Identification tags offers a solution.

For more information, click here for a PDF version of Tire Recalls and Tire Safety: The RFID Solution, an overview of the issue.

The "trigger" that prevented the seat from locking in the Gray vehicle

Sebring Seat Back Case Reveals Defect that Mitsubishi Tried to Conceal; Attorney Vows to Pursue Fraud

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MOBILE, ALABAMA – After settling a seat-track and airbag defects case against DaimlerChrysler and Mitsubishi, attorney Patrick M. Ardis says he will pursue a fraud investigation against the Japanese automaker.

Ardis, of Wolff Ardis, P.C. of Memphis, Tennessee, alleges that Mitsubishi deliberately concealed that it had changed the design of the seat tracks in 1995-2000 Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger coupes, the 1995-1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse, and the 1995-1998 Eagle Talon vehicles to fix a flaw that prevented the front passenger seat from locking into place. Ardis and his co-counsel Richard Taylor discovered the alleged fraud on the eve of trial, when one of their expert witnesses, Don Phillips, stumbled onto evidence that the seat tracks in the 1998 and 1999 model years lacked the seat adjuster part, known as the trigger, that was part of the 1996 track assembly. Continue reading →