Oral Statement by David Pittle Regarding SUV Rollover

ORAL STATEMENT(1)
R. DAVID PITTLE, Ph.D.
Senior Vice-President, Technical Policy
CONSUMERS UNION (2)

Before the
SENATE COMMITTEE
ON
COMMERCE, SCIENCE, and TRANSPORTATION

Washington, D.C.
February 26, 2003

Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the Committee, good morning. My name is David Pittle, and I am Senior Vice-President for Technical Policy at Consumers Union (CU), the independent non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports. With me are David Champion, Director of Consumers Union's 327-acre Auto Test Center in rural Connecticut, and Sally Greenberg, CU's Senior Product Safety Counsel here in Washington.

Each year, CU conducts comprehensive tests of some 40 to 50 new vehicles, which we buy anonymously with cash at retail. We provide consumers with objective comparative ratings about performance, routine handling, fuel efficiency, comfort, braking, emergency handling, and the safety features of these vehicles. We don't take outside advertising. Our only interest is to provide consumers with unbiased test information. Each month, an estimated 17 million consumers read and consider our printed test reports, including product ratings and buying advice, as they ponder their choices.

We have learned from more than 65 years of conducting unbiased laboratory and consumer use tests that while competing products may look alike, they don't always act alike. We see this everyday on our test track in terms of the range of performance and safety of new cars and trucks.

Unquestionably, auto safety is a matter of high national importance, affecting, as it does, virtually everyone in the country, both in their personal and work lives. The last time I presented testimony to a senate committee, it was during the Ford/Firestone safety crisis in September 2000. While investigating the thousands of Bridgestone tire failures and Ford Explorer rollovers, the Congress pressed hard to know how could such a situation occur in the first place, and what could be done to prevent future deaths and injuries from tire failures and SUV rollovers.

Ultimately, Congress passed-unanimously-a powerful law, the TREAD ACT of 2000, that directed NHTSA to protect American consumers by developing new tests for tires, child safety seats, and dynamic tests to assess a vehicle's rollover stability.

But the truth is, it should not have taken a tragedy of that proportion to bring about such sorely needed and long-awaited changes.

I said it to you during the Ford/Firestone hearing, and I must say it again now: The American car-buying public must be able to rely on NHTSA to proactively set adequate safety standards and to insure that automotive products offered for sale meet those safety standards. As charged by Congress, NHTSA has the unique authority and the clear mandate to protect the public from unreasonable automotive hazards-hazards often not seen, not measured, and not understood by the average consumer. In short, NHTSA is the only entity empowered by federal law that can block unsafe vehicles from the marketplace. As a safety agency, its only client should be the consumer.

And ultimately, we as consumers rely on you, the Congress, first, to insure that NHTSA has the resources and the authority it needs to protect the public; second, to use your oversight powers to insure that the agency is properly fulfilling its mandate; and third, to insulate the agency and allow it to set safety regulations without being derailed because industry voices objections.

I want to recall for you the chilling but all-too-true words of former NHTSA Administrator Ricardo Martinez. In a recent interview reported in The Wall Street Journal (February 7, 2003), he said:

"Any chief of the safety agency is 'always outgunned, outmanned and outspent by the industry,' says Ricardo Martinez, a NHTSA administrator during the Clinton administration and friend of Dr. Runge. 'You've got the regulations and the bully pulpit, and you've got to use both.'"

The Ford/Firestone safety crisis serves as a vivid reminder that consumers depend on the government to be actively passing laws to ensure their safety, not passively collecting data on injuries and deaths. During those hearings in 2000, it became all too clear that NHTSA was an underfunded agency that had lost its way-and ultimately the consumer paid the price.

We sit here today, barely two years later, confronting another safety problem whose dimensions we are only beginning to stretch our arms around. It will take our best thinking, our best intentions, and a clear sense of past successes to bring these hazards under control. We applaud Dr. Runge for his outspoken views on behalf of consumer safety and, Mr. Chairman, we appreciate that the committee has gathered us all here today.

We agree with Dr. Runge that the pattern of injuries and deaths associated with many of the SUVs on the road today is unreasonable and should be addressed promptly. We also believe the solutions are economically and technologically feasible. But implementing those solutions will take strong leadership-strong leadership from this committee and strong leadership at the highest levels of NHTSA.

We have provided the committee with a list of corrective measures that we believe will reduce the risks associated with light trucks, particularly SUVs.

Rather than go into them now, I want to comment briefly on the industry's recent announcement that, along with IIHS, it would focus attention on the hazards of vehicle incompatibility by placing almost exclusive emphasis on adding protective safety devices to passenger vehicles. Redesigning SUVs and pickup trucks to be less aggressive would be put off until some undefined later date. This is troubling, to put it mildly. Such an approach, in essence, tells occupants of mid-size and small vehicles that they must worry about their own safety-and virtually all but removes responsibility from manufacturers of SUVs and pickup trucks to design more forgiving vehicles. It's like saying to the kids who complain about being battered by the playground bully to wear more protective padding to school. Equipping passenger cars with head protection is entirely appropriate, but we also need to socialize the highway bully. Waiting to address basic design issues until sometime in the future is the fundamentally wrong. This needs attention now.

Finally, we question the wisdom of NHTSA's reliance on the industry to self-regulate by setting its own voluntary standards. While we recognize many of the past benefits of voluntary standards, in this case we believe it would be misguided and inappropriate-and worse, not likely to bring about the level of change needed to reduce the hazards in a timely manner. Solving broad and serious safety problems is the fundamental reason why NHTSA exists in the first place. This is one of its core responsibilities. We all must be very cautious before we agree to let this key safety agency step aside and defer responsibility to the industry-there is no substitute for this safety agency using its authority judiciously to correct safety problems in a timely manner, and in a way that is accountable to the congress, to the courts, and to consumers.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, Dr. Runge and the NHTSA staff need from you a strong, unambiguous message about its consumer-focused mission and your intention to vigorously oversee their progress. You did exactly that in the Ford/Firestone case, and it was a success. Lives will be saved as a result. Here, in light of the serious and rapidly growing risks posed by many SUVs and pickups, we call upon you again. We urge this committee to reject NHTSA's relying solely on voluntary action by the industry. We urge you, instead, to direct NHTSA to step up to the plate and take the lead-to act decisively and promptly to correct these problems. I lost count of how many times Dr. Runge said, "We will be watching what the industry does." Mr. Chairman, Congress set up NHTSA as a watchdog agency to protect the public-this watchdog must do more than watch.

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions.

# # #

(Recommendations not delivered orally)

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REDUCING ROLLOVER RISKS:

· NHTSA's plan to conduct rigorous dynamic testing of SUVs and other vehicles and provide that information to consumers, as discussed above, will have a strong impact on SUV design. However, the agency will need additional resources to conduct the testing needed to make the program useful.

· CU's testing of collision avoidance or electronic stability control (ESC) in SUVs indicates that they are very effective in helping drivers to maintain vehicle control. These systems should be standard equipment in all SUVs. Their widespread use is virtually certain to result in fewer rollover-related deaths and injuries.

· Dynamic interior head air bag protection systems have also been shown to reduce occupant ejection during a crash. These systems should be standard on all SUVs to give occupants more side protection in a rollover and also prevent unbelted occupants from being ejected.

· NHTSA is currently reviewing comments for an updated standard on vehicle roof crush. This committee should urge the agency to speed it's work on that critical area; even belted drivers in SUV rollovers have been killed or gravely injured as a result of injuries to the spine from impact with poorly designed roofs.

· NHTSA should continue its research on improving seat belt usage in all vehicles especially in Pickups and SUVs.

· NHTSA should, as part of its rollover information testing, assess the handling capabilities of vehicles. In many cases today vehicle manufacturers equip their SUVs with tires that limit the lateral grip of the vehicle to reduce its instability. However, this compromises the normal handling of the vehicle and can lead to other non-rollover accidents. The handling test proposed by NHTSA would ensure that vehicles are designed to be stable and not "corrected" by fitting a specific low-lateral grip tires. When a consumer is at a tire dealer buying new tires they are not aware of the potentially disastrous consequences of buying the wrong type or size tire. Also the extensive advertising of larger wheels and tires that are likely to improve the lateral grip intensifies the possible consequences. Many SUVs have specific tire types that are permitted, but few consumers are aware of. Many SUVs specify All Terrain type tires only.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REDUCING THE RISKS FROM
VEHICLE INCOMPATIBILITY

· SUVs should be redesigned to provide lower bumpers and less rigid front frames so that they impart less of the crash energy to the vehicle they hit, and do so at a height that is more comparable to the crumple zones on sedans. Designers should aim for less aggressively designed vehicles, such as the "cross-over" vehicles emerging in today's market.

· Congress should direct NHTSA to develop crash tests to assess crash incompatibility, and NHTSA should begin to set standards to reduce vehicle incompatibility and SUV and pickup truck aggressivity.

· New passenger cars should be equipped with side and head air bags as standard equipment to protect them in a crash with a larger, higher and more aggressively designed vehicle.

# # #

___________

(1) Delivery may vary slightly from written text.

(2) Consumers Union is a nonprofit membership organization chartered in 1936 under the laws of the state of New York to provide consumers with information, education and counsel about good, services, health and personal finance, and to initiate and cooperate with individual and group efforts to maintain and enhance the quality of life for consumers. Consumers Union's income is solely derived from the sale of Consumer Reports, its other publications and from noncommercial contributions, grants and fees. In addition to reports on Consumers Union's own product testing, Consumer Reports, with more than 4 million paid circulation, regularly carries articles on health, product safety, marketplace economics and legislative, judicial and regulatory actions which affect consumer welfare. Consumers Union's publications carry no advertising and receive no commercial support.

View Files Sorted By Office: Consumers Union OPI, New York - Washington DC Office
West Coast Regional Office - Southwest Regional Office - Consumer Policy Institute

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