(Source:  Greenwire – New York Times; AutoBlogGreen)

Chuck Hurley - Image Courtesy: Dickinson College

Hurley has served as CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving since 2005 and has spent more than three decades working on a host of driving safety initiatives. He previously held senior leadership posts at both the National Safety Council and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit research group funded by auto insurers.

The insurance institute has been critical of past CAFE proposals and has backed an auto industry argument that a disproportionate focus on increasing fuel mileage would lead to smaller and less safe cars (See a related article on TransportGooru that discussed the latest IIHS crash test results correlating vehicle safety during crashes to the size and fuel effieicency factors of small cars). The group helped lead a successful industry push for CAFE standards that use an attribute-based system that requires cars and trucks to achieve different standards depending on each vehicle’s footprint.

Hurley’s work with the institute during the 1990s was enough to worry Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, which has advocated for fuel economy increases. “It would be awkward to have an administrator of NHTSA who’s spent much of his career attacking fuel economy standards that NHTSA administers,” he told the Wall Street Journal.

With exception of the fuel economy concern, Hurley’s nomination drew near-universal praise from highway safety advocates.  In addition to his extensive work on drunk-driving issues, Hurley has also worked with law enforcement agencies on air bag and seat belt issues, child passenger safety and teen driving initiatives.  “Chuck is a passionate safety advocate whose career has been dedicated to reducing motor vehicle deaths and injuries on the highways,” said Vernon Betkey Jr., chairman of the Governors Highway Safety Association.

Smart USA quickly responds to IIHS crash test results

(Source:  Autoblog, Jalopnik & IIHS)

“There are good reasons people buy minicars,” says Institute president Adrian Lund. “They’re more affordable, and they use less gas. But the safety trade-offs are clear from our new tests. Equally clear are the implications when it comes to fuel economy. If automakers downsize cars so their fleets use less fuel, occupant safety will be compromised. However, there are ways to serve fuel economy and safety at the same time.”

The three tests we have are between the Honda Accord and the Honda Fit, the Toyota Camry and Toyota Yaris, and finally the Mercedes C300 and the Smart ForTwo. With each we get a full speed offset frontal crash with both cars traveling at 40 MPH, destruction and carnage ensue and rightly so, there’s a lot of energy involved here. These are hardly scientific tests, and they represent the absolute most extreme crash scenario for these speeds, especially for the smaller cars. Ratings got from “Good” at the top of the scale through “Acceptable” and “Poor.” Considering this is one car bashing into another, the evaluation is somewhat subjective, but it gives an idea of relative performance. Let’s take a closer look at each.

 Click here to read the entire article and to watch two other awesome videos.  Seen below is the IIHS report in PDF format.  To download the report, please visit the IIHS website. 

P.S:  According to AutoBlog, folks over at Smart USA were not pleased to see the results of the latest batch of crash testing from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The IIHS did a series of frontal offset crash tests between small and mid-size cars, one of which included a smart ForTwo versus a Mercedes C300. While the results may have been what most people expected, they don’t correlate with the ForTwo’s results in standardized tests where the IIHS rates the smart as good in front and side impacts. The feds at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration give the smart 4 stars on frontal impact and 5 on side impact. 

The problem, as Smart USA sees it, is that the IIHS devised a test that no automaker has designed to and that they claim only represents about one percent of real world accidents. Smart has even set up a site for customer testimonials about the crash safety performance of their ForTwo. Typically, in the past, Smarts have actually done quite well in similar vehicle-on-vehicle tests, such as the ones conducted by Mercedes and Auto Motor und Sport after the jump.

(Source: Associated Press via Yahoo! News)

WASHINGTON – U.S. highway deaths in 2008 fell to their lowest level in nearly 50 years, the latest government figures show, as the recession and $4 per gallon gas meant people drove less to save more. Safety experts said record-high seat-belt use, tighter enforcement of drunken driving laws and the work of advocacy groups that encourage safer driving habits contributed to the reduction in deaths.

Preliminary figures released by the government Monday show that 37,313 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes last year. That’s 9.1 percent lower than the year before, when 41,059 died, and the fewest since 1961, when there were 36,285 deaths.

A different measure, also offering good news, was the fatality rate, the number of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. It was 1.28 in 2008, the lowest on record. A year earlier it was 1.36.

“The silver lining in a bad economy is that people drive less, and so the number of deaths go down,” said Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “Not only do they drive less but the kinds of driving they do tend to be less risky — there’s less discretionary driving.”

Fatalities fell by more than 14 percent in New England, and by 10 percent or more in many states along the Atlantic seaboard, parts of the Upper Midwest and the West Coast, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“Americans should really be pleased that everyone has stepped up here in order to make driving safer and that people are paying attention to that,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.

(Source: Autoblog; Photo: Acura via Auto123.com)

2009 Acura TL IIHS Side Impact Test;

Acura buyers can rest assured that their fancy Hondas have their backsides not only well cosseted, but well covered. No matter what direction you smash a current Acura, any of them, you’re protected by a straight-A student. In front, side, and rear impacts, every car that Acura sells carries top ratings from both the IIHS and NHTSA. Acura’s crediting its two crash test facilities — one in Tochigi Japan, and the other in Raymond, Ohio — with enabling the top scores. Paying attention to occupant and pedestrian safety has been a focus of Acura, and the brand is the first ever to earn top ratings for front, side, and rear crashes from both agencies. 

The press release from Acura has a ton of information about the safety features embedded in the vehicles that contributed to this great recognition.  

 “No other automotive brand has accomplished what Acura has, nor can make the safety claims that Acura can,” said John Mendel, executive vice president of automobile sales. “When consumers think safety, they really should think Acura.”

Click here to read the entire press release.