BOSTON, MASS – In September, Massachusetts passed the toughest ATV law in the nation, becoming the first state to ban All-Terrain Vehicle use for children 14 years and younger. In October, researchers for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health announced the results of a study showing that ATVs were responsible for significant and rising hospitalizations of children 18 and younger.

In nearly 40 years of recreational use in the U.S., ATVs have been injuring and killing children. Thirty years of government intervention have managed to lessen the mayhem, but not stop it. Today, with a ban on three-wheeled ATVs in place and some mandatory standards, the CPSC, bolstered by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), is still contemplating changes to further protect children.

“We are absolutely concerned for the safety of children,” says CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson. “We continue to see a staggering number of deaths and injuries that are related to young riders being on or driving adult-sized models.”

Dr. Peter Masiakos, a Mass General emergency room surgeon who led the fight for “Sean’s Law,” treated 8-year-old Sean Kearney when he was transported to the hospital by helicopter after an ATV crash. Masiakos says the problem goes much deeper.

“We started with the premise that nothing has worked so far,” he says. “Despite the preaching of the industry, we know that people don’t train and we know that people don’t wear helmets and we know people don’t use safety equipment. The one thing we know for sure is that the outcomes are worse. The number of injuries has gone up and the number of deaths has gone up.”

JHU’s Center for Injury Research and Policy documented this rising tide of injury by examining hospitalizations for ATV injuries from 1997-2006. The researchers found an alarming 150 percent increase in children under the age of 18, with the most dramatic increases in the South and Midwest, among 15-17-year-olds. Boys are still the most likely victims of an ATV mishap, but the study also charted a big jump – 260 percent – in ATV-related hospitalizations for girls, ages 15-17. The study is expected to be published in December’s issue of the Journal of Trauma. In a press release announcing the study’s results, Stephen M. Bowman, PhD, MHA, and assistant professor with the Center and the report’s lead author, speculated that a mismatch between the rider and the machine was behind the data.

“All-Terrain Vehicles are inherently dangerous to children,” Bowman said. “While manufacturers are required to label vehicles with engine sizes greater than 90cc as inappropriate for children younger than sixteen, our data indicate that a growing number of children are receiving serious injuries due to ATV use, suggesting that parents are unaware of these recommendations or are choosing to ignore them.”

Co-author Mary E. Aitken, a professor of pediatrics at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, issued a call to action to the CPSC:

“Clearly, too many children are being injured on these vehicles. Given the dramatic increases in hospitalization that we report, a renewed effort by the public health community, the ATV industry and the CPSC to address this problem is warranted,” she said.

The CPSC has long done battle with the industry and a vocal group of ATV enthusiasts who object to government restrictions on their use. In 1988, the CPSC and the ATV industry signed a 10-year consent decree to reduce injury risks. Among the provisions were free training for riders, warning labels, a public education campaign and a ban on three-wheeled ATVs. After the decree expired, some manufacturers voluntarily continued these practices; others did not. While other researchers have looked at injuries and deaths in the immediate aftermath of the decree expiration, the JHU study is the first to look at the long-term effects.

The CPSC, meanwhile, continues to tally the damage each year. Its most recent report, issued in January 2010, noted that between 1982-2008 9,633 deaths occurred. ATV deaths increased in 2006, 2007 and 2008 – which had the highest single year death toll of 461. Children accounted for a significant percentage of the total: 2,588 decedents (27 percent) were younger than 16 years of age and 1,102 (11 percent) were under 12.

“We want parents to think about the consequences of going from a youth model with a speed limited to 15-30 mph, and a model weight of 200-250 pounds, to jumping on the father’s ATV that weights 500 pounds and goes 50 mph,” Wolfson said. “The consequences are deadly.”

During the years that the consent decree was in place, ATV-related injuries and deaths dropped, but as soon as the decree expired, the rates began climbing again. The CPSC counts a smaller subset of youthful riders – placing the dividing line between child and adult riders at age 16 to correlate with the current youth model age ranges. Therefore, the commission does not record the same rate of injury increases as did the researchers from Johns Hopkins University. The CPSC annual reports show that the percentage of ATV-related injuries and death dropped to 28 percent of the total reported injuries in 2008. But children still represent a sizeable portion of the annual total of injuries and deaths.

Today, some older three-wheeled ATVs may still be in use, but nearly all are four-wheeled vehicles. In 2006, the commission had begun a rulemaking on ATVs, but before it could be completed, the CPSIA directed the CPSC to make ATV voluntary safety standards mandatory and prohibited the sale of three-wheeled ATVs. The mandatory standard became effective in April 2009.

The CPSC is still reviewing the range of youth models, and determining whether the mandatory standards are adequate. Wolfson said that the current generation of youth models might not be sized appropriately for today’s youth.

“You can have a situation where a 14-year-old ATV rider is put on an adult model because it looked right,” Wolfson said. “We are trying to work with new rules that would create more youth models reflective of the size of those riders, yet, we still control maximum speed and limit the weight of the ATV.”

The CPSC wants the industry to resume offering free training nationwide, and they are considering requiring adult purchasers to sign a document warning that placing youthful riders on adult-sized machines could result in death. Finally, the CPSC is consulting with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to determine if stability standards should be established.

Masiakos says that tinkering with the vehicle or adding training is simply not sufficient to compensate for the developmental deficits inherent in child riders. Children under 16 years of age don’t have the judgment and skills to handle a 250-pound motorized vehicle that can travel more than 30 mph, as many youth models do.

The Massachusetts law, championed by the Massachusetts Prevent Injuries Now Network (Mass PINN), was inspired by a 2005 measure adopted by the Nova Scotia legislature. It banned children under 14 from riding ATVs anywhere except on a closed course, with parental supervision and the presence of a person with advanced first-aid training standing by. Nova Scotia adopted the ban after a crash that killed three teenage girls. Masiakos says that the ban reduced the child ATV injury rate by 50 percent in one year.

“I’m passionate about it, because I experience the injuries and they are preventable,” he says. “Parents don’t understand the risks involved. They are marketed as a recreational item, not as a motorized vehicle,” he said. “But it’s misguided to think they are safe and think they can be made safer by changing the throttle, the engine displacement and changing the weight.”

BOSTON, MA – After a series of high-profile deaths and injuries, the Massachusetts General Assembly has voted to raise the minimum age of All-Terrain Vehicle riders from 10 to 14 years of age.

The legislation was supported by a coalition of state safety advocates including the Massachusetts Prevent Injury Now Network, a CDC-sponsored injury group co-chaired by SRS president Sean Kane. “The real driving force behind this legislation was the coalition of committed child safety advocates from Massachusetts General Hospital for Children and Children’s Hospital Boston” Kane said. Mass General pediatric trauma surgeon Dr. Peter Masiakos said the “child injury and deaths resulting from ATV crashes have reached epidemic levels across the US. These tragic events are absolutely preventable,” and expects the potential law could have a real impact.

Earlier this month, the state House of Representatives voted 141-12 to prohibit anyone younger than 14 riding an ATV. In January, the state Senate passed a similar measure, but allowed younger riders in a sanctioned race supervised by adults and levied penalties and fines against adults for negligence, leaving the scene of an accident, and falsely registering the ATV. The lawmakers must agree on compromise language before the bill can be signed become law.

Waltham Rep. Peter Koutoujian cited 20 ATV deaths involving Massachusetts children since 1982 and 935 ATV pediatric injuries in 2004-2005. Nationally, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has recorded 2,588 ATV-related deaths involving children under 16 years since 1982.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – R U txtN? If you are driving an 18-wheeler, the Advocates for Highway Safety wants you to stop. Late last month, the consumer safety group raised the ante on distracted drivers by asking the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to prohibit or restrict electronic devices that divert commercial drivers’ attention.

Advocates petitioned the FMCSA to immediately open a rulemaking to review the most current research on distracted driving, determine which electronic devices and technologies distract commercial drivers and then consider prohibiting them. The Advocates petition says anything that takes drivers off their primary task must be considered – cell phones and hands-free remotes, global positioning systems, texting and entertainment devices – for a ban or a severe restriction. The group asked that first responders, such as police and emergency medical technicians be exempted and that exceptions be made for operators using electronic devices to summon help during an emergency. Finally, the petition requested that any rule apply to all commercial motor vehicle drivers – including bus drivers covered by the FMCSA – and that violations automatically result in an Out of Service order – meaning the driver is prohibited from operating a commercial truck for a specified period of time.

The petition comes on the heels of a number of initiatives to halt the growing use of on-board electronic devices that threaten highway safety. Last month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a report on fatalities and injuries in distracted driving-involved crashes. Using the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, the General Estimates System and other data sources, NHTSA found that 5,870 individuals died and about 515,000 occupants in 2008 were injured in police-reported crashes in which at least one form of driver distraction was reported. According to An Examination of Driver Distraction as Recorded in NHTSA Databases, that accounted for 16 percent of all fatal crashes and an estimated 22 percent of injury crashes. Not surprisingly the largest percent of distracted drivers were the under-20 age group – comprising 16 percent of all drivers in fatal crashes in which distraction was reported. (The next largest group was 20-29-year-olds, with 12 percent.) NHTSA researchers believe those figures to be undercounts:

“While these numbers are significant, they may not state the true size of the problem, since the identification of distraction and its role in the crash by law enforcement can be very difficult,” the researchers wrote in the report.

The agency presented this research at NHTSA’s two-day distracted driver summit earlier this month. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has been an outspoken critic of distracted driving, but NHTSA can not regulate driver behavior, only on-board devices that are part of a vehicle’s OE electronics. So far it has declined to do so.

NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson says that the agency has looked at the issue in the past – specifically original equipment navigation systems that were proliferating in new vehicles – to understand what impact they were having on safety, but came to no conclusions on regulating them.

“We’re continuing to monitor the original equipment devices being installed, but we haven’t had any serious discussions about any type of regulation,” he says. For now, the agency is taking a role it’s played in the past on other issues, such as seat belt use, drunk driving, and inexperienced drivers. “We can help the states by doing research and providing guidance to make good decisions on their own.”

The gathering included presentations on distracted driver research and legislative efforts to eliminate some forms of driver distractions – most frequently texting. According to a presentation by Vernon Betkey of the Governors Highway Safety Association, more than 200 distracted driving bills have been weighed in 43 states; 18 and the District of Columbia have enacted texting bans. On the federal level, the Avoiding Life-Endangering and Reckless Texting by Drivers (ALERT Drivers) Act of 2009, S. 1536 and H.R. 3535 has been introduced by New York U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy and U.S. Senator Charles Schumer. The measure has been referred to committee in both chambers.

Distracted driving among truckers also made the National Transportation Safety Board ‘s 2009 Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements. The NTSB was prompted by investigations into six fatal crashes involving bus drivers or young, inexperienced drivers, in which distraction caused the crash. It specifically wants the FMSCA to “prohibit cellular telephone use by commercial drivers of school buses and motorcoaches, except in emergencies.”

Advocates’ petition points out that large commercial trucks are represented disproportionately in fatal crashes – representing about three percent of all motor vehicle registrations, but eight percent of all fatal motor vehicle crashes and 12 percent of all traffic fatalities each year.

“One of every nine (9) motor vehicle fatalities in the U.S. each year is the result of a large truck crash,” the petition argued.

Advocates also pointed out that research conducted by the Virginia Tech University Transportation Research Institute at the FMCSA’s behest found, that driver distraction was involved in 81 percent of “safety-critical events.” The Virginia Tech study used naturalistic data collection in which 100 commercial drivers served as subjects over 18 months and 735,000 miles of driving. Using in-vehicle cameras and instruments, the researchers studied professional drivers behavior while using dispatching devices, laptop computers, calculators; maps, cell phones; eating and drinking, and adjusting equipment. In regards to cell phone use, the researchers paid particular attention to how much time a task – dialing, talking, listening texting and reaching for a cell phone –distracted the driver from watching the road. The findings, released in July, showed that drivers dialing a cell phone had a 5.9 times greater risk of crashing and those reaching for any electronic device were 6.7 times more likely to have a crash. Text messaging while driving a truck was the most hazardous activity, increasing the crash risk by nearly 24 times non-distracted driving. This activity also took drivers’ eyes from the road the longest – 4.6 seconds over a 6-second interval.

“This equates to a driver traveling the length of a football field at 55 mph without looking at the roadway,” the researchers said in a news release.

VA Tech researchers concluded: “Texting should be banned in moving vehicles for all drivers…This cell phone task has the potential to create a true crash epidemic if texting‐type tasks continue to grow in popularity and the generation of frequent text message senders reach driving age in large numbers.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Only power windows with express-up designs would have to be equipped with an auto-reverse feature, and all vehicles will have to install a brake to shift interlock, under two notices of proposed rulemaking published in the last month.

NHTSA proposed these rules to satisfy two mandates contained within the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act. The bill was named after 2-year-old Cameron Gulbransen, who was killed when his father, a pediatrician from Long Island, inadvertently backed over him, because the blind-zone behind his SUV made it impossible to see the toddler. The legislation required NHTSA to – for the first time – develop a rearward visibility standard, mandate a brake-to-shift-interlock and require power windows to have an automatic reverse feature.

Longtime NHTSA activist Janette Fennell, founder of Kids and Cars, is vowing to fight the agency’s weak power window proposal.

“This is an issue people have been working on since the advent of power windows, back in the 60s,” she says. “There’s plenty of research and understanding that power windows exert so much force when they are going up that they can injure, maim and kill. But there’s just been terrible resistance to prevent that from happening. There have been numerous petitions and numerous people bringing this to auto manufacturers and NHTSA, and it just keeps coming back: Not enough people die to make this change. This is the farthest we’ve ever gotten and I’m not giving up. We can’t let this opportunity slip through our fingers.”

The agency has been working to satisfy the mandates of the Gulbransen bill since March, when NHTSA published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for a rearward visibility standard that would expand the required field of view to enable drivers to detect areas behind the motor vehicle.

In August, the agency followed up with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to require a brake-to-shift-interlock be installed in all automatic transmission vehicles manufactured for sale after September 2010. This aspect of the Gulbransen Act was the lowest hanging fruit for the agency, since in August in 2006, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers reached a voluntary agreement which required full implementation of BTSI not later than September 1, 2010.  Consumer advocates continued to lobby for a regulation that would cover all vehicles sold in the U.S. – not just those from the major automakers. They also wanted a rule that would require the brake-to-shift interlock to work when the key was in any position – including the accessory position – that could start the vehicle – an important omission of the voluntary agreement.

NHTSA’s proposed rule would require that the service brake pedal be depressed before the transmission can be shifted out of ‘‘park,’’ and would function in any starting system key position. Like the voluntary agreement, automakers would be required to install them on vehicles manufactured for sale after September 1, 2010.

The Gulbransen Safety Act gave the agency a lot more leeway in the power window rulemaking. NHTSA has taken a half step – proposing a rule that only requires an auto-reverse system (ARS) for power windows with an express button – meaning those that close with one touch of the button. NHTSA said that mandating ARS on all windows was unnecessary because the majority of the safety problem was addressed by the new ‘‘safer switch’’ requirements. While auto-reverse might prevent these myriad minor injuries, the agency said that the K.T. Safety Act’s purpose was to prevent deaths and serious injuries to children, so it focused its safety analysis on the most grievous cases of power window entrapment.

Fennell argued that switch design is only part of the problem. Although there have been cases in which a child kneeling on a rocker switch activated the window, there have been just as many cases when someone else in the car was activating the window. Fennell maintains that the agency’s data collection efforts are not vigorous enough and that the agency tends to artificially reduce the scope of the safety problem by automatically throwing out any instance in which the way the window was activated was inconclusive. Further, she says all of the vehicles with one-touch power window closure already have an auto-reverse feature, so no car maker is actually affected by the proposal.

“NHTSA is supposed to be a safety agency. The proposed rule does nothing to reduce one injury or one death. Why do all vehicles in Europe have auto-reverse? Because it’s safe. I’m not happy with this. They’ve really done nothing.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Obama administration’s drive-by bankruptcies have left the victims of defect-related crashes to eat their dust, but consumer advocates are turning to other strategies to force Chrysler and General Motors to do the right thing.

Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, along with Consumer Action, Center for Auto Safety, Center for Justice & Democracy, and National Consumers League, have petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to require labels informing buyers of a used Chrysler’s unique liabilities. The label they’ve suggested goes like this:

“WARNING    This vehicle was produced prior to the date when the Chrysler bankruptcy was approved. If you buy this vehicle and are injured or killed, even if your injuries were caused by the manufacturer, you or your survivors will not be able to recover your losses by taking action against the manufacturer. If your passengers are injured or killed, even if their injuries were caused by the manufacturer, they and their survivors will not be able to recover their losses by taking action against the manufacturer.”

The California-based advocacy group CARS is asking for the designation under the FTC’s 1985 Used Car Rule, which was promulgated to prevent used car dealers from misrepresenting or failing to mention to buyers important facts about warranty coverage, via a Buyer’s Guide sticker displayed on the vehicle.

The bankruptcy and sale of the once-innovative American carmaker Chrysler to Fiat SPA concluded on June 10th, with $6.6 billion in federal financing. In just 42 days, the government pushed the major players over the finish line and successfully fended off attempts from investors and victims of Chrysler defects to re-jigger the deal. The owners of the “new” Chrysler are a union retirees’ trust, with 55 percent, Fiat, with a 20-percent share that could grow to 35 percent, and the U.S. and Canadian governments, which hold minority stakes.

In a June 11 New York Times story, an anonymous Treasury official said: “This morning’s closing represents a proud moment in Chrysler’s storied history. The Chrysler-Fiat alliance has now exited the bankruptcy process and is poised to emerge as a competitive, viable automaker.”

“If shirking your due care responsibilities to customers who trusted you is a source of pride, then Chrysler’s chest must be puffed out so far that the buttons are popping off its pinstriped jacket. The bankruptcy has wiped away all current, pending and future claims against vehicles manufactured by the ‘old Chrysler,’ said Safety Research & Strategies president Sean Kane.

General Motors, which completed its bankruptcy nearly a month later, had sought the same freedoms from product liability. But the company was taken aback by the highly publicized efforts of consumer advocates and attorneys representing defects victims to retain their rights to seek compensation via the state tort system. There were news reports about the victims GM was leaving behind and television advertisements opposing GM’s move to shed all liability. Twelve state attorneys general from Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Vermont, Illinois, California, Kansas and Ohio objected to the sales, arguing that the bankruptcy court overstepped its legal authority in granting the elimination of successor liability.

GM and the White House’s Auto Task Force, headed by Steven Ratner, who has since stepped down, came to an eleventh-hour agreement, in which GM agreed to accept liability for any future claims against vehicles built under its old ownership. Current and pending claims, however, have been wiped off the table.

In a mere 40 days, GM emerged from bankruptcy with fewer brands, fewer workers and a whole lot of taxpayer cash – $50 billion. (GM is keeping its Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC brands and selling or shuttering Hummer, Saturn, Saab and Pontiac.) As of July 10, the majority owners of General Motors are the taxpayers, with a 61 percent stake; and the United Auto Workers health care trust, which owns 17 percent; the Canadian government, which owns 11.7 percent, with the remainder going to bondholders of the old company.

CEO Fritz Henderson told the Associated Press that the revamped automaker will be “faster and more responsive to customers than the old one.”

“Apparently the new GM is doing that by telling the old customers who have been harmed by a GM defect to drop dead,” said Rosemary Shahan of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety.

Best feet forward aside, consumer and auto safety advocates are not done demanding that the new companies do something to compensate victims of defects. Indiana Congressman Andre Carson has filed the Jeremy Warriner Consumer Protection Act after Jeremy Warriner, who lost both legs and suffered severe burns in a vehicle fire he alleges was sparked by a faulty brake fluid container on his 2005 Jeep Wrangler. The bill would require the newly-restructured GM and Chrysler to carry liability insurance and force the carmakers to cover claims made against them for any defective products produced by their predecessor company. A consortium of attorneys and consumer groups are working on other avenues of redress.

GM / Chrysler Bankruptcies: What’s In What’s Out

The terms of the Chrysler and GM bankruptcies have created arbitrary and artificial classes of claimants. Here are the current parameters for liability:

Chrysler: Date of Bankruptcy Exit: June 10

What’s Out: The new Chrysler has no liability for any vehicles built by the old Chrysler. That means: the liability for all current, pending and future claims of any Chrysler vehicle built before the automaker exited bankruptcy belong to the old company.

Recovery of Unsecured Claims: Projected to be zero (or at most ½ cent/dollar).

General Motors: Date of Bankruptcy Exit: July 10

What’s In: The new GM agreed to assume liability for vehicles built by the old company, if the incident occurs after July 10, when GM exited bankruptcy.

What’s Out: The old GM retains the liability for all current and pending claims. If the incident occurred before July 10th, it is considered a pending claim, even if it has not yet been filed.

Recovery of Unsecured Claims: Unsecured claims in GM are predicted to receive between 10-20 cents on the dollar, several years from now. This is based on projections; there is no guarantee. Cost of administration claims will likely be paid in full for anyone having an accident in the five weeks in between when GM entered and exited bankruptcy, once the old company is liquidated.

For more background on the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies visit www.safetyresearch.net/chrysler-gm-bankruptcy/

WASHINGTON, D.C. – After years of resisting, the National Highway Traffic Administration has published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to amend the rearview mirror standard to actually include a performance standard for the rear view. The agency also solicited public comment on the state of current research and countermeasures that might assist it amending Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 111 to eliminate blind zones.

The March rulemaking did not outline a possible performance standard, but presented the research NHTSA had done to date. The agency sought answers to 52 questions in seven different areas, including the scope of the problem, technologies for improving rear visibility, effectiveness, driver behavior, options for measuring rear visibility and countermeasure performance.

The Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is the culmination of years of advocacy from groups such as KIDS AND CARS, which has been collecting news accounts and raising public awareness about the problem of backovers since 1998. In 2007, the organization’s lobbying led to the passage of the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act, also known as the K.T. Safety Act. The bill was named after 2-year-old Cameron Gulbransen, who was killed when his father, a pediatrician from Long Island, accidentally backed over him, because the blind zone behind his SUV made the toddler impossible to see.

The legislation required NHTSA to initiate a rulemaking within a year for a rearward visibility standard that would expand the required field of view to enable drivers to detect areas behind the motor vehicle. The standard could prescribe different requirements for different types of motor vehicles, which could be met by the addition of mirrors, sensors, cameras, or any other technology to expand the driver’s field of view. The bill required NHTSA to complete the rulemaking within three years of the date of enactment.

The law forced the agency to address a significant design flaw – especially in SUVs – which results in 3,000 incapacitating injuries and nearly 300 fatalities annually in backover incidents. (The agency noted that a disproportionate number of victims of backovers are children under 5 years old and adults 70 or older.) Previously, NHTSA declined to collect data on the problem, because most of these pedestrian-vehicle conflicts occurred in driveways and parking lots, rather than on public roads.

“We’re happy that NHTSA has met all the deadlines in the act and we really look forward to a regulation that will increase the visibility when you are backing up your vehicle,” says Janette Fennell, founder and president of KIDS AND CARS.

The sheer volume of questions is a good sign that the agency wants to take an in-depth look at all available information before crafting a standard, she added. But, Fennell said, buried in the text were some worrying signs. In the accompanying cost-benefit analyses, the agency considered different application scenarios, including applying it only to light trucks, based on data showing that pick-up trucks and SUVS were over represented in the injury and fatality data.

“I was surprised to see some sidestepping,” Fennell said. “We shouldn’t pick and choose. Whatever rear visibility standard is written, we need to ensure it covers all passenger vehicles.”

Backovers occur in incidents involving sedan-type vehicles more than 50 percent of the time, she said. Fennell was also disappointed that the agency research failed to consider the full range of economic benefits bestowed by a wider rear view.

“They totally ignored the cost savings from preventing bumper damage after you reduce the number of bushes, fences and poles people back into. That needs to be part of the calculation.”

The current standard, established in 1976, covers requirements for the use, field of view, and mounting of motor vehicle rearview mirrors for rear visibility and applies to passenger cars, multipurpose passenger vehicles, trucks, buses, school buses and motorcycles. What constitutes a performance standard for the view is based on Japanese regulation, Article 44, which merely requires that there be rearview mirrors that enable drivers to check the traffic around the left-hand lane edge and behind the vehicle from the driver’s seat. The regulation requires that the driver be able to ‘‘visually confirm the presence of a cylindrical object 1 m high and 0.3 m in diameter (equivalent to a 6-year-old child) adjacent to the front or the left-hand side of the vehicle (or the right-hand side in the case of a left-hand drive vehicle), either directly or indirectly via mirrors, screens, or similar devices.’’

As part of the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the agency presented some its research to date, which reached the startling conclusion that there is an association between the blind zone measured in a wide area and backing risk in crashes and that the larger the blind area, the higher the risk of a backing crash.

The agency has also evaluated some of the current rearview technology, often marketed as parking aids. The most expensive was the rearview camera, which was estimated to cost consumers between $159 and $203 per vehicle, or as low as $88 if the vehicle already has a display. NHTSA estimated the cost of equipping a 16.6 million vehicle fleet with camera systems is estimated at $2.3 to $3.0 billion. The net cost per equivalent life saved for camera systems, under different application scenarios, and at 3 and 7 percent discount rates, ranged from $13.8 to $72.2 million