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Nov 12, 2010

SAFETY * USA - Making Cars Safer

... How do you change behavior? By giving an incentive to change

New York,NY,USA -Driving Today, by Luigi Fraschini -10 Nov 2010:   ...   And that’s exactly what the National Highway Traffic Administration has done over the past 32 years with its New Car Assessment (NCAP) Program... The goal of the program is twofold: First, it helps consumers make informed decisions about safety when purchasing a new car. Second, and perhaps even more importantly, it gives auto manufacturers an incentive to improve their cars’ safety. All automobiles sold in the U.S. must meet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, but NCAP has always given manufacturers an extra carrot to exceed those standards. As NHTSA Administrator David Strickland told us, “More stars equal safer cars” ... For the 2011 model year, NHTSA has changed NCAP requirements to make them even more stringent and consumer friendly. The new ratings for 2011 models and beyond include more rigorous tests based on advanced safety technology...   For example, the NHTSA now recognizes:

* Electronic Stability Control (ESC), which helps drivers maintain control by estimating the direction the vehicle is heading in and applying pressure to individual brakes to help bring the vehicle back into the desired direction of travel
* Forward Collision Warning (FCW), which identifies when one vehicle gets too close to another and signals the driver to apply brakes to avoid a collision
* Lane Departure Warning (LDW), which monitors lane markers and alerts the driver if the vehicle appears to be inadvertently drifting, a sign of drowsiness or inattentiveness

NHTSA plans to do extensive testing of 2011 model year cars to build out its database and to highlight car safety. The only major downside of the new procedures is that the new five-star ratings cannot be compared to previous model years; the rule of thumb is to compare cars of like model years...

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