What is the best way to make cars safer? As in the case of reducing environmental risks, the traditional strategy has been government regulation. Design standards have been used to require certain features that are implemented in certain ways, such as seat belts and air bags. Performance standards have been used to specify how a car must perform under test conditions such as a frontal crash. But there is a quite different strategy that would complement and extend these traditional approaches; one endorsed by a committee of the Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council (NRC). The committee, which the author chaired, proposed a relatively simple approach: Give customers clear summary information on the safety of all new vehicles, make the underlying details available to all who want them, set up a research program to ensure that the information will improve over time, and then step back and let the competitive pressures of the marketplace force manufacturers to produce safer cars. The committee's recommendations are just as relevant today as they were when they were issued in 1996, perhaps even more so. (A)
Abstract