How Proposed Pedestrian-Impact Safety Standards Will Soften Automotive Design
This is the type of over-regulation I talked about in the Modern life should be better post.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) wants new regulations so that pedestrians don’t get hurt when they get hit by a car.
Imagine how difficult it will be to implement this rule without limiting the driver’s field-of-view or reducing the car’s efficiency.
From the press release from the NHTSA
Between 2013 and 2022, pedestrian fatalities increased 57% from 4,779 to 7,522.
Before requiring car companies to meet this difficult engineering challenge and customers to pay for it, the NHTSA must look into why pedestrian fatalities increased by 57% in 9 years.
NHTSA estimates the new standard would save 67 lives a year.
This regulation would not even reduce pedestrian fatalities by 1%.
The regulation applies to all passenger vehicles weighing less than 10,000 pounds.
New vehicles must reduce the risk of pedestrian head injuries when the car is moving less than 25 mph, and should be beneficial at higher speeds.
The test scenario is a car hitting a person who is walking perpendicular to the direction of vehicle travel. The test pedestrian can by a medium sized man or a 6 year-old child.
There are two aspects of the proposed regulation.
The first is the requirement for “automatic emergency braking” (AEB) on all vehicles to stop or reduce the speed when a pedestrian is detected.
I don’t want that. It sounds complex and expensive.
Even when the system works properly, it will be unnerving. The system won’t distinguish between a pedestrian and some other object. A speed of 25 mph is 36 feet per second. With great tires, brakes and road surface, a car would travel 30 feet to come to an emergency stop. If the sensors are scanning 30 feet ahead, what other circumstances would trigger an unnecessary emergency stop?
If a car has the ability to slam on the brakes, there is some possibility that a malfunction could cause that to happen at any time.
The other aspect of the regulation is to reduce fatalities from the pedestrian’s head striking the hood of the car.
The regulation explains that when a car hits a pedestrian, the bumper hits the person’s knee. The pedestrian topples onto the car, striking the hood with the head. The regulation wants that not to happen, or for it not to hurt as much.
There are several ways to comply, but none of them are very good. One approach would be to make the hood of the car a couple of inches higher, and made of flimsy material that can dent or compress, to cushion the blow. That would reduce the driver’s ability to see the pedestrian and would reduce gas mileage.
A 57% increase in pedestrian fatalities is a concern. Even the NHTSA doesn’t think this challenging regulation will improve the situation. One cause of over-regulation is bureaucrats generating a regulation to justify their jobs or to show they care, whether or not the regulation will improve the situation. Unintended consequences can make other problems worse.
Nobody wants this rule. If pedestrians are worried about it, they can wear helmets.
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