We polled a couple of graduates of the Toyota School of Hard Knocks for their reactions to Friday’s sticky accelerator pedal recall, and the consensus was: this wouldn’t address my problem. Kevin Haggerty, owner of the 2007 Avalon that arrived at the New Jersey dealership in a state of automotive hysteria (the vehicle, not Haggerty), [...]

Sudden Unintended Acceleration can be rooted in a variety of vehicle defects including ergonomic design flaws, mechanical or electro-mechanical failures, or electronic failures.  The article below, republished from Safety Research & Strategies bi-monthly publication, The Safety Record, is an overview of SUA.

Reprinted from The Safety Record, V6, I1 VINALHAVEN, ME – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has opened a probe in December 2008 into the strangulation death of a two-year-old who became entangled in the mesh netting of his crib tent. Noah Thompson of Harvard, Mass., was strangled when his head got stuck between the [...]

Reprinted from The Safety Record, V6, I1 WASHINGTON, D.C. – In 2005, Congress funneled $2.8 million to the University of Oklahoma as an earmark in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Transportation Equity Act, a Legacy for Users, to conduct a motorcycle crash causation study. But a series of missteps have caused the study to languish and, [...]

Researchers from the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia looked at the effect of reported deformation of the front seat back rearward on the injury risk to children seated in the rear in a rear-impact crash. Dr. Kristy Arbogast, Associate Director of Engineering for The Center for Injury Research [...]

A 42-year-old Missouri man purchased a go-cart from the local farm supply store for his kids. With less than four hours on the rugged-looking machine, he and a friend were found dead, the machine overturned with a fractured front suspension where a critical weld failed. The defect appears to be just another one of a [...]

Reprinted from The Safety Record, V5, I4, July / August 2008 STUEBENVILLE, OHIO -Don’t bother trying to buy a three-wheeled, two-passenger vehicle off the dealer’s lot. Motorists who want to get their hands on Wildfire Motors’ WF650-C will have to plunk down the full $7,064 purchase price in advance, and wait three months for delivery. [...]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The chairman of the Senate Consumer Affairs, Insurance and Automotive sub-committee has urged the Secretary of Transportation to extend the July 1 deadline for a final roof crush rule and to drop the pre-emption clause from the regulation.

Reprinted from The Safety Record, V3, Issue 3, Nov. / Dec. 2006 REHOBOTH, MA – Safety Research & Strategies has renewed its call for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to require tire makers to mold an easy-to-read date of manufacture on a tire’s sidewall. SRS submitted comments on December 20 urging the agency to [...]

Presentations on tire aging at recent industry conferences indicate that the industry is beginning to accept what only several years ago it claimed was not possible-a scientific basis for tire expiration dates. Foundational to this acceptance is agreement from the tire makers, NHTSA, and Ford Motor Company that static oven aging in a lab can [...]