Posted on 05/22/2005 5:16:24 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Tucked away in the $295 billion highway bill passed by the Senate last week is a provision that could help consumers when making a big purchase of their own.
The highway bill includes billions of dollars in funding for road construction and mass-transit. It also includes a rule requiring automakers to start printing crash-test data on the stickers of all new cars.
The federal government spends millions of dollars a year testing new cars and trucks on their ability to withstand collisions and avoid rollovers, and rating them on a five-star scale. But the data are hard to come by when buyers need it the most: when they are on a car lot, comparison- shopping.
Under the proposed rule, the government's crash-safety and rollover ratings would be added to the familiar new-car window sticker that currently lists price, fuel efficiency and other details about the vehicle.
Consumer advocates have lauded the provision, dubbed "stars on cars," saying it will lead to better-informed buying decisions and may even prompt Detroit to make safer cars. Motor-vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 3 and 33. Last year there were nearly 43,000 total deaths, and nearly 2.8 million injuries.
Automakers say they don't oppose the rule and are taking no public position on the proposal. Assuming the bill passes into law, lobbyists for the auto industry are expected to work hard to influence the final look of the sticker.
In particular, industry officials worry about overloading buyers with too much data and have suggested that some information is best kept on the Internet instead of on window stickers. "We're concerned that increasingly putting so much information on automobiles may have the opposite effect of having consumers not read it because there's so much information," said Gloria Bergquist of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
The window stickers currently list dozens of facts about a vehicle - from city and highway mileage, to warranty information, to port of entry, to whether it has reading lights in the rear seats.
Each year, federal testers give new cars several ratings, each ranging from one to five stars, indicating how safe the vehicle is when hit from the front, from the side and how likely it is to roll over. Tests determine the likelihood of serious injury to the driver and to the passenger for both front- and side-impact crashes, as well as the likelihood that a car will roll over in a crash.
The information is available on a government Web site www.safercar.gov and is further spread by Consumer Reports magazine and others.
The legislation has been in the works for a number of years. At the same time, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the government's auto-safety agency, already was looking into the practicality of putting the safety information on new-car stickers. It won't be easy. For one thing, the government takes six months to test all new models. (For instance, the final test results for cars in the current model year, which have been on the market for some time, are just being released this month.) For consumers, what this means is that crash data are nonexistent during much of a new model's prime sales season.
That time lag stems partly from the expense of testing so many cars. To prevent automakers from rigging the system by providing extra-safe cars for testing, the agency randomly and anonymously buys vehicles from car lots around the country, and then tests them. The agency responsible for the testing, the NHTSA, doesn't have enough money to buy all the cars at once, says spokesman Rae Tyson. In addition, the agency also must schedule the tests with private laboratories, which adds to the time required.
Last year, the agency spent $7.7 million to conduct 85 crash tests and 36 rollover tests.
The Senate bill would give the agency a one-time $6 million boost to help it clear the backlog and test vehicles more quickly. In the meantime, a mock label prepared by the office of Sen. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican and chief sponsor of the proposal, simply stamped "not tested" beneath tests not yet performed.
It is possible the requirement to include the star ratings on stickers won't pass Congress, given that the provision is currently included in the Senate version of the bill, but not in the House version. No objections have emerged to the Senate version, so the House may simply go along with it. However, the provision has no champion in the House, so the outcome is unclear.
A handful of other consumer-information provisions are also in the Senate version of the bill. The legislation would require that child- size crash dummies be used in safety tests and would require that states give the federal government existing data about dangerous roads and intersections. The Senate version also would mandate that the federal government track noncrash, nontraffic accidents, such as when a car backs over a child or a child's head gets stuck in a window.
The move to include the crash-test star rankings on new-car stickers is happening at a time that the testing methods themselves are coming under scrutiny. Last month, the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, said that because most vehicles now receive either four or five stars, out of five, there is "little incentive for automakers to continue to improve vehicle safety and little differentiation among vehicle ratings for consumers."
GAO also said the testing program hasn't adapted to the safety hazards posed when small cars crash against large vehicles - sport utility vehicles, minivans and large pickups - that have become increasingly popular on U.S. roads.
Bowing to criticism that so many small trucks and SUVs received the same star rating on rollover resistance that consumers couldn't tell the difference between vehicles, the agency began releasing more- detailed information on each vehicle's percentage chance of rolling over.
For some consumers, availability of crash ratings on new- car stickers might not matter much. "Most buyers of my generation, we have the Internet, we use the Internet, we educate ourselves before we come in," says Henry Egwudobi, 35, of Bethesda, Md., a consultant who was shopping this week for a Volkswagen Jetta. The window sticker, he says, is "a place dealers like to send you to get lost."
Car safety The Senate bill passed would:
• Require automakers to print crash-test ratings on new vehicles' window stickers.
• Mandate use of child-size dummies in crash tests, to give a better sense of the safety of children onboard.
• Require states to provide the federal government with their data identifying particularly dangerous roads and intersections.
• What's next: The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday and next goes into conference committee, where differences with a House version must be negotiated.
• See for yourself: The ratings are available online at safercar.gov.
I think you said it all.
Hubby and I spent yesterday looking at cars. My conclusion is that all car salesmen are lying, mentally ill scum. My ultimate conclusion is that Ford Motors need to do A LOT OF WORK on how they present their products to the public.
Information? Try prying it out of the salesmen, I failed at the task.
After yesterday I wouldn't care if I never saw a car again. I'm ready to move back to Manhattan and start walking again.
Could someone remind me exactly what was the excuse for voting for Republican control of the Senate in 2002 again?
I can't stand buying cars at dealerships anymore. Last car i bought was from a friend, he had a nice spare car to sell. no haggling, no lies, no rip-off, no tax, best of all, i bought cash. Car still runs great, owned for 2 years+ and is troublefree. I've been buying surplus stuff that i want from my friends, it's a great way to get stuff you need sometimes.
I was trying to remember too. If you figure it out, let us all know because although conservatism is strong in the red zones, it is offically DEAD inside the Beltway.
I think I'll vote Democrat next time. The liberals and socialists are taking over, regardless of who we send to Washington, and I might as well get myself on the list as a "party faithful" before the purges begin.
They can't all be journalists or politicians. ;-)
Actually, FReepers know an astonishing number of things. Post a thread and get your questions answered and/or researched while you wait.
"They can't all be journalists or politicians"
LOL! Or college professors!
I was considering posting a thread, but I think I've got to let hubby carry the ball on this car purchase thing-y. He actually enjoys the banter and the haggling and the (figuartive) head-butting.
If it were soley up to me, I think I'd end up back at Saturn, but I'm curious to check out some of the Jap/Korean dealers, I just want to see if the BS is all the same.
Yesterday was a real eye-opener, just an awful experience all around. Very disturbing experience for a pro-capitalist, pro-American freeperette like myself, that I will say. Michael Moore himself couldn't make these people look any worse than they looked to me yesterday.
edmunds.com is our friend:)
What I usually do is use edmunds.com or other such sites to figure out what options I want on the vehicle I want, find out what the invoice is, contact the dealer over the Internet and do the deal that way.
As far as Fords? I have several friends that are pilots. They use these folks to buy through. Anyone can join eaa. See this link for more info. The downside is that you have to have been a member for a year or more. Something they did not do in the past.
Buying cars is fun.
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