Knee-jerk reaction to Toyota recalls

[Pat McCotter]

Congress Considers Redesigning Cars, Mandating Black Box
US House subcommittee drafts legislation to tax cars, redesign their controls and implement black boxes.

Black boxMembers of Congress are scheduled to meet later today to discuss how to redesign the way in which an automobile's most familiar controls operate. The US House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection will hold a markup session on the Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 2010, which was sponsored by Senator John D. Rockefeller, IV (D-West Virginia) and eight fellow Democrats.

Their bill expands the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration by creating a new $280 million agency called the Center for Vehicle Electronics, Vehicle Software, and Emerging Technologies. The center would be in charge of implementing the bill's mandate to alter how acceleration and braking systems function. The proposal would give federal regulators specific control over the design of gas and brake pedal placement, the way starter buttons function and the "conspicuity of the neutral position" on gear selectors -- all in response to the Toyota unintended acceleration problem.

The center would also issue regulations to govern the legislation's mandate that all new cars be installed with electronic data recorders or black boxes that "continuously record vehicle operational data." The information would remain the vehicle owner's property, except when retrieved by others under a court order or by any "government motor vehicle safety agency" with personally identifying information removed.

To pay for this regulatory infrastructure, the legislation imposes a $9 "vehicle safety fee" on each automobile that is collected from the manufacturer. The Cato Institute's Director of Information Policy Studies, Jim Harper, testified earlier this month that the subcommittee lacked authority to implement its goals.

"The Motor Vehicle Safety Act shares a constitutional infirmity with much of the legislation Congress considers today," Harper said. "There is no source of authority for it in the Constitution."

Harper went on to oppose the black box requirements on privacy and fairness grounds.

"It is a near certainty that putting EDRs in cars raises their costs and lowers sales," Harper said. "It lowers sales more for poor people than for rich people. New car sales affect the availability of used cars, of course, and the cost of trading up from an older used car to a newer used car... Overall the disability on consumers to control the existence of EDRs in their cars and to control the functioning of EDRs in their cars threatens privacy."

A copy of the draft legislation is available in a 70k PDF file at the source link below.

Source: Draft of Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 2010 [PDF](US House of Representatives, 5/18/2010)

[Pat McCotter]

Section-by-Section Summary of the Waxman-Rush Discussion Draft
MOTOR VEHICLE SAFETY ACT OF 2010[PDF]
Committee on Energy and Commerce

TITLE I – Vehicle Electronics and Safety Standards

Section 101. Electronics and Engineering Expertise
Establishes a new Center for Vehicle Electronics and Emerging Technologies within the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to strengthen the agency's expertise in new technologies across all vehicle safety components. Creates an honors recruitment program at NHTSA for engineers with an interest in vehicle safety.

Section 102. Vehicle Stopping Distance and Brake Override Standard
Requires NHTSA to promulgate new standards that (1) prevent unintended acceleration by requiring that all vehicles be equipped with a technology that would allow a vehicle to come to a full stop with normal braking pressure when the throttle is open and (2) require that redundancies be built into electronic throttle control systems to enable a driver to maintain control even if there is a failure in the system.

Section 103. Pedal Placement Standard
Requires NHTSA to promulgate a new standard that prevents pedal entrapment as a source of unintended acceleration by establishing minimum clearances for foot pedals with respect to other pedals, the vehicle floor, and any other potential obstructions.

Section 104. Electronic Systems Performance Standard
Requires NHTSA to establish minimum performance standards for electronic systems in passenger vehicles.

Section 105. Keyless Ignition Systems Standard
Requires NHTSA to promulgate a new standard that requires that passenger vehicles with keyless ignitions systems have consistent means to allow for a driver to stop or slow a vehicle during an emergency.

Section 106. Transmission Configuration
Requires NHTSA to promulgate a new standard that requires an intuitive configuration and labeling of gear shift controls that ensures the neutral position is conspicuous to drivers who may need to use it in an emergency.

Section 107. Vehicle Event Data Recorders
Requires NHTSA to promulgate a rule that requires that all vehicles be equipped with an event data recorder that meets the requirements of the existing voluntary standard issued by NHTSA. Requires a second new rule to establish that all event data recorders must be temperature, water, crash, and tamper resistant, to increase the amount and type of data that must be recorded, to make the data more accessible to investigators, and to establish ownership, privacy, and disclosure requirements regarding data collected by the recorders.

...

TITLE IV – FUNDING

Section 401. Vehicle Safety User Fee
Establishes a vehicle safety user fee paid by the vehicle manufacturer for each vehicle certified to meet the federal motor vehicle safety standards for sale in the United States. This fee begins at $3 per vehicle and increases to $9 per vehicle after three years. The fee would supplement existing appropriations and support NHTSA's vehicle safety programs.

Section 402. Authorization of Appropriations
Authorizes appropriations for NHTSA's vehicle safety programs. The authorization would be for $200 million in FY 2011, $240 million in FY 2012, and $280 million in FY 2013

[Russell Kanning]

oh goody

[KBCraig]

Congress Considers Redesigning Cars, Mandating Black Box

My nephew is something of an automotive genius. He comes by it honestly, having literally grown up in his parents' street rod business (my sister and her husband), and then he went to WyoTech to study both diesel mechanics and street rods. I recently had occasion to ride in one of his (many) trucks: an early 1980's Ford F250 4WD with oversize tires. He had installed an International diesel engine in it, which was normally aspirated and all mechanical: the only electrical wire it had was for the starter motor. Okay, make it two wires: it has glow plugs.

Despite the ride profile of a monster truck, and a drag coefficient slightly worse than the flat side of a sheet of plywood, he gets a measured 17 miles per gallon. That's 2 mpg better than his 2009 all-electronic diesel dually.

When it comes to SHTF transportation, I think he and I are going to have a long talk over several cold ones. 

[Pat McCotter]

My 1985 Mercedes diesel wagon was the same. My voltage regulator wnt out when I was 200 miles from home. The battery would not charge. Not a problem as long as the car stayed running.