Toughen up

The U.S. Transportation Department on Tuesday started a more rigorous system for grading car safety, which applies to cars and light trucks starting in the current 2011 model year. The new system gives vehicles one overall safety rating, in addition to various sub ratings. This tougher crash test is making it more challenging for cars to get their " 5 star" crash rating. Which is good because too many vehicles were getting top scores on the government's previous crash tests, so regulators made the tests harder. For the first time, the tests use crash-test dummies to gauge the impact of a crash on women, not just men. The tests also simulate a crash into a pole on the driver's side.The U.S. plans to test about 55 vehicles from the 2011 model year under the new system. Of the 33 tested so far, only two achieved an overall score of five stars, BMW AG's BMW 5 Series and Hyundai Motor Co.'s Sonata. Some say that sales of the non "5 star" vehicles will severally decline, however, I think that there is only a small handful of consumers that wouldn't buy a vehicle because it wasn't 5 star. "We're just trying to make the manufacturers stretch" even more to make cars safer, said David Strickland, chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The car industry hasn't taken a position on the new system, so it will be interesting to see how this new system plays out. "It's like in high school, when every student gets an A, you want to switch the test," said Wade Newton, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. All in all I think this is a great decision. A "5- star" safety rating doesn't mean much if everyone is getting one. Therefore, I think this new system will save lives because it forces manufactures to make safer vehicles. 

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