SELLING CARS IN THE U.S.A. MAKERS ARE FACING TOUGH NEW SAFETY REQUIREMENTS

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31421, 14 July 1967, Page 8

SELLING CARS IN THE U.S.A. MAKERS ARE FACING TOUGH NEW SAFETY REQUIREMENTS

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JAMES ENSOR,

. In the "Financial Times". London!

(Reprinted by arrangement)

TT .. ot Ame fj can foreign car manufacturers over the United States Government s new traffic safety laws has abated somewhat since the initial passionate outbursts. But the problems for British manufacturers selling cars in the United States market are by no means over yet

The regulations will go into effect on January 1, next year, barely 11 months after they were first announced. But for British manufacturers producing new or redesigned models this autumn, the deadline is much doser. Detailed design changes will have to be in full production by September at the latest, and manufacturers face a SU.S.IOOO penalty for every single car sold in the American market which fails to meet the requirements. Time Underestimated The safety requirements were originally drawn up in four weeks by a team of four people. One was a medical doctor, one an engineer, the others a lawyer and a journalist. Between them, they had very little actual industrial experience, so that it was not entirely surprising that the team at first seriously underestimated the time that it would take to get some of the changes into production. For British firms, not geared like Detroit to annual model changes, and with proportionately much smaller design staffs, the position was even more serious. ' The regulations as originally drafted were extremely strict Some of them, such as the interior protection against injury from steering column or dashboard, would involve a considerable amount of redesign of even the safest British cars which already have collapsible steering columns. This regulation specifies the exact stress that a steering column must absorb without penetrating more than three inches into the car. This meant that manufacturers have had to crash cars on a test track and measure the displacement. Triumph, for instance, has crashed seven cars at 30 m.p.h. into a concrete wall, and in each case the displacement was slightly over the 3-inch mark. Fortunately for most of the manufacturers (few Detroit cars could meet this either) the displacement has now been raised to 5 inches.

Windscreen Washing

Perhaps the most unreasonable regulation, as originally drawn up, was the specification for the area of windscreen to be wiped and washed by the car’s equipment This would have excluded almost all the European and Japanese cars currently imported into the States, since the area was larger than their entire windscreen. Almost as difficult, headlamps had to be at least 12 square inches in area. Reflectors and indicator lights were to be the same size, so that the British designers were faced with the formidable problem of fitting six massive lights on a small sports car. Triumph’s chief engineer, Mr Harry Webster, reckons that tills kind of fundamental bodyshell redesign would take a British firm a minimum of 18 months. Yet the Americans were allowing only 11.

Many of these regulations have now been toned down, after concerted pressure from foreign manufacturers and from Detroit But this is not the end of the story. For since the publication of Ralph Nader's book, which severely criticised the safety record of the big American manufacturers, the United States Government has taken up a crusading attitude. Dr. William Haddon, director of tiie Traffic Safety Agency, responsible for implementing the traffic safety programme, has made it very clear that reforms which are now being delayed will be imposed later. In his own words: “If any manufacturer thinks he’s going to get by just by meeting our standards, he doesn’t understand the kind of ball game he’s in.” Some of the safety features which the Traffic Safety Agency is likely to insist on by 1970 will give the designers quite a task. Automatic restraint systems, for instance, consisting of a seat belt or bar which moves in front , of the driver or passenger as he closes the door and so cannot be avoided, will need a degree of ingenuity to design. Other features, such as concertina front-ends to weaken the impact of a crash, or much stronger doors and side panels to give greater protection, will' require complete redesign of most American and foreign can. Cars In Accidents Foreign cars are already under attack as more dangerous than larger, stronger American cars. A study by the New Jersey Highway Authority showed that small cars were involved in 40 per cent of the accidents, and produced 55 per cent of the deaths, although they only made up 24 per cent of the traffic in that State.

Highway engineers reconstructing accidents found that all the deaths would have been avoided had the occupants been travelling in the larger American designed cars instead of American compacts of foreign cars. This kind of condemnation is obviously unfair to some designs, notably the Rover 2000 which has been commended by Nader for its advanced safety features. But the fact remains that Dr. Haddon and his team are planning to compile and publish reports (on the lines of “Which”) that will compare the safety characteristics of all cars for sale in the American market. “The industry,” says Haddon,

“is going to be operating in a goldfish bowl.” Whatever beneficial effects this will have on American car design, it is not going to help British manufacturers sell their products in the United States. The sports cars which make up most of B.M.C.’s, Triumph's and Rootes* sales in America have far better handling characteristics than most American cars. But the plain fact is that they do not, and will never be able to give, the same degree of protection in a head-on collision as the American limousine with its long bonnet, large engine, and massive bumpers to insulate its occupants from a crash. So long as Haddon goes on testing cars by smashing them into concrete walls, British sports cars are likely to compare badly. Built-In Speed Limit A more immediate worry for British manufacturers is that the built-in speed limit of 80 m.pJi., which the safety planners are likely to introduce, will reduce the appeal of British performance cars. The pollution controls, already mandatory in California and soon to be introduced in all the other states, further reduce the power available. High performance engines, in general, produce more noxious exhaust vapour, so that British cars face considerable difficulties in meeting these requirements. Triumph has met this by reducing engine power slightly, but B.M.C. and Ford have had to inject air into their car’s exhaust system to bum up the unburnt vapour. All this, naturally, has bean extremely expensive. Triumph have been running seven cars continuously around a test track for 50,000 miles to check that pollution does not exceed the limit as the engine wears. The engineers have had to build special test rigs to check the efficiency of the interior protection of their cars. The material costs have been enormous; seven writtenoff cars is just the most tangible part. Far more expensive are the engineers to develop and test safety aspects of all new designs. Mr Webster reckons that Triumph’s engineering staff will have to be permanently increased by 50 per cent to eope with the design problems of pollution and safety. And when, eventually, similar regulations are imposed in Britain and the rest of Europe, this may be insufficient