?Eric Evarts

Be sure to follow Consumer Reports Cars blog (RSS) and Twitter (@CRcars) to keep up with the latest information and advice, also see our unintended acceleration guide.

Related:
Consumers Union calls for changes to strengthen U.S. car-safety net
Toyota reportedly worked with feds to save $100 million in recalls
Eight things that can dramatically improve auto safety
Five key fixes automakers should make now to reduce unintended acceleration
Unintended acceleration stories wanted
How to tell if your Toyota is affected by the recent recalls
How to stop a runaway car: Don?t pump the brakes

In the fourth Congressional hearing this year to examine unintended acceleration, current and former administrators of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration laid out the challenges the agency faces in investigating and regulating modern cars. Ami Gadhia, Policy Counsel for Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports also presented our organization?s testimony.

As his agency comes up for a budget reauthorization, current NHTSA administrator David Strickland told the committee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection that he has ordered a review of the agency?s legislative mandate. He wants to take a ?hard look? at whether the agency has the legal authority it needs to regulate the modern automobile in the global marketplace. He noted that the four statutes that established the agency were written in the 1960 and 1970s, when cars were much simpler and the market was more localized. He said he doesn?t see the Toyota issue as an example of a NHTSA failure, but that of NHTSA doing its job. (Download Strickland's testimony pdf.)

While Strickland said NHTSA has the budget and personnel it needs to do its job, Joan Claybrook, NHTSA?s former administrator from the late 1970s said enforcement of safety standards has been a low priority for the agency since then. Out of a $900 million annual budget, she says, $132 million goes to vehicle safety. The rest is parceled out as grants to states. Much of that money goes towards public service campaigns against drunk and distracted driving. (Download Claybrook's testimony pdf.)

Asked what she thought NHTSA?s budget should be, Claybrook said the budget for vehicle safety programs should be doubled next year and doubled again the following year.

In each of the hearings, NHTSA?s budget and personnel expertise have been an issue. President Obama has budgeted an additional $5 million for the agency for next year, which Strickland and his boss, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, have said includes 66 new employees for NHTSA. But looking at the budget allocation, Claybrook says only 33 of those employees will be full time. Of those, 23 are budgeted to go to operations and research, 8 to rulemaking, and only four to enforcement, which would include defect investigations.

NHTSA has come under fire for closing too many investigations into unintended acceleration in Toyota products, citing a lack of resources.

Claybrook suggested a system in which any accident that involves death or injury, or where a car has to be towed away, would trigger the data from the car?s ?black box? event data recorder to be sent to NHTSA (sans consumer-identifying information) to help the agency spot trends and develop regulatory solutions.

Echoing concerns that Consumer Reports has raised, Claybrook said the agency?s complaint and early warning databases are much too difficult to use, and that NHTSA should have spent four to five times as much as it did to develop systems that would be more useful.

She also cited conflict of interest problems at the agency, and noted that the Ohio research facility that NHTSA uses to investigate defects is actually owned by Honda.

Dave McCurdy, president of the Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers and a former Congressman from Oklahoma, also testified. He supported giving NHTSA more resources to do accident investigations. He cited the dramatic drop in vehicle fatalities that NHTSA announced yesterday as a sign of progress for the industry. McCurdy noted that modern electronic systems, which some critics have blamed for the Toyota unintended acceleration cases, have actually improved safety overall. Mechanical systems, he said, do not allow the kinds of failsafe measures that electronics do. (Download McCurdy's testimony pdf.)

Consumer Reports agrees that electronic systems have helped bring dramatic safety improvements in cars. We are pleased that NHTSA is now looking into potential electronics issues behind the sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) events involving Toyotas. In addition, we feel a vital safety requirement is to ensure that a vehicle can stop within a reasonable and safe distance to be determined by NHTSA.

We have long advocated additional resources for NHTSA, as well as databases that are more publicly accessible. This would allow consumers and industry watchdogs to aid NHTSA in tracking problems that the country?s drivers are in the best position to identify.

Read: "Consumers Union calls for changes to strengthen U.S. car-safety net."

Watch the hearing on C-SPAN.

?Eric Evarts

Be sure to follow Consumer Reports Cars blog (RSS) and Twitter (@CRcars) to keep up with the latest information and advice, also see our unintended acceleration guide.

Related:
Consumers Union calls for changes to strengthen U.S. car-safety net
Toyota reportedly worked with feds to save $100 million in recalls
Eight things that can dramatically improve auto safety
Five key fixes automakers should make now to reduce unintended acceleration
Unintended acceleration stories wanted
How to tell if your Toyota is affected by the recent recalls
How to stop a runaway car: Don?t pump the brakes

2009 Honda Fit illustration
Photo: Honda

A recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found that new frontal air bags designed to meet the latest federal standards have not improved occupant protection and may have actually reduced protection for belted drivers compared with earlier-generation air bags. The results raise questions regarding the tests and how manufacturers have addressed the changes. While there are elements to be investigated further, it is key that passengers remain vigilant about wearing seat belts. Even with the reduced benefit suggested by the study, all occupants are better off belted.

Today?s air bags deploy with less force than they did when first implemented in vehicles. In the mid-1990s frontal air bags were so forceful that they sometimes injured and even killed people, mostly unrestrained or out-of-position children and small adults. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) then allowed automakers to depower the air bags, starting with 1998 models, and the result was a drop in air-bag related deaths. To certify their vehicles still met crash protection in these lowered powered air bags, most manufacturers opted to use a sled test instead of the rigid barrier test for unbelted dummies. For this test, a whole or partial vehicle is attached to a moving platform to simulate a crash. The maximum sled accelerations in this option were lower than what usually occur in crash tests, so air bags didn?t deploy as fast or with as much force in order to protect unbelted dummies. The vehicles that met this test standard were called sled-certified.

For 2003 models, NHTSA issued an advanced air bag rule that required air bag deployment to be modified to protect smaller occupants. A range of advanced technologies were adopted, including sensors for occupant weight, seat position, belt use, and dual-stage inflators to adjust deployment force for a variety of different sized people. Dummies representing smaller women and children were also added to test protocols.

Beginning with the 2007 model year, rigid barrier tests were reinstated for unbelted occupants and crash-test speeds were raised from 30 to 35 mph for belted male dummies and lowered from 30 mph to 25 mph for all unbelted passengers. At the time, moving the unbelted test down to 25 mph sparked intense debate among government and safety groups, including Consumers Union. In the end, NHTSA determined that a higher speed would result in greater inflation energy, which would increase the risk for unbelted passengers. The move to 35 mph for belted dummies occurred after the unbelted change and was phased gradually to 100 percent of vehicles required to comply by September 2009 in order to give manufacturers time to meet this protocol without making the air bags too aggressive. This change in the belted tests was partially a compromise to appease those who wanted a higher speed unbelted rule.

To find out the effects of these changes, the Institute compared death rates in all front crash fatalities regardless of speed for front-seat occupants in vehicles with the latest advanced air bags to the death rates for vehicles with the previous air bags lacking those features. The study found that the addition of the advanced features, such as those listed above, reduced the mortality rates by 16 and 17 percent for drivers and adult passengers, respectively.

So the new high-tech features worked. But when the study compared death rates between cars certified to the 2007 rigid barrier test standards and those that had advanced features but hadn?t been certified as meeting the new standard, they found that the earlier-vintage group did better. Drivers were found to have higher death rates in the certified-advanced vehicles, with belted drivers faring 21 percent worse than previously.

?This finding puzzles us because these drivers had otherwise done everything right in terms of buckling up,? says Institute President Adrian Lund. ?It suggests there might be potential problems with the way manufacturers are required to certify air bags as advanced because the technology introduced in vehicles during the sled-test era seems to work. But when the new standard is fully in effect we don?t see an improvement.? This result does not suggest that ?buckling up? is worse than going unbelted. The benefits of seatbelts have been well documented. It does mean that belted passengers may carry more injury risks than in some earlier-model cars.

The results may also draw into question, if manufacturers? designs are adequately meeting the requirements of the test, whether it?s possible that the need to protect unbelted occupants compromises the air bags? performance for belted drivers or that it?s possible that some cars were designed to meet the test rather than to create a positive benefit for all occupants. In the earlier sled test, manufacturers had more flexibility and were able to deviate to make sure they met the test. It could mean that manufacturers figured it out better than the regulators did.

With more than 80 percent of drivers now buckling their belts, it seems wrong that they may have been penalized to accommodate the minority who do not. However, crash test data shows that almost half of people who die in crashes are unbelted, so there is a need to protect those occupants. It remains an open question whether changing air bags is the way to do it, or whether the government and manufacturers look for more ways to improve seat-belt compliance.

If the government?s test itself is causing this effect, maybe it?s time to modify the test. But if the technology is out there that would provide better protection for belted drivers while still protecting the minority who don?t buckle up, then maybe it?s time to adopt that technology. If other research confirms the Insurance Institute?s findings, then this is an issue that NHTSA will need to address.

?Liza Barth, Gordon Hard , Jennifer Stockburger, Ami Gadhia, and Ellen Bloom

See our safety section for more on safety features and resources.

Yesterday, The Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection held a hearing entitled, "NHTSA Oversight: The Road Ahead," to examine the operations of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

David Strickland, Administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Joan Claybrook, Former Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Dave McCurdy, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and Ami Gadhia, Policy Counsel for Consumers Union (the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports) all testified on the role of NHTSA and their handling of recalls. Below is the spoken statement from Ami Gadhia who represented this organization. (See the full pdf version of the submitted testimony.)

The recent Toyota recalls involving sudden unintended acceleration have focused national attention on safety problems.

Consumers Union believes that addressing this formidable challenge demands a coordinated effort by the government, automakers, the public and independent consumer groups such as our own.

We recommend the following government actions to improve our auto safety net.

Consumers Union believes government regulators could have moved more aggressively to pursue sudden unintended acceleration and to protect consumers? safety. Various news reports and our own analysis of documents from the investigation point to a pattern of missed opportunities. NHTSA and Toyota were aware of unintended acceleration complaints involving Toyota models as early as 2003, when the agency received a petition to investigate the problem. We are pleased that NHTSA is now looking into potential electronics issues behind the events involving Toyotas, and we eagerly await the agency?s findings.

However, we believe that NHTSA can take actions now to improve safety. First, we would like to see improved public access to safety information. NHTSA?s Office of Defects Investigation collects complaints and data about autos from the public and manufacturers in two separate databases: the consumer complaints database and the agency?s Early Warning Reporting (EWR) system. But both have limitations and the data they provide are not integrated, making it more difficult for investigators to spot issues and for consumers to find information.

Consumers shouldn?t have to visit different sites to see all of this information, or be forced to search it using tools that are less than user-friendly. All complaint information should be visible via a single easy-to-use consumer-facing site.

NHTSA also should initiate a program to raise public awareness and invite more drivers to participate in data gathering. The more public complaints there are to analyze, the greater the chance that problems such as unintended acceleration will be identified at an early stage.

Second, NHTSA should promulgate certain safety regulations to prevent sudden unintended acceleration in all automobiles:

• They should require that cars be able to stop within a reasonable distance with a sustained press on the brake pedal, even when the throttle is fully open. One method to reduce stopping distances is ?smart throttle? technology that allows the brakes to override the throttle. Other methods may also become available. To us, the most important safety feature is to ensure that a vehicle can stop within a reasonable and safe distance.
• NHTSA should require simple, standard controls that can easily turn off the engine in an emergency. In many current Toyota vehicles, when the car is moving, it requires a sustained three-second push of the button to turn off the engine. Though that is a safety precaution to prevent accidental engine shut-off, it is an action many owners may not be able do in a panicked situation. Ignition controls should be easy to operate, especially in an emergency.
• NHTSA should require intuitive, clearly labeled transmission shifters in all new cars. If your car is accelerating out of control, hitting the brakes and shifting into Neutral is your best strategy. But you want to know where Neutral is when you are panicking! There should be greater consistency for shifters across all vehicles.
• NHTSA should require a minimum distance between the gas pedal and the floorboard. Floor mats that entrap pedals have been a major focus in recent recalls. But people frequently use thick or ill-fitting mats, or stack one mat atop the other. NHTSA should ensure that there is sufficient clearance between the pedal and the floor mat.

We also think that NHTSA's cap on civil penalties should be lifted to act as a deterrent against future violations, and that NHTSA could improve the recall compliance process. The average consumer response rate to vehicle recalls is 74.1 percent.

Currently, manufacturers notify dealers about recalls, and the dealers, in turn, notify car manufacturers when the cars are repaired in response to a safety recall.

CU suggests that going forward, car manufacturers submit such data to NHTSA. This information, which manufacturers already have, should include individual VINs of cars subject to a particular recall, as well as when the recall repairs were performed on the vehicles.

NHTSA would then be able to match up safety recalls with the manufacturer-provided VIN in a consumer-friendly, searchable database. We would further encourage states to consider linking safety recall compliance with the ability to obtain a vehicle registration--similar to the way consumers must show proof of insurance to register their cars now. This would help people who purchase used cars to know whether recall repairs have been made.

We also recommend that Congress take a look at the reports of a ?revolving door? at NHTSA, and whether this may have impacted safety decisions.

Finally, we urge Congress to adequately fund NHTSA. In 2007, motor-vehicle crashes accounted for 99 percent of all transportation-related fatalities and injuries. Yet NHTSA?s budget currently amounts to just over 1 percent of the overall Department of Transportation (DOT) budget.

The agency?s budget and staffing for auto-safety and consumer-protection functions should be commensurate with the realities of traffic safety.

Consumers Union thanks the Committee for the opportunity to present its recommendations as you move forward.

Traffic fatalities in 2009 reached the lowest level since 1954, according to preliminary statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The estimated toll for 2009 fell to 33,963 deaths, a drop of almost 9 percent from 2008?s tally of 37,261 deaths.

If the final numbers hold true, then 2009 will mark the fourth year in a row of declining traffic deaths on U.S. roads. Total deaths have been reduced even while the number of cars and drivers have increased. Miles traveled has stayed the same. That?s demonstrated by significant drops in the fatality rate, which looks at deaths per 100 million miles traveled. The fatality rate itself has also declined for years on end, dropping from 1.46 in 2005 to 1.16 in 2009. Full 2009 fatality statistics will be available this summer.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) attributes the reduction in deaths to the success of its high-visibility law-enforcement campaigns such as the ?Click It or Ticket? program aimed to increase seat belt use, which is now at its highest national level of 84 percent. NHTSA also credits its anti drunk-driving campaign, ?Over the Limit. Under arrest.? Other factors affecting the decline in fatalities are safer roads and vehicles, especially with vehicles increasingly equipped with electronic stability control and side-curtain air bags.

NHTSA says it will continue to focus on buckling up and drunk driving campaigns and on its more recent mission, distracted driving, which has emerged as a growing problem in recent years thanks to the rise of cell phones and text-messaging.

There is more that can be done. Consumer Reports recently cited eight things that can dramatically improve auto safety. In addition, parent organization Consumers Union has called for changes to strengthen U.S. car-safety net. And it is presenting many of these concepts today in Washington, D.C.

Consumer Reports Managing Editor, Autos, Jon Linkov recently spoke with Matt Lauer on the NBC Today Show, as shown in the embedded video, discussing the potential benefits of black boxes. He went on to describe the difficulties involved with accessing information from Toyota data recorders, including that there is just a single ?beta? laptop in America that can read the black box data. In contrast, many car companies use formats that can be more easily read by a tool manufactured by a third-party supplier.

Black boxes collect valuable information that can help manufacturers and investigators understand a number of vehicle parameters immediately before, during, and after an accident. These devices record such data as vehicle speed, throttle position, air-bag deployment, brake application, and safety belt usage. Consumers Union has called on manufacturers to make information from black boxes more immediately accessible to government investigators. Further, CU encourages all automakers to quickly adopt formats to enable swift information retrieval and dissemination to crash investigators.

For more information, read: ?Consumers Union calls for changes to strengthen U.S. car-safety net.?

Linkov had previously discussed black boxes with Fox News.

The Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection is holding a hearing entitled, "NHTSA Oversight: The Road Ahead," today to examine the operations of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Witnesses scheduled to testify include David Strickland, Administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Joan Claybrook, Former Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Dave McCurdy, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and Ami Gadhia, Policy Counsel for Consumers Union (the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports).

Below is the prepared testimony from Ami Gadhia speaking on behalf of this organization. (See the pdf version of the testimony.)

Chairman Rush, Ranking Member Whitfield, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the road ahead for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). I am Ami Gadhia, Policy Counsel with Consumers Union (CU), the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports.

The recent Toyota recalls involving sudden unintended acceleration have focused national attention on safety problems that are infrequent, but potentially fatal. Much of the ongoing debate and public outcry has centered on why these issues weren?t caught or properly acted upon earlier. But while the U.S. has arguably the best automotive safety net in the world, these types of problems can be hard to catch and difficult to diagnose ? in this case, with deadly consequences.

Consumers Union believes that addressing this formidable challenge demands a coordinated effort by the government, automakers, the public and independent consumer groups such as our own.

Below are recommendations that we would like to see implemented to improve our auto-safety system.

I. What the Government Can Do
The government is at the center of the nation?s auto-safety net and is one of the keys to catching new problems as early as possible.

Even given difficulties in identifying and diagnosing an issue like unintended acceleration, Consumers Union believes government regulators should have moved aggressively to pursue the issue and protect consumers? safety. Yet various news reports and our own analysis of documents from the investigation point to a pattern of missed opportunities. NHTSA and Toyota were aware of unintended acceleration complaints involving Toyota models as early as 2003, when the agency received a petition to investigate the problem. It took almost seven years for this safety issue to be more fully addressed with the current recalls of more than 7 million Toyotas. Consumers Union believes government regulators must be better prepared to spot and fully address similar safety issues going forward. We are pleased that NHTSA is now looking into potential electronics issues behind the sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) events involving Toyotas, and we look forward to the agency?s findings.

Our recommendations include:

• Improve public access to safety information: NHTSA?s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) collects complaints and data about autos from the public and manufacturers in two separate databases: the consumer complaints database and the agency?s Early Warning Reporting (EWR) system. But both have limitations and the data they provide are not integrated, making it more difficult for investigators to spot issues and consumers to find information.
  
  Public access to this information should be dramatically improved. Consumers shouldn?t have to visit different site sections to see all of this information, or be forced to search it using tools that are less than user-friendly. All complaint information should be visible via a single consumer-facing site. And this service must include intuitive tools that allow users to easily find information for particular models and compare vehicle safety records.
  
  We also recommend that NHTSA initiate a program to raise public awareness and invite more drivers to participate in data gathering. We believe many safety problems are not reported to NHTSA and that public participation in the complaints program clearly needs to be encouraged. Dealers should also be asked to contribute by educating new owners about the complaints program, and encouraging them to report problems. The more public complaints there are to analyze, the greater the chance that problems such as unintended acceleration will be identified at an early stage.
  
  
• Mandate specific safety changes in new cars: NHTSA should promulgate the following safety regulations to prevent sudden unintended acceleration in all automobiles:
  
  
  • Require cars to be able to stop within a reasonable distance, even with the throttle fully open. A sustained press on the brake pedal should allow the car to stop in a reasonable distance, even if the throttle is wide open. One method to reduce stopping distances is ?smart throttle? technology that allows the brakes to override the throttle. But other methods may be appropriate. To us, the most important safety feature is to ensure that a vehicle can stop within a reasonable and safe distance to be determined by NHTSA.
  • Require simple, standard controls that can easily turn off the engine in an emergency. In many current Toyota vehicles, for instance, the engine is shut off with a single press of the button when parked, but when the car is moving it requires a sustained three-second push. Though that is a safety precaution to prevent accidental engine shut-off, it is an action many owners may not know and--particularly in a panicked situation--may be unable to do. Recently, Toyota announced that it will change how its start-stop ignition button operates to improve ease of use. Ignition controls including push buttons should provide immediately intuitive operation in the event of an emergency.
  • Mandate intuitive, clearly labeled transmission shifters in all new cars. If your car is accelerating out of control, hitting the brakes and shifting into Neutral is your best strategy. The advent of gated and electronic shifters can make finding Neutral difficult if the driver is in a panic. Shifters should be designed so that a driver can quickly identify the Neutral position and easily shift gears to regain control.
  • Require a minimum distance between the gas pedal and the floorboard. Floor mats that entrapped throttle pedals have been a major focus in recent recalls. People frequently use thick all-weather floor-mats, ill-fitting mats, or stack one mat atop the other. Simply allowing for sufficient clearance between the pedal and the floor mat, no matter what position the pedal is in, will reduce the risk of pedal entrapment.


• Remove NHTSA's cap on civil penalties: NHTSA has the authority to seek civil penalties from automakers and suppliers for a variety of violations. If agency officials determine that a company violated such statutory obligations, the company can be fined up to a maximum of $16.4 million in civil penalties. This amount might be considered by a large, multi-billion dollar manufacturer as just the ?cost of doing business.? We recommend removing this cap on civil penalties to act as a deterrent for future violations of the law.
• Improve the recall compliance process: According to NHTSA, the average consumer response rate to vehicle recalls is 74.1 percent. We are also concerned that when consumers purchase used cars, they may have no way of knowing whether the vehicle has had all recall-related repairs performed. Further complicating the process, not every model year of a particular vehicle is subject to recall; sometimes, only a range of vehicle identification numbers (VINs) is recalled. For example, only cars with a component manufactured at a certain facility, or during certain months, are at issue. But for the safety of all drivers on the road, it is important that recall repairs are made. Car manufacturers monitor the recall and repair process. Manufacturers notify dealers about recalls, and the dealers, in turn, notify car manufacturers when the cars are repaired in response to a safety recall.
  
  CU suggests that going forward, car manufacturers submit to NHTSA in a timely manner the individual VINs of cars subject to a recall as well as information when the recall repairs have been performed on the vehicles.
  
  NHTSA would then be able to match up safety recalls with the manufacturer-provided VIN numbers in a consumer-friendly, searchable database. The consumer would be able to enter a VIN number to check for any applicable recalls without waiting days or weeks for the recall letter to arrive from the manufacturer. (We envision this system as supplementing, not supplanting, direct consumer notification by, e.g., letter from the manufacturer.) Purchasers of used cars could also check to see whether the car they are buying has any outstanding recalls. We would further encourage states to consider linking safety recall compliance with the ability to obtain a vehicle registration--similar to the way consumer must show proof of insurance to register their cars now.
  
  And as a final note on privacy, we do not believe any personal information should be stored with VIN numbers in NHTSA?s database; we simply urge that a method be established by which consumers can check to see if a specific vehicle is subject to a safety recall and, of special value to used car purchasers, learn whether the recall repair has been performed.
• Give NHTSA more resources: Consumers Union believes NHTSA is in need of additional funding and staff. In 2007, motor-vehicle crashes accounted for 99 percent of all transportation-related fatalities and injuries. Yet NHTSA?s budget currently amounts to just over 1 percent of the overall Department of Transportation (DOT) budget.
  
  The need for additional funding support will be even more imperative if NHTSA proceeds with the recommendations outlined above, which could put more pressure on agency resources. It is important to make sure that the agency?s budget and staffing for auto-safety and consumer-protection functions is commensurate with the realities of traffic safety and can keep up with the agency?s other priorities. We are also concerned about reports that former NHTSA employees have gone to work for the companies that they once regulated and that this may have impacted safety decisions.4 We urge Congress to examine this issue and the loopholes in current government ethics rules, and to consider additional ways to stop the ?revolving door? at NHTSA and other federal agencies.

1. Auto Manufacturers
   First and foremost, vehicles should be well designed from a safety perspective, with modern safety features and good crash-test results. In addition, automakers receive a steady stream of feedback on service and safety problems, directly from dealers, through warranty claims, from complaints made directly to the automaker, and other sources. This information is critical to identifying and resolving issues ? and to alerting dealers, the government and consumers to issues and fixes. But Consumers Union believes manufacturers should go above and beyond when designing for safety, even when not mandated by specific government regulations. Many advanced safety features ? including electronic stability control - are not currently offered on some budget cars. Young families and teenagers are often driving vehicles that are the last to get what we consider to be basic and essential safety features. We call on manufacturers to make all safety features standard on all cars. We also call on manufacturers to end the practice of packaging critical safety options with luxurious amenities that people prefer not to purchase. For instance, if buyers are interested in electronic stability control for their Honda Civic, they are required to equip the car with leather and heated seats--at thousands of dollars in extra cost.
   
   Regarding information sharing, manufacturers are required by the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability, and Documentation (TREAD) Act to report select information to NHTSA. That information is given to NHTSA via the EWR system. But only the tallies for fatalities, injuries and property damage and production numbers are currently made public under the EWR system; consumer complaints to the manufacturer are currently kept confidential. We believe consumer complaint numbers submitted by manufacturers to NHTSA under the EWR system should also be made public by NHTSA and should be easily searchable, as described in Section I.
   
   We also call on manufacturers to make information from black box recording devices more immediately accessible to government investigators. Most new passenger vehicles are equipped with Event Data Recorders (EDRs), often referred to as black boxes, which record such data as vehicle speed, throttle position, air-bag deployment, brake application, and safety belt usage. These data can help police and accident investigators reconstruct what happened in a crash. But it can be difficult for carmakers and investigators to easily access this information. Toyota, for instance, has only limited proprietary data retrieval tools for their black boxes. Other companies use formats that can be easily read by commercial tools. We encourage all automakers to quickly adopt formats to enable swift information retrieval and dissemination to crash investigators.
   
   EDR information must also be standardized and expanded--and much of it will be, based on a 2006 mandate from NHTSA that defines detailed monitoring requirements for EDRs, including which systems should be recorded and for how long. These standards must be implemented in EDRs that are installed in the 2013 model-year cars. We encourage carmakers to apply these monitoring standards to their vehicles as soon as possible, with the appropriate privacy controls.


2. What Consumers Can Do
   Data from the field?actual owner experiences?is a key component to unearthing defects and safety-related faults. Consumers drive cars on a daily basis, under all sorts of conditions, and are arguably our best real-world automotive testers. As drivers put cars through these daily stresses, and issues arise, they can act as an important early alert system simply by registering complaints and issues with government databases and manufacturers. Indeed signs of possible sudden unintended acceleration issues were reported to NHTSA as early as 2003.
   
   These safety databases are only as good as the data they contain. And active contributions from consumers seem to be lagging. NHTSA gathers a modest 30,000-plus complaints each year; compared to the number of people who drive (the Department of Transportation says 203 million people were licensed in 2006) many incidents are likely going unreported.
   
   We therefore encourage consumers to report major safety problems both to NHTSA and to the car?s manufacturer. Consumers need not report squeaks and rattles, or parts that normally wear like brakes and mufflers. But if the brakes totally fail suddenly, if the car races out of control, catches fire, or the steering fails, they should take action and let NHTSA know about it. By reporting their information to the agency, they can ensure it becomes part of the public record. Whether reporting a complaint to a dealer, an automaker, or NHTSA, we urge consumers to accurately state their car?s VIN. The information in this number can help experts isolate a problem that is common to, say, a specific assembly plant or to vehicles built in a certain period of time.
   
   Consumers also have a critical safety role to play in ensuring that potentially unsafe recalled vehicles are fixed in a timely way. As noted above, according to NHTSA, the average consumer response rate to vehicle recalls is 74.1 percent. The response rate is low in part because manufacturer recall letters may not reach all affected owners, including those who have changed their mailing address or those who have bought used cars. But owners who have been notified could do more to make sure recall fixes are implemented in more vehicles. We also have recommendations for improvements to the recalls process, described above in Section I.


3. What Consumer Reports Will Do
   Consumer Reports? role in the marketplace is to evaluate product performance and provide detailed Ratings and reliability information to help car buyers choose the best vehicle. Our Ratings, evaluations and recommendations are based on extensive vehicle testing and on reliability data on more than 1.4 million vehicles. Our formal testing is done at our Auto Test Center track in Connecticut and on surrounding public roads, and our testers put thousands of miles on each vehicle over a typical six-month period.
   
   Safety is a major focus of our testing. We evaluate vehicles? braking capabilities on both dry and wet surfaces and perform a number of tests to see how vehicles handle at their limits. We combine our test results with crash-test scores from NHTSA and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) to produce our overall safety Ratings. In our reliability survey, we ask for detailed information on problems that subscribers have experienced in 17 different areas, making it the most comprehensive survey of its kind.
   
   Given our rigorous testing and survey process, why didn?t we spot the sudden acceleration issues with Toyota or in any other vehicles? First, we didn?t encounter any issues with either floor-mat entrapment or a sticking accelerator pedal in any of the Toyotas we?ve tested. These episodes are too rare to show up in our standard testing. And they did not surface as an issue in our annual reliability survey. Had we noticed a problem in our testing, we would have contacted the company immediately, as we did when we experienced a perceived brake failure in our Ford Fusion Hybrid.
   
   Going forward we will broaden the scope of safety information on our site in as many of these areas as is practical, beginning with recall information. Consumers should not learn of safety related problems via news reports, only to wait weeks for notification by mail of a recall. Communicating recall information to consumers is currently the manufacturer?s responsibility. But we will support these efforts by publicizing recall information on our Web site and possibly other venues.
   
   NHTSA is our main safety watchdog, and we will continue to rely on the agency as our first line of defense. A more accessible NHTSA database (based on some changes we are recommending for the government) will also allow Consumer Reports to more thoroughly analyze and publish analysis of consumer complaints. If we were able to more fully mine the database, Consumer Reports and other independent groups like ours could do more to support NHTSA by flagging any spikes we see in problems with specific vehicles. Such information would be useful for car owners and buyers, as well as the agency and automakers.
   
   We will make additional efforts to gather information about our subscribers? experiences with recalls. We will be gathering this information for all vehicles, not just Toyotas. We?ll ask our more than five million subscribers to tell us if their car had a recall in the last year. We?ll also ask them about the specifics of handling the recall, including how they first heard about it (from news reports, a letter from the manufacturer, or a letter from the dealer); whether they took their car in to be fixed; and how long it took to complete the fix. We will share our findings with consumers, government regulators and other groups that might find it useful.

The latest projection by the U.S. Energy Information Agency forecasts that by 2035, almost half of the cars sold in the United States will be alternative-fuel vehicles. That includes: diesel, flex-fuel, hybrid, plug-in hybrid electric, pure electric, natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, and fuel-cell vehicles. Most of those sales will be hybrids, according to the forecast. In 2008, alternative-fuel vehicles constituted only 13 percent of overall sales, led by conventional (non-plug-in) hybrids.

Today, automakers are looking to introduce the next wave of alternative-fuel cars, required by the upcoming CAFE standards that will raise average fuel economy requirements to 35.5 mph by 2016. With these improvements in fuel economy, gasoline cars will continue to make up 51 percent of the car market in 2035, but consumers looking to reduce their environmental footprint will have more choices.

Currently, the Prius is the most popular hybrid and no other has come close to beating it in sales, but recent new offerings such as the Ford Fusion hybrid are strong alternatives. (Currently, hybrids comprise 2.7 percent of vehicle sales.) Besides Ford, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota, more and more automakers are looking to join in the hybrid market. Hyundai will unveil a hybrid version of the redesigned Sonata at the upcoming New York Auto Show and Porsche will display their Cayenne hybrid. Subaru showed its Hybrid Tourer Concept in Los Angeles last fall, and Volkswagen displayed its New Compact Coupe hybrid earlier in the year in Detroit.

Besides hybrids, electric vehicles are gaining momentum. The Nissan Leaf is set to go on sale in December. The Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle is also scheduled to arrive at dealerships at the same time. A Chinese-built small sedan, marketed by California start-up Coda may roll out at the same time, as well. Another Chinese automaker, BYD, made bold promises to launch its E6 electric multi-purpose vehicle this calendar year, starting out West. The Mitsubishi iMiev is slated to go on sale sometime in 2011.

While the EIA projections to 2035 look possible, they are uncertain. A number of factors such as innovations in technology, government emissions policies, incentives to consumers to adopt alternative fuels, gas prices, and consumer preferences will determine the future mix of vehicle sales.

1. Brake firmly. Do not pump the brakes. Do not turn off the engine yet, because doing so would disable the power assist for your steering and brakes.
2. Shift the transmission into Neutral. Don't worry if the engine revs up alarmingly - most modern cars have rev-limiters to protect it, and this move will put you in back in control of your vehicle.
3. Steer to a safe location and come to a full stop.
4. Shut off the engine with the transmission still in Neutral.
5. Finally, shift the transmission into Park or, with a manual transmission, set the emergency brake. Then breathe deep and call for help. Do not attempt to drive the car.

Download a PDF of our advice.

?Jeff Bartlett

Be sure to follow Consumer Reports Cars blog (RSS) and Twitter (@CRcars) to keep up with the latest information and advice, also see our unintended acceleration guide.

Related:
Consumers Union calls for changes to strengthen U.S. car-safety net
Toyota reportedly worked with feds to save $100 million in recalls
Eight things that can dramatically improve auto safety
Five key fixes automakers should make now to reduce unintended acceleration
Unintended acceleration stories wanted
How to tell if your Toyota is affected by the recent recalls
How to stop a runaway car: Don?t pump the brakes

There has been too much confusion this week related to Toyota recalls. With the reporting on the second-generation Toyota Prius high-speed unintended acceleration event near San Diego Monday, many reports suggested that Toyota was issuing a new recall of the Prius. However, the 2004-2009 Prius was already included in the floor mat entrapment recall announced in November, 2009. And the floor mat was not thought to be a factor in the San Diego incident, nor one that occurred in New York on Tuesday, involving a woman driving a Prius into a stone wall.

Since many motorists have confusion about the current recalls, we have itemized them in the chart below. It indicates all Toyota vehicles affected by both sticking accelerator and floor mat entrapment recalls.

All 2005-2010 Avalons and 2007-2010 Tundras and some 2008-2010 Camrys are involved in both recalls.

Regardless of whether your vehicle falls under one or both recalls, Toyota says you can go ahead and drive it. Watch for a recall notice in the mail, and when it arrives, take your vehicle in to have the appropriate service performed. In the meantime, remove your floor mats, keep an eye out for a sticky accelerator pedal, and be sure you know how to stop a runaway vehicle by firmly applying the brakes and shifting to neutral.

For more information on the Toyota recalls, see our unintended acceleration guide.

You can also check Toyota.com/recalls to confirm the recall status for your vehicle.