Even bonafide defects don't "cause" accidents. "Whether it's a defect or a child darting into the road, most crashes occur because drivers don't leave an adequate safety margin" says
Leonard Evans, author of the book
"Traffic Safety." In one of those two Toyota accidents, the driver went 20 miles without putting the car into neutral, pushing the ignition button, or glancing down to see there was a mat wedged under his accelerator. He ultimately slammed into another vehicle, incinerating its occupant.
Evans bemoans what he calls "the lethal American obsession with technical flaws." Indeed, a 1985
Federal Highway Administration study found only 2 percent of accidents were entirely related to the vehicle factors, while 12 percent could at least partly be blamed on the vehicle. Meanwhile 57 percent were due solely to driver error and 93 percent involved driver error. Since then, dozens of new safety improvements have been added to vehicles.
Because of these new features, along with roadway improvements and increased seat belt usage, American auto fatalities have steadily declined since the 1960s. But the rate has been agonizingly slow compared to that of other industrialized nations. That's why in 1970 the U.S. had the
lowest fatality rate per miles driven, but by 2008 it was
12th and it's sinking still.
While comparable countries have seen vehicle deaths fall almost 60 percent since 1979, the U.S. rate has been less than half theirs. (See chart.) Had it been the same, 21,000 fewer Americans would have suffered violent deaths last year.
| Country | 1979 Vehicle Fatalities | 2008 Vehicle Fatalities | Percent Decline |
| United States | 51,093 | 37,261 | 27.1 |
| United Kingdom | 6,532 | 3,707 | 58.4 |
| Canada | 5,863 | 2,371 | 59.6 |
| Australia | 3,508 | 1,466 | 58.2 |
Sources: International Traffic Safety Data & Analyses Group,
IRTAD Road Safety 2009; Leonard Evans,
Traffic Safety, 2004
And here's the truly horrifying realization. America's slow-motion progress since 1979 has cost over 300,000 lives -- over 55 times the number of Americans who have died in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
There can and will be more safety improvements in cars. But both compassion and common sense dictate that we concentrate on the
greatest cause of accidents, not the
least. We must focus on the drivers, not the cars. Yet aside from the
Mothers Against Drunk Driving campaigns, Americans are loathe to address the real problem of highway carnage.
Evans says overemphasis on vehicle safety has directly led to understating the importance of driver safety. He traces the trend to Ralph Nader and his 1965 book,
"Unsafe at Any Speed." Les Jackson, an
automotive writer and talk show host with degrees in mechanical engineering and physics, agrees. But he says there's lots more to it.
"In the U.S. driving is considered a right, not a privilege," says Jackson. You walk into the DMV, take a ridiculously easy test, have your photo taken, and plop down a few bucks. We may as well use vending machines.
Germany, conversely, requires a minimum of 25-45 hours of professional instruction plus 12 hours of theory. "Americans only learn how to operate cars, not how to drive them," Jackson says.
"There's strong resistance to tough enforcement of traffic safety laws," adds Russ Rader of the
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. He says it's related to the attitude in
driver surveys of Americans that repeatedly show about 90 percent of Americans rank themselves as above average -- and that's not just in Lake Woebegone. "Traffic offenders never believe they're the problem," says Rader. "'It's all those other 'idiots.' So why I should I be forced to obey traffic laws that inconvenience me?'"
And the problem may be getting worse.
According to a new Washington Post poll, "Fully 80 percent of area adults often see distracted driving, with reports of such behavior surging in the past five years." More than two-thirds said they often witness overly aggressive driving. Yet only one in eight considered
his driving too aggressive. And while almost everyone polled said sending or reading texts or e-mails while driving should be illegal, nearly a fourth of respondents said they do so.
Yet in our obsession with machine over man, all we can think of is ever more vehicle safety improvements. Thus in response to the Toyota flap the Obama Administration is
considering making mandatory the installation of
break override systems -- software that cuts the throttle when the brake is applied.
"I think break override systems are a good idea," says
Dan Edmunds, automotive testing director of the leading car authority Edmunds.com. But they "will do nothing at all if the driver steps on the wrong pedal entirely," which he thinks is behind a huge number of SUA complaints against Toyota as well as all other car makers. That proved to be the case for the
Audi 5000 in the 1980s, as well as for many vehicles investigated for SUA complaints, including
GM cars in the 1990s, and
as I've written there's evidence it's a major factor with Toyotas.
Indeed, Volkswagen-Audi on a per vehicle basis had the most speed control complaints for the last two model years and their cars have had the systems for years. Honda-Acura, meanwhile, has had a tenth the number of such complaints as VW-Audi and makes no use of the systems.
Meanwhile, in
congressional hearings in February, during which Toyota's CEO was grilled like charred steak, not one congressmen referred to driver error.
Unfortunately, all the incentives are to keep blaming car makers. That's whether you're Ralph Nader, the Secretary of Transportation, a congressmen, organizations like the Center for Auto Safety (Note: Not "Driving Safety"), trial lawyers, or reporters who find accusing car companies to be a lot sexier than driver error.
Various groups like Rader's, AAA, and the American Safety Council do talk about driver error, but until there's an equivalent of an activist group like MADD for drivers generally, probably nothing will get done. That's because it's human nature to be terrified of new and allegedly mysterious risks, even as we've made peace with the old ones. But with corpses piling up at 100 a day, this peace treaty must end.
