Each year the Automotive News Pace Awards reward innovation in the automotive supply chain.

This year, three of the 12 awards focused on parking and backing up. 

While I have used a lot of the new technology for parking, I have yet to see anything this comprehensive. But, I admit, I feel a bit worried about the future of my teenagers. With all this hi-tech stuff will they be able to park in a pinch, I asked Dr. Bill Sharfman, Director of Judging for the Pace Awards.

 “There is no substitute for learning how to operate your car properly,” he stressed. 
However, he explained that these innovations will lead to a safer, less anxiety provoking and more confident driving experience.

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A few weeks ago, racing and sport seat specialist, Recaro, sent us two of its latest child safety seats to try. While Bryn's toddler has been spending time in the Como Convertible toddler seat, my 45-pound, seven-year-old daughter is the perfect size to road-test Recaro's Vivo high-back booster.

The Vivo, designed for children 3-12 years, 30-100 lbs, retails for $99.99, and provides ultra-thick side bolstering and head protection wings, as well as a height-adjustable back and washable micro-fiber and velveteen cover.

We plan to try the Recaro Vivo in a variety of test cars and monitor its ease of installation, along with comfort commentary from the Peanut Gallery.

It appears Emma is looking forward to the test. Maybe next time she'll actually allow us to install the seat in the car before she hops in.

NHTSA's done a lot of good work under Chief Nicole Nason, about whom we wrote only weeks ago. Here's another new annoucement  that The Driving Woman is applauding: At NHTSA's consumer site, Safercar.gov,  you now can signup for automatic e-mail alerts if the government recalls tires or child safety seats.

This is great news, because so many people miss these recall notices. (More than a few lives would have been saved a few years back if everyone riding on Firestone tires had known about the recall.) According to Consumer Reports, the agency plans to extend the automatic e-mail notification service to passenger-car recalls in the future.

Lest you be concerned about too much spam, there are only about 20 tire recalls and 8 car seat recalls per year, so it's not overwhelming. And you can get the notification via email or RSS feed. So if you don't already know, determine what kind of tires you have and go sign up! 

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety just released its crash tests of 2008 midsize sedans. Hopefully you can read the graphic above.

The bottom line: All the cars were significantly improved over the IIHS test done in 2004. The attribute the difference to stronger side pillars and side and head cushion airbags. Notice the column for standard vs. optional stability control on the right.

Rear crash protection is still all over the board, as some of the seats have active head restraints and some do not.

The under approach...

..so to continue the discussion from yesterday on how to hold a steering wheel, in my google search I came up with the JD Power article titled Steering for Optimal Control.

The JD Power piece supports the low riders. As quoted; ”The current recommendation for hand placement (if you imagine your steering wheel is a clock) is anywhere between 7 o'clock and 9 o'clock for your left hand and between 3 o'clock and 5 o'clock for your right hand. Although it may feel strange to have your hands so low on the steering wheel, this actually provides better control than the "10 and 2" method.

I asked Dan Edmunds, Director of Vehicle Testing at Edmunds Inc. (no relation to Edmunds), for his opinion. He pointed to a line in the article that states, "A lower hand position (8 and 4 or 7 and 5) makes it less likely that you will overcorrect during an emergency maneuver, which is what often causes spins, slides, and rollovers."
 
His take? "This line of reasoning is an outgrowth of the popularity of SUVs. Since high CG [center of gravity] vehicles like these don't handle well in emergency maneuvers and are the source of most of the rollovers they allude to, this improper hand position is being advocated to compensate. You can't input very much when holding the wheel in this way--so you can't roll the thing over--or so goes the reasoning. They're trying to dull someone's natural reactions."
 
Furthermore, Edmunds says this theory is not taking into account the fact that stability control systems are becoming standard on SUVs (to pass the government rollover test) and will be required on all vehicles in a couple of years.

"Overcorrecting isn't an issue with stability control-equipped vehicles, so this advice seems directed at older SUVs," he said. "I agree that 12 or 6 is bad, bad, bad, but 7 and 5 is nearly the same as 6. I can't follow the logic on this one."

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Recaro, the company that has been designing racing and sport seats for race teams and carmakers around the world for decades, added five new models to its child safety seat lineup this year (here), and we were able to secure one of the new seats to put through our battery of real-world test scenarios (read: I’m using it as my primary car seat in Edmunds long-term vehicles to shuttle my toddler around for a while).

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Since y'all were so helpful in Michelle's quest for a new car, which resulted in her happy purchase of a 2008 Scion xD, I thought I'd ask for your input for my next purchase. The lease on my 2005 Toyota Highlander is up in July. Once I crunch the numbers, it may turn out that buying out the lease is a good idea, but in the meantime, I want to consider other contenders.

My most important criteria:  seating for 6 or more (for carpool when necessary), safety (good crash test scores, side curtain airbags, stability control), and a low price. After that, I'd like to consider gas mileage and emissions. This car doesn't get a whole lot of use because I have a short commute. My other car is a 2002 Honda Odyssey.

Thing is, working as the senior features editor for Edmunds is sort of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I see the new cars that come out, and so naturally lust after the latest/greatest. If I had unlimited funds, for example, I could easily go for a Mazda CX-9 or GMC Acadia, though that would mean I'd have to sell my Odyssey. (No need for two large cars in the family.)

On the other hand, I tell readers all the time that buying a car that's a year or two old will save them tons of money. Since funds are tight right now, I want to "walk the walk" and focus on what I really need, not what I really want. (I'd also like a sunroof, steering wheel audio controls, and leather, but when you're in the used car market, you can't custom order.)

So, right now, my list consists of all 2007 models: Kia Rondo, Mitsubishi Outlook, RAV4. They all have pros and cons, and I'd like to know if any of you have experience with them, or if you have something else to suggest.

I'll give you progress reports on my hunt. If it works out well, I'll even write an article about it for the site.

Have at it!

-- Joanne

NHTSA's tests a vehicle's roof strength with a special crush test.  

I came across this excellent article about a new IIHS crash test report on SUVs in USA Today. Here's an excerpt:

"Now comes a sobering conclusion in a report to be released Wednesday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety that suggests safety advocates and plaintiff's lawyers have been correct all along. It concludes that more than 200 deaths could have been prevented in rollovers in 2006 if just a few more SUVs had roofs as strong as the best one it tested.

The institute's conclusion is a stinging rebuke of the automakers' longstanding position. It also amounts to a rejection of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's go-slow approach. NHTSA hasn't upgraded its standard for roof strength since 1971, despite a surge in the sale of SUVs, which are more than twice as likely as cars to roll over. NHTSA estimates that a plan it's finalizing to upgrade its standard would save only 13 to 44 lives a year."

While it initially sounds as though stronger roof standards might be a foregone conclusion, O'Donnell (who also writes on auto safety for Edmunds.com) and colleague Carty assembled a very well-balanced story that features both points of view: the automakers' and the safety advocates' (which includes some consumers). The article features the survey results (Nissan Xterra had the strongest roof, by the way), plus pictures and explanations, USA Today style.

Since the Driving Woman has readers that come down on both sides of the safety debate (vociferously, I might add), I'm curious to hear opionions, preferably after you read the article.

I’ve been sitting here staring at my monitor in stunned silence for a while now. The more I delve into the stories behind the bill that President Bush signed into law yesterday, the more overwhelmed I become. They’re stories of anguished parents who’ve had to cope with the death of their son or daughter when the child was backed over after he or she happened to walk into the colossal blind zones modern vehicles often have. Hearing how often a small child is injured (48 times a week) or killed (2 times a week) in this way in the U.S. is astonishing (and the numbers seem to be growing). Seeing how easily the worst can happen, despite parents and other drivers acting responsibly, is terrifying. Thankfully, child safety advocacy groups have worked together with government officials to make a change.

The law is called the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act of 2007, and it is named for a 2-year-old little boy who died after being accidentally backed over by his father in their driveway. The bill -- which was co-sponsored by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and had passed unanimously in both houses of Congress before landing on the president’s desk -- addresses the three biggest preventable causes of vehicular injury and death among small children (usually 2 years old and younger) due to non-traffic related incidents:

    
• backovers caused by large blind zones
      
• power window injuries
      
• runaway vehicles accidentally put into gear

According to the new law, governmental safety standards will be put in place (or be studied and decided upon within a certain time frame) requiring that automotive manufacturers install safety technologies which can prevent accidents like these, such as rearview cameras and/or rear proximity sensors, automatic retracting power windows and door panels (all of which are currently available as either standard or optional equipment on many makes and models). The law also requires the establishment of a database of non-traffic-related injuries and deaths, which are currently not tracked, and which safety advocates say probably occur with much higher frequency than estimated.

These measures can go a long way toward keeping the little children in our communities safer. Kudos to the many people who worked so hard to make it happen.

Read more about the legislation and the stories of the families who turned their personal pain into positive change here.

Nissan Murano trumps the tests!

This week the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released new crash test results for nine 2008 and 2009 model SUVs.  

The best overall performer is the 2009 Nissan Murano earning Top Safety Pick designation on good ratings for front, side and rear crash protection as well as standard stability control.  The Kia Sorento earned the lowest rating of poor for side impact protection, even with standard side airbags. The Jeep Liberty and Jeep Wrangler were rated marginal in the side test. And the biggest surpise? The Hummer H3 didn’t get a good rating for frontal or side crash protection and it’s rated poor for rear crash protection. 

The good news?  SUV safety is improving. In 2001 only half of the midsize models tested earned good ratings in the frontal offset test. In the latest evaluations, all but the Hummer H3 do and it earns an acceptable rating.

Apparently manufacturers are listening. More of the new SUVs are qualifying for TOP SAFETY PICK by earning good ratings in all three tests and having electronic stability control (ESC) which was added as a criterion for the 2007 model year.

The ESC is a sensory control system with a microcomputer that continuously monitors how well a vehicle responds to a driver’s steering input. ESC applies the brakes and adjusts the engine power to keep the vehicle traveling along the path indicated by the steering wheel position.

Institute research indicates that ESC reduces the risk of fatal single-vehicle crashes by 56 percent and fatal multiple-vehicle crashes by 32 percent. This feature also reduces the risk of fatal single-vehicle rollovers by 80 percent (SUVs) and 77 percent (cars).

“Combined with test results released last year, consumers now have 9 midsize, moderately priced SUV models that earn our TOP SAFETY PICK designation,” says Institute senior vice president Joe Nolan.

“Manufacturers have been moving quickly to add safety features like stability control and side airbags to their SUV models.”

I can hear the collective sigh out there. Any thoughts?