Would safety really matter as much if the government didn't push for it?
I know I came across this story a while ago, and the same car sold outside the US ended up being a lot less safe: http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda...-mexico-and-u-s
In cases like that, where the manufacturer appears to have $ instead of driver safety in mind, it doesn't seem too awful to have the govt. set the bar. Even the Chevy mentioned there, for a $2000 option, only has 1/5 the airbags of the US model. I'd imagine people here would choose the cheaper option without airbags to save some scratch at least some of the time if they had it, and we'd experience more crash fatalities than we used to as a result of it, but it's s bit of a stretch to me to imagine the scenario of optional safety features at this point since safety requirements have driven innovation in that area for as long as they have here.
--Matt
I know I came across this story a while ago, and the same car sold outside the US ended up being a lot less safe: http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda...-mexico-and-u-s
In cases like that, where the manufacturer appears to have $ instead of driver safety in mind, it doesn't seem too awful to have the govt. set the bar. Even the Chevy mentioned there, for a $2000 option, only has 1/5 the airbags of the US model. I'd imagine people here would choose the cheaper option without airbags to save some scratch at least some of the time if they had it, and we'd experience more crash fatalities than we used to as a result of it, but it's s bit of a stretch to me to imagine the scenario of optional safety features at this point since safety requirements have driven innovation in that area for as long as they have here.
--Matt