American Safety=European Safety
According to an article on MSNBC.com, it isn’t an easy 1, 2, 3 to put a European car on the roads here in the United States. The safety regulations are so much different. So for instance, Ford wants to bring their fuel efficient cars that have been selling for years in Europe to the United States, where fuel efficient cars are a must for most these days. Well, it’s more than just selling them here in the United States. Things like the color of the rear turn signals need to be changed and the position of the crash dummies for testing. These are just a few of the necessary changes that have to be changed to meet the U.S. safety standards compared to the European safety standards. Because of these changes that have to be made, it is taking alot longer for European model cars to be made and sold here in the U.S.
The safety standards are so different too. For instance, in the U.S., there is a test to see how well the bumper handles a crash, whereas a similar test is done in Europe by hitting a pedestrian to see how much damage is done to the person. ”The bumper to absorb energy to reduce the risk of injury is not the kind of bumper system you would design to help protect the vehicle,” says Jim Vondale of the Ford safety office. The goal of these automakers is to have a set of global regulations from 40 countries in order to avoid having to worry about individual standards from each country. That sounds like a good idea to me, because all safety regulations should be the same, and the colors of turn signals and such be the same as well. This would make driving in different countries much easier for people, and this would be easier and less expensive for automakers and in turn hopefully cheaper for the customer.