Trends

Pea's Abs Message: Stomp And SteerIn an effort to quash the anti-lock-brake controversy, Secretary of Transportation Federico Pea roared down an improvised track at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. The track was split down the center, with one side dry pavement and the other water-soaked plastic. Four-time Indy winner Al Unser sat shotgun and barked instructions as Pea ran the course twice in a Cadillac Seville, once with the ABS working and once with it disabled. Without ABS, a rather wild-eyed Pea threw himself into a smoking 180. With ABS he was able to hold a straight line in the panic stop. The graphic demonstration was a joint effort by the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the National Automobile Dealers Association (N.A.D.A.), the American Coalition for Traffic Safety, and the Robert Bosch Corporation, a supplier of anti-lock braking systems, to show the safety advantages of ABS and address some myths about the system.

Last fall, NHTSA halted rules-making on ABS when accident records showed a sharp jump in "run-off-the-road, single-car crashes" in vehicles equipped with ABS systems. NHTSA simulator studies of drivers in a panic stop where ABS is activated show that many drivers react to the pulsing of the brake pedal by releasing pressure on the brakes. Another six-month police study cited by NHTSA Administrator Dr. Ricardo Martinez showed that drivers often hit the brakes and then oversteer into a crash. NHTSA is continuing its ABS studies but, in the meantime, the "Stomp and Steer" message is an attempt to get U.S. drivers over the hump of a new technology.

According to a recent study by the American Automobile Association, less than half of all drivers of ABS-equipped vehicles know how to use the system. Joe Barruso, an engineering vice president with Bosch Corporation, explained that the optimum braking situation is just before the wheels lock up; the ABS system keeps all four wheels working at that optimum. The pulsations you feel in the brake pedal when the system is engaged means its is doing its job. To keep the system on, you must "stomp" and hold the pressure. However, he cautioned, ABS isn't a license to drive more aggressively. "ABS does improve the performance of the vehicle, but we can't change the laws of physics."

N.A.D.A. is cooperating with NHTSA by encouraging dealerships to instruct buyers on new vehicle safety equipment at the point of sale. They issued a guide that informs dealers on how to demonstrate the proper use and benefits of ABS during test drives. There are 15 million ABS-equipped cars on the road, and in the last model year, half of the cars sold had ABS.

Car Theft $7.5 Billion A Year International BusinessJoy-riding auto thieves are throwbacks to a bygone era; when a vehicle disappears these days, it's usually swallowed by the booming car-theft industry. Comparing statistics for 1970 and 1994, the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) found that car theft is big business operated by "ring masters" employing middlemen, brokers, and coordinators. In 1970, police recovered 84 percent of stolen cars and 75 percent of them were driveable. In 1994, only 18 percent of recovered vehicles were driveable.

Today, stolen vehicles are crated and shipped overseas, stripped to the frame in chop shops, or burned/buried as part of insurance scams. If it were legitimate, car theft would be the 57th-largest U.S. business. Every 20 seconds a car is stolen in America, though car thefts have declined slightly (by 7.1 percent since 1990). The cost to consumers in insurance premiums, repairs, and new-car costs is $7.5 billion annually. NICB says 62 percent of stolen vehicles are recovered, but that figure also includes stripped-down frames and heavily vandalized or wrecked vehicles.