bumper face bar today is $106; the front fender is $118, and the hood $149. These are very, very dramatic increases, and by and large this pattern applies right down through all of the cars we have looked at in the 1971 and then again the 1976 model years. In 1972 Congress enacted the Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act, which directed NHTSA to set effective economic standards for reducing designed-in low-speed crash damage. The first such standard, delayed time and again, finally took effect with the 1979 model year-that is, it applies for the first time to cars now coming into the American marketplace. A somewhat stronger version of that standard takes effect with the 1980 model year. We testified earlier before your subcommittee, in March of this year, on the results of our tests of 1978 model new cars on lowspeed impacts. We showed film at that hearing not only of the test results, but also of a bumper developed with our sponsorship by Tayco Development, that was designed-and still is able to perform this way to withstand all damage in two tests substantially tougher than tests specified in the Federal Government's new economic bumper standard. We concluded at that hearing as follows: As a result of manufacturer design decisions, unacceptably high levels of damage still are being sustained by too many new cars on the highways in their real world, very low-speed impacts with other cars and with fixed objects. This is true in at least one 1978 model car impacted in our tests, even of a design that the car's manufacturer believes should meet the tougher NHTSA requirements that will take effect next year. Huge variations continue to exist between the amounts of damage sustained by the 1978 model cars we crash tested, including for cars within the same size groups and subjected to the same tests. This, as I said earlier, is a characteristic that we observed in our test results as far back as 1969-70-a continuing reminder to consumers that inordinately high amounts of damage in these lowspeed impacts are neither justified nor necessary in the real world. Bumpers are continuing to override or underride on some cars, and there is no indication that NHTSA's new property damage bumper standard will put an end to this damage inducing problem. I note that the test procedures for the new standard are identical to those for NHTSA's former safety bumper standard, which was grievously inadequate. NHTSA's new standard, while a worthwhile-if overdue-beginning, is no more than a start. Unless the agency improves that standard in ways that assure for consumers that their new cars incorporate modern, damage resisting technologies, it will be failing to meet the intent of title I of the 1972 act. An example of such a technology is reflected in the agency's own research safety vehicle program. In an RSV test series conducted for the agency in April of this year, a research safety vehicle model developed by Calspan Corp., a contractor in the program, was repeatedly impacted into the side of a 1975 Plymouth Fury at speeds ranging from about 4 miles per hour up to just about 8 miles per hour. According to the test report, there was no damage whatsoever to the research safety vehicle in any of the tests, and damage to the Plymouth Fury was extremely slight. I have with me today films of those crashes which, although they have not been released by NHTSA officially, are available in its docket, and the agency was good enough to make them available to us for this hearing. The test vehicle, the red vehicle, is using an advance design bumper, although not that advanced at all in terms of today's technology, a soft-faced bumper which was impacting, as I mentioned a moment ago, the side of a standard Plymouth Fury, the sheet-metal side, available in the marketplace. This first test is run at about 4 miles an hour, just slightly less than 4 miles an hour; and as you see, the bumper is not only forgiving to itself, but forgiving to the car impacted. We found this particularly interesting because in our earlier tests a few years ago of cars front into side, we noted at speeds only slightly higher than what we see here, tremendous amounts of damage to the impacted car because of the hostility of the nose of the striking cars and because of the vulnerability of the sheet metal cosmetic sides. So, here in about a 4-mile-per-hour crash there is not damage at all to the striking car, and the struck Plymouth is also virtually undamaged. The dents apparently ranged in the order of onesixteenth to one-eighth of an inch and were almost imperceptible. This is a speed, now, approaching 5 miles an hour, perhaps a little higher. I will be happy to submit the exact speeds for the record, if you would like. Again, the striking car is able to absorb with its bumper the energy of the crash-the bumper then corrects itself and little or no damage is done to the struck car. The energy clearly is being distributed evenly and absorbed evenly by the soft-nosed bumper of the RSV, rather than localized and forced into sheet metal at a resulting high repair and replacement cost to the owner. This RSV program, by the way, is not a new one. This is the test of the car running at more than 8 miles per hour, as I recall, and the glee on the face of the technicians indicated that they were very, very happy wih the outcome. As I was saying a moment ago, this is not a new program. NHTSA's RSV program has been in progress in one form or another almost as long as the agency itself has existed, which is more than a decade. This phase of the program is now a few years old. [The following table was received for the record:] 43-030 - 7926 Table 4-1 VEHICLE DAMAGE ASSESSMENT TEST NO. 11 (Excerpted from "Research Safety Vehicle--Phase III, Crash Test Report," June, 1978, Calspan Advanced Technology Center, DOT Contract No. HS-7-01551.) (1) TEST CONDITION MORE SEVERE THAN INDICATED. TOW CABLE RELEASE CLAMP DID NOT OPEN ON IMPACT, PREVENTING NORMAL REBOUND. (2) INCIPIENT BUCKLING OF FENDERS ATTRIBUTED TO PRIOR TEST EXPOSURE. Mr. ECKHARDT. May I interject a question at this point? Mr. KELLEY. Certainly. Mr. ECKHARDT. You say that, at a 5-mile-per-hour impact with that bumper, the damage to the struck car was very slight? Mr. KELLEY. The damage to the struck car was almost imperceptible, according to the contractor's report, Mr. Chairman. Mr. ECKHARDT. How much would it have cost with an ordinary bumper? Mr. KELLEY. I can only give you estimates based on our earlier impacts a few years ago during a test series where we have been running standard cars front into side. The repair damages in those cases of comparable crashes were running many hundreds of dollars on both cars. I would be happy to submit exact figures for the record. Unfortunately Calspan did not run baseline tests, or at least if they did, we do not have a record indicating what a standard car would have done in precisely this crash; but here is no doubt it would have been very costly to the owners of both cars. Mr. ECKHARDT. Without objection, we will leave the record open at this point for any information you would like to give, if you feel there is some need, at this point. Mr. KELLEY. I will be happy to. [The following chart was received for the record:] |