From all the vehicle safety recalls that get reported on the nightly news, you might think that cars and trucks are becoming more dangerous. The number of recalls has risen in each decade since the first federal auto safety law was enacted in 1966. The population of cars and light trucks recalled in a given…
U.S. auto safety regulators have decided not to open a formal investigation into the Oct. 2 fire that damaged a Tesla electric car near Seattle. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday there’s no indication at this time that the fire was caused by a safety defect or that there was any violation of…
Writing in Forbes in September, 1958, John D. Williams, a mathematician at the RAND Corporation, suggested the U.S. was getting a little carried away with its interest in auto safety. “I am sure that there is, in effect, a desirable level of automobile accidents — desirable, that is, from a broad point of view; in…
New systems come as company lags rivals on old-school features Toyota Motor Corp. is forging ahead on advanced safety systems, even as it falls behind rivals on more mundane crash-protection technology. A week after receiving only marginal ratings in a critical new crash test for its Corolla small car, Toyota outlined plans to introduce by…