Features Stripped Out, Safety Sacrificed In Cars Imported into Australia, Says Expert

[JoeT]

Safety Sacrificed In Imported Cars

Mark Hinchliffe
23 May 2007
www.carsguide.com.au

Australians are dying because many imported cars have crucial safety devices stripped out, according to a visiting motoring expert.

Motoring journalist and safety advocate Clive Matthew-Wilson said importers of European cars had “completely lost the plot in the past decade”.

“They are more concerned with style over substance,” the New Zealand-based author of The Dog & Lemon Guide said.

“Stripping out safety features to keep costs down helps the manufacturers sell more cars as it makes them cheaper, but the end result is that ordinary people die,” he said.

“What also worries me is Australians are reading international crash test reports where the safety features were included.”

Matthew-Wilson, who successfully lobbied the New Zealand Government to make unsafe old seatbelts unlawful, said he was “probably not on car companies' Christmas card list”.

He said stripping out curtain airbags was of particular concern as they were known to save lives in crashes with poles and trees.

“An airbag at the factory probably costs about $25. If they can get away with it they do.”

He said cars imported into Australia had fewer standard safety features than those imported into New Zealand.

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[paul8488]

Easy solution: make all of these safety devices law. Companies that don't have them won't sell dangerous cars in Australia. We don't want anything to happen to you guys... you're all too weird and interesting to do without here at GMi.

[TKR]

Originally Posted by paul8488

Easy solution: make all of these safety devices law. Companies that don't have them won't sell dangerous cars in Australia. We don't want anything to happen to you guys... you're all too weird and interesting to do without here at GMi.

ESP (ESC) should be mandatory on all new vehicles, even trucks. Other than that, it is up to the consumer how much they would like to pay for their vehicle.
The editor does forget to mention that the VE Commodore has ESP standard from starting the base models. I do agree that Holden should at least have ABS standard on Barina and Viva but then the fact that aircon is an option on Commodores in a country that gets 40 deg (c) + temp often so I'm not too surprised.

[Jim Altemus]

Originally Posted by TKR

ESP (ESC) should be mandatory on all new vehicles, even trucks. Other than that, it is up to the consumer how much they would like to pay for their vehicle.
The editor does forget to mention that the VE Commodore has ESP standard from starting the base models. I do agree that Holden should at least have ABS standard on Barina and Viva but then the fact that aircon is an option on Commodores in a country that gets 40 deg (c) + temp often so I'm not too surprised.

I really don't understand everyone's facination with ESP being mandatory on all new vehicles, apart from it being yet another crutch for those who can't be bothered to take driving seriously. I'm all for airbags, seat belt tensioners and the such, but ESP (and to a lesser extend ABS) learn how to drive.

[kgratton]

I can't imagine how hard it would be to get a fast time driving a car equipped with ESP in a motorkhana. Otherwise I'm heavily in favour of ESP and ABS - even for those who think they are good drivers. Even the best can be caught out by unexpected brake lock in a moment of panic and desperation.

The NZ market has been less regulated than the Australian market traditionally. The only reason cars entering the NZ market would be better equipped for safety than their Aussie equivalents would be cost-cutting to get the cars into Australia below a certain price threshold. We have an import tariff in place, so maybe that's the reason.

[Buick61]

Originally Posted by Jim Altemus

I really don't understand everyone's facination with ESP being mandatory on all new vehicles, apart from it being yet another crutch for those who can't be bothered to take driving seriously. I'm all for airbags, seat belt tensioners and the such, but ESP (and to a lesser extend ABS) learn how to drive.

That's fairly ignorant. No matter how talented you think you are, you can't brake each wheel individually and at 100 pumps a second, or whatever it is.

[Jim Altemus]

Originally Posted by Buick61

That's fairly ignorant. No matter how talented you think you are, you can't brake each wheel individually and at 100 pumps a second, or whatever it is.

My poorly structured sentence notwithstanding, where is the ignorance in my statement? I'm not against the existence of ABS, ESC, etc., I'm just not for them being mandatory, and don't think mandatory stability control will be a panacea, just as ABS hasn't been.

I personally would rather not have all those gizmos on my car. I'm not here to make claims about how talented I think I am or not, but I will say that I just don't put myself into situations where supposedly unexpected things can happen. I don't need driver aids to do that and shouldn't be required to have them.

Jim

[Martino_z]

Okay well that's all well and good to say that all new cars should have ESP, ABS, etc. I won't deny it's good for safety, but the truth is that the government doesn't really care about this at all. They would rather have young people driving sigmas and old bombs so that they conform with their moronic non power to weight based vehicle restrictions.

[asim]

Originally Posted by paul8488

Easy solution: make all of these safety devices law. Companies that don't have them won't sell dangerous cars in Australia. We don't want anything to happen to you guys... you're all too weird and interesting to do without here at GMi.

I agree. If they want to keep safety features in their little Australian cars, all they have to do is pass legislation for such devices in the vehicles. Thats not too hard. I think it is worth saving these lives. haha

[kgratton]

No need for concern. The weirdest of us insist on tiny little cars with side impact airbags and every dynamic control system under the sun.

[TDi]

I'm not sure if you guys are aware, but in NZ, alot of the new cars imported to the country are UK, Irish or European spec cars and not cars totally specific to the NZ car market.

Because the NZ car market is so small, 100,000 units a year, it wouldn't make sense to have cars completely built to NZ spec's, there's just no money in it and so what they do is, they take alot of UK spec cars and because alot of UK spec cars already have these safety features on them, then that's how they are sold in NZ. This is why in NZ, they have been able to buy car's that we don't get in Australia.

Australia doesn't do this. Because our market is a lot bigger, 950,000 units a year, then car makers must have Australian spec cars to be able to be sold on the Australian car market.

[chinamonty]

I guess people either haven't heard of or have forgotten cadence braking. The problem with ABS etc is people start to think that they will save them. There are instances where ABS provides negatives but these are rare. There is no substitute for teaching people both to drive and to be aware so they are less likely to get in to trouble.

[Stormin]

Originally Posted by chinamonty

I guess people either haven't heard of or have forgotten cadence braking. The problem with ABS etc is people start to think that they will save them. There are instances where ABS provides negatives but these are rare. There is no substitute for teaching people both to drive and to be aware so they are less likely to get in to trouble.

I went on an advanced driving course through work (otherwise they won't let you drive any fleet car) and we were taught two methods of emergency braking, cadence for non-ABS cars and "foot flat to the floor" for ABS braking. But you needed to know if the car was ABS equipped first.

[mikmak]

^^^That would be a nice surprise. Is there a check point on the fleet data card where each driver has to acknowledge that they have checked to see if the car has ABS? If not, find a non abs vehicle, crash and sue

[mmciau]

Originally Posted by mikmak

^^^That would be a nice surprise. Is there a check point on the fleet data card where each driver has to acknowledge that they have checked to see if the car has ABS? If not, find a non abs vehicle, crash and sue

Sometimes the beancounters are just too smart by half!!!



Mike