Gadgetory

up until 1967 making cars in the US was a bit of the Wild West strong hot blooded safety was only loosely regulated cars were largely designed for style drive your chip rolling through the you red thing then along comes Ralph Nader his book unsafe at any speed started a national dialogue about auto safety Congress held hearings and on March 1 1967 the federal motor vehicle safety standards took effect a vast Bible of safety regulations that all new cars must conform to if they're gonna be legal for sale in the US for example just consider the lowly safety belt the first thing the FMVSS mandated back in 67 it says that this device must have no burrs or sharp edges on its hardware have only one way to latch it the belt can be no less than 46 millimeters wide it must adjust to fit a 5th percentile female all the way up to a 95th percentile male pad between five and six thousand pounds of braking force have its cut ends treated not to fray resist UV light and micro organisms and have the belts maker model manufacturer date and overseas importer permanently inscribed on it and that's just a summary for a belt regulations cover just about every part of a car involved in crash avoidance crash worthiness and post crash survivability from bumpers to lights shifters to doors mirrors to buttons brakes to display panels but if you really want to see the effects of the FMVSS just look at a graph as the miles we drive in the US have soared the deaths per mile driven have plummeted the expectation of automotive safety has radically changed since March of 67 and car makers now it pays to double check that every bit of their designs conform to the FMVSS more realities of modern driving revealed now at CNET on cars comm click on smarter driving