5 serious safety concerns

	ACTION NEEDED  Our product-safety proposals could help save lives.

At Consumers Union, we’re not shy about sharing our opinions with the federal agencies responsible for product safety. As we enter a new year, we’re focusing on some of the dangers that, with enlightened regulatory action, shouldn’t be dangers. In some cases, the agencies are already devoting varying amounts of resources to these issues. But we’d like to see decisive action on the following in 2007:

Stability control. In September the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed making electronic stability control (ESC) mandatory on all new light passenger vehicles. Consumers Union has long pushed for that. We believe that ESC is the most important advance in auto safety since the safety belt. ESC can help keep a vehicle out of an accident and could save more than 10,000 lives a year. We applaud NHTSA for taking the first step. Now it needs to move from proposal to regulation.

Blind zones. We’ve all driven cars with blind zones. Automakers don’t have to comply with any standards for driver visibility. An especially egregious example is the Toyota FJ Cruiser (available to subscribers) we tested for this month’s auto report. Thick roof pillars, short windows, and a slit-like windshield add up to lousy visibility. At the very least, CU supports camera systems that show what--or who--is behind a vehicle before it backs up. That might have prevented 100 deaths and 2,400 injuries among children last year.

ATVs. All-terrain vehicles caused an estimated 740 deaths and 125,000 injuries in 2003, the latest year for which data are available. Thirty percent of victims were under 16. The current voluntary industry standards should be mandatory. And three-wheelers, tandems, and child-sized ATVs should be banned.

Pool alarms. There’s no mandatory standard for pool alarms, which alert owners if people enter the water when they shouldn’t. Our tests show that many alarms don’t work. About 280 children under age 5 drown in U.S. pools each year. Of course, layers of protection are needed: fences, gates, locks, safety drains, and safety covers. If pools are going to have the added safety feature of a pool alarm, it should work properly. A voluntary industry standard exists; it should be made mandatory.

Ladders. What goes up must come down, but preferably without killing 150 people and injuring 180,000 a year. Better design would help. Current voluntary standards are outdated and inadequate. Safety regulators should study the data, figure out why so many ladders are failing, and strengthen standards.