New Deal for Drivers

As it revs up its assembly lines for the 1967 cars, the U.S. auto industry knows that things will never be quite the same again. After months of congressional hearings and debates that emphasized the 49,000 people killed and 1,800,000 injured last year on U.S. highways, the House last week unanimously passed an automobile-safety bill. Calling for a judicious combination of persuasion and pressure, it gives the Secretary of Commerce the right to require the industry to meet certain safety standards in its new cars.

Almost a Relief. In anticipation of the bill, in fact, the industry has already begun to put many safety features into its cars as standard equipment. All 1967 models will have steering columns that telescope forward on impact, dual braking systems to stop a car if a single set fails and anchorages for front-seat shoulder harnesses. Other improvements will come along later, based largely on the 26 safety features that manufacturers must build into cars that they sell to the Government. Because it takes Detroit a year or more to alter designs, some changes will not show up until the 1968 models. To demonstrate what can be done, New York State is spending $5 million to build and test a "safety car"; its designers are convinced that they can halve injuries caused by a forward crash at an impact speed of 50 m.p.h.--roughly 75% of the accidents that maim or kill.

The safety bill, similar to a measure approved earlier by the Senate, came almost as a relief to automakers, whose 1966 sales have been hurt by the bad publicity set off by the safety crusade of Lawyer-Writer Ralph Nader. Detroit's spokesman on safety, Ford Vice President John S. Bugas, watched the voting from the House gallery, called the bill "another move" that automakers could support. Even Nader was not entirely dissatisfied. Though he estimated that it will be 1973 before the bill's real impact will be felt, he allowed that the bill "enables us to begin." The bill has no criminal penalties but stipulates civil penalties of $1,000 for every car sold that is not suitably equipped, up to a maximum of $400,000. Used cars, trucks and buses, exempted by the Senate, are included in its provisions.

Automatic Forfeit. Congress also heeded Detroit's pleas that it takes a human behind the wheel to turn a car into a misguided missile. A highway-safety bill, approved 317 to 3 by the House, offers $270 million over three years--$140 million less than a Senate version--as an incentive to states to tighten safety codes and to improve driver training, testing and inspection of vehicles and highway design. The House also decreed that states that do not set up an approved road-safety program by Jan. 1, 1968 will forfeit 10% of the federal aid that they receive for highways under other laws.

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