There is talk of making electronic stability control a mandatory
feature on all new cars by 2012.
Unlike seat belts, padded dashboards and air bags — which are
“passive” safety features that are there to prevent or at least
reduce injury in the event of a crash — electronic stability
control is an “active” system designed to help prevent an accident
from happening in the first place.
This raises an interesting question: Under what conditions does
stability control kick in? Among the commonplace scenarios:
Carrying excessive speed into a decreasing radius corner; abrupt
steering inputs (which unsettle the car and may cause violent
weight transfer, etc.), rapid deceleration caused by panic braking
(from following too closely, for example).
These are problems caused by driver error. Stability control can
“correct” for the poor judgment or driver inexperience. But if you
stop to think about it, the underlying issue is the poor judgment
and inexperience of the driver; it might be more fruitful to fix
that than work overtime trying to protect iffy drivers from the
consequences of their own lack of skill and good judgment.
I test drive new cars each week and have done so for the past 12
years — so I’ve had plenty of opportunity to drive many different
types of vehicles, ranging from ultra-exotic high-performance
sports cars to bottom-feeding economy cars. Many of the vehicles I
test drive come equipped with electronic stability control.
Excepting a few inherently unstable SUVs, the stability control
system usually activates only when I’ve begun to really “push” the
vehicle — high-speed cornering, for example. And when I say that,
I mean 20 mph or faster than the normal speed of traffic in that
corner.
In a car driven within 10 mph of the posted speed limit — and
within the bounds of common sense — it’s rare for the system to
ever come on.
Yes, there are some exceptions. On rain or ice-slicked roads,
for example, stability control might save your life (or at least
keep you from banging up the sheet metal). And when we’re talking
about genuine “accidents” — for example, a violent skid induced as
a result of the driver swerving suddenly to avoid a deer that
appeared in the road — then yes, stability control can make all
the difference.
However, it’s equally true that a large percentage of the
“accidents” where stability control could be of help aren’t really
accidents at all. Because these “accidents” could have been avoided
had the driver not been driving excessively fast, or beyond his
ability to keep the vehicle safely under control. One can’t
anticipate and may not be able to avoid a deer running into the
road. On the other hand, one can anticipate and avoid a wreck
caused by deliberately pushing it (the car’s limits of grip and
one’s own abilities) in a high-speed corner. Or by driving
excessively fast in poor weather.
Or in broad daylight, for that matter.
Stability control might save you from the consequences of your
own poor judgment in such cases — but exercising good judgment
would have been just as effective. Perhaps more so. And it surely
would be less expensive and complicated.
Stability control currently adds in the neighborhood of $1,000
in initial, “up front” costs to a new car or truck. And like any
other functional aspect of a piece of machinery, it’s another
“part” (many parts, actually) that will eventually require service
— another expense. As the vehicle it’s installed in ages, the cost
of repairs grows — while the worth of the vehicle declines. After
eight or ten years, the down-the-road owner of the car may (and
likely will) face the prospect of a repair involving $1,000 or more
for a car that by then is worth perhaps $2,500.
Same thing with air bags. Many new/2007 model year vehicles have
as many as six of them. But their “shelf life” is about ten years
— at which point the automaker/manufacturer of the air bags warns
that the entire system should be inspected and major system
components replaced. But who is going to pony up for that kind of
big-ticket repair work on a 10-year-old beater? “How much is your
life worth?” is just demagoguery. Not everyone can afford a $30,000
new car. Or $1,000 repairs on an older car.
Of course, air bags have the argument of passive safety on their
side. There’s little one can do to prevent someone else from
ramming into you after running a red light, for example. But with
stability control, much of the potential threat is under one’s own
control — a qualitative difference. Drive within your limits, with
prudence and good judgment — and the chances of your ever finding
yourself in a violent, uncontrollable skid are lowered
dramatically.
Become a highly skilled driver — by attending a serious driving
school such as those run by ex-racers like Bob Bondurant or Skip Barber — and
you will learn how to handle a car in a panic-stop/emergency
situation. You’ll learn how to react when a car begins to lose grip
— and how to “recover” when a skid happens. And you’ll have
reduced your need for an electronic crutch like stability control
significantly — to the point where it’s legitimate to ask whether
it’s worth spending the money for it in the first place. And more
specifically, whether the government ought to be forcing you to buy
it by making it a mandatory “safety” feature on any new car you
might buy.
Arguably, we could make new cars safer by simply expecting more
of drivers than by developing ever-more-elaborate (and expensive)
ways of keeping marginally competent drivers out of trouble.
That’s not politically correct, of course. We live in an
entitlement age, where a driver’s license is both easy to get and
hard to take away — even when an individual repeatedly
demonstrates incompetence (for example, multiple “at-fault”
accidents over a period of less than five years, etc.) But if safer
cars — and fewer accidents and motor vehicle fatalities — are the
goal, at least part of the fix is to insist that drivers up their
skill set and behave responsibly behind the wheel.
Technology can help, of course. But it can’t protect us against
the consequences of our own poor judgment — nor should we expect
it to. Unless what we expect is a continual “dumbing-down” of the
average motorist, with technology picking up the slack.
And all of us picking up the tab.
