Free Republic

The cars roll endlessly off the local assembly lines of the industry’s biggest automakers, more than 10,000 a day, into the eager hands of Brazil’s new middle class. The shiny new Fords, Fiats, and Chevrolets tell the tale of an economy in full bloom that now boasts the fourth largest auto market in the world. What happens once those vehicles hit the streets, however, is shaping up as a national tragedy, experts say, with thousands of Brazilians dying every year in auto accidents that in many cases shouldn’t have proven fatal. The culprits are the cars themselves, produced with weaker...

Sweden's Market Court (Marknadsdomstolen) has ruled that Volvo Car's marketing of its XC60 vehicle as the "safest in the world" is misleading and lacks supporting evidence. "Volvo has not presented any proof at all which verifies or even indicates that the XC60 is the safest in the world. Volvo's claim is a general one and clearly lacks substantiation," the court said in its ruling on a case brought by Japanese firm Toyota. Volvo has been warned that it will incur a fine of one million kronor ($140,000) if it does not desist from making the claims. The court based its...

Auto Safety: As a Toyota Prius with a stuck accelerator races down a California freeway, no one mourns the victims of the fuel economy standards imposed by Congress. Forced into smaller cars, thousands have died. We can barely imagine the panic felt by James Sikes, 61, as his Toyota Prius accelerated uncontrollably while he drove down Interstate 8 in San Diego County. We can imagine the continuation of the grandstanding by the owners of "government motors" as they further browbeat a competitor of government-run GM and Chrysler. We do not minimize the safety issues here that need to be addressed,...

SAN DIEGO — Two people were shot early Thursday morning while they rode in a van loaded with suspected illegal immigrants that sped north across the U.S.-Mexico border in San Ysidro, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said. U.S. authorities noticed the full-size van about 4:20 a.m. when they heard gunshots near the border. The van drove north into the United States from Mexico in the southbound lanes of Interstate 5, said Angelica De Cima, a Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman. San Diego police said the van apparently was shot at by Mexican authorities before it crossed the border. About...

A study of car safety released on Wednesday shows that four of the top-scoring automobiles in tests of five new models were small cars or so-called super-minis — including the Honda Jazz, Hyundai i20, Kia Soul and Peugeot 3008. . . Seats installed in the Kia Soul, for example, “achieved a good result in the program’s whiplash testing, again revealing that it is not only larger or expensive cars that achieve impressive results in safety.” . . . It said the Honda Jazz and Hyundai i20 racked up “impressive pedestrian scores”

Background: Volvo Cars (owned by Ford Motor Company) claims their all new Volvo XC 60 to be the world's safest car. The consequence: The Toyota people have worked themselves into a rage and now take legal actions. (The following is a translation of a Swedish article. My English isn't perfect, but I hope what follows at least is comprehensible:) "Toyota disapproves of Volvo's claims of the new XC60 to be the world's safest car. Toyota now sues Volvo in the Swedish Market Court (Marknadsdomstolen). In their application to the court, Toyota argues that there indeed are cars around the Globe...

My 17-year old daughter is going to her first prom tonight. The date seems to be a decent enough kid, although he's a little too much into love of his car. I'm looking for suggestions on a good "safety and respect" speech to be delivered to this young man. I've thought of taking out and sharpening my Dad's Korean war souvenir bayonet in front of him (just to focus his attention), but that may be too dramatic.Suggestions?

Adam Goldsmith's grieving parents say their son was killed by a DVD player. The 30-year-old Sudbury man died in June after the motorcycle he was riding was hit by a car that had a portable DVD player in the front seat. Legislators are now joining in a push to add the devices to the growing list of what doesn't belong in the front seat. ``We have witnessed first-hand the devastation that's caused by this, when people aren't paying attention,'' said Barbara Goldsmith, the victim's mother. State Sen. Jarrett Barrios (D-Cambridge) is sponsoring a bill to outlaw DVDs in front seats,...

A new study found that if all vehicles were equipped with stability control, an electronic safety technology that the industry has been slow to adopt, some 7,000 lives a year could be saved. Stability control, which has sensors that determine when a driver is about to lose control of the vehicle and try to correct that course, reduced the risk of being in a fatal single-vehicle crash by 56%, according to the study to be released today by the Arlington, Va.-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. That group is the research arm of the insurance industry. It is the second...

<p>DAYTON, Ohio - The 1999 Pontiac Trans Am had to be flying, said officer Robert Cairo, a traffic crash investigator with the police in Trotwood, Ohio.</p> <p>The car skidded sideways off the road on Feb. 11, went airborne for 110 feet, landed in a field and bounced "like a stone across a lake" before it struck a utility pole, according to police. The impact ejected the driver, who broke his neck, and a passenger, who broke his spine.</p>