A recent article in the Chicago Tribune blasts the government for failing parents and kids when it comes to safety standards and crash testing for children’s car seats.

Posted by Angi

The concept defies logic because, after all, the 40-year campaign for safety seats has been about protecting our children in the event of a crash. But the article follows a Tribune investigation of 2008 model year frontal crash tests, during which 31 of 66 children’s car seats flew off their bases or exceeded allowable injury limits. This alarming data was included in thousands of pages of test data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), but it wasn’t specifically publicized. Why? Well, technically, the crash tests were evaluating the vehicles, not the car seats.

Before a car seat can be sold, it must pass a crash test on a bench sled that simulates a 30-mph, head-on collision.  They are not tested in real cars, and they’re aren’t tested for side-impact crashes. In the test results the Tribune analyzed, they weren’t even tested at the same speed: The vehicle crash tests were conducted at 35 mph into a wall.

Common sense tells you it’s nearly impossible to predict the damage from a real-world crash with tests that don’t use real vehicles. In fact, the Tribune found higher injury ratings in the vehicle crash tests when the baby dummy’s head hit the back of the vehicle’s front seats. The sled tests would not predict such injuries because there’s nothing to hit. The bench test doesn’t use anything to replicate the front seat.

Interestingly, in Europe, cars are rated specifically on how well (or how poorly) they protect children. In the United States, it’s not a factor. According to the Tribune, many child safety seats performed poorly even when they were tested in vehicles with five-star safety ratings, and ratings aren’t affected if a vehicle’s back seat breaks apart in a head-on collision.

If you want some comfort in all this, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has ordered a top-to-bottom review of child safety seat regulations and has ordered NHTSA to make crash test data more available to consumers. NHTSA also recalled the two worst performers on the crash test, and one child seat manufacturer has committed to a comprehensive overhaul of its evaluation system. NHTSA is also evaluating improvements for the sled tests, including possibly adding a front seat model.

Parents: What are your thoughts? What would make you feel safe—besides securing your young passengers in a protective bubble or full body armor?

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For another controversial look at the child seat debate, watch this interesting presentation from Steven Levitt author of Freakonomics. About 14:55 in, he advocates a different concept that has yet to take off. Watch now.

As you pull out of your driveway and make your familiar daily trip to work, it might seem like you’re on autopilot. You’ve made the drive so many times, it’s almost as if you could make your way there with your eyes closed. Such absentmindedness would normally be a recipe for disaster unless, of course, your vehicle really could drive itself.

A recent article from Business Week reveals the existence of technology that enables vehicles to drive themselves, and this technology is only about 20 years away from being marketed to consumers. As additional benefits, developers say it has the potential to reduce the number of accidents and to help increase fuel efficiency.

But just how does it work? A combination of electronic stability control, adaptive cruise control, blind-spot detection and collision mitigation technologies, now in use by several auto manufacturers, enable a vehicle to be programmed to drive as though a human were behind the wheel.

The technology has been tested and proven at The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Urban Challenge, held in November 2007 at the former George Air Force Base in Victorville, Calif.

Entrants were required to build an autonomous vehicle capable of driving in traffic, performing complex maneuvers such as merging, passing, parking and negotiating intersections. It was the first time autonomous vehicles had interacted with both manned and unmanned vehicle traffic in an urban environment. A GM-sponsored team took the first prize of $2 million, and now has the bragging rights of saying they were among the first to make autonomous vehicles a reality.

Although it will likely be another decade or two before this technology becomes widely available, we can look forward to the day when our vehicles will be able to shuttle us around like our own personal concierge. Is this technology something you look forward to using? Let us know your thoughts by posting a comment below.

Sources: MSNBC.com, Darpa.mil