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Road Safety: The dream of a safer car

With nearly 20 million cars and trucks on our roads, automobiles have become a fact of life for Canadians. But our reliance on them comes at a cost. Over the past 50 years nearly 200,000 Canadians have died in traffic accidents — more than were killed in both world wars combined. In addition, despite vastly improved safety measures automobile accidents continue to be a major cause of death of younger Canadians. CBC Archives takes a look at the long, slow road to improved traffic safety.

Designing a safer yet more economical automobile has been the dream of many carmakers over the past century. In the 1970s two upstart companies are given millions of dollars in U.S. government money to design a less dangerous and more fuel-efficient alternative to the gas-guzzling vehicles that are currently on the road. This clip from CBC Television's Marketplace gives one of these designers a chance to show off his design for a safer future. 
• Responding to rising gas prices, in 1975 the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) sponsored a program to design a safer, more economical car. The Research Safety Vehicle Program awarded contracts to two California-based companies; Calspan and Minicars Inc.


• This clip looks at the results from Minicars Inc., a company headed by former General Motors executive Donald Friedman. Its prototype, dubbed the Road Safety Vehicle (RSV), featured injected foam padding and purported to be crashworthy in speeds of up to 50 miles an hour.

• The sleek, space-age design of the RSV boasted impact-absorbing foam injected into the bumpers and steel frame, as well as what reporter Joan Watson calls "controversial" air bags. It also featured full seatbelts, a radar-controlled braking system and a replaceable urethane skin in place of a standard paint job.
• The U.S. Center for Auto Safety called the RSV and its counterpart Calspan vehicles significantly ahead of their time, with safety features that made them "better than any car on the road today."

• Despite their vaunted safety standards, none of the prototypes from the Research Safety Vehicle Program ever made it to the showroom floor. In 1981 the federal government cut the program, and the resulting models were last seen in public at a vehicle conference in Japan the following year.


• According to the Center for Auto Safety, the then-head of the NHTSA ordered that the cars be destroyed in crash tests. Three of the prototypes were saved from destruction and stored in the Department of Transportation headquarters in Washington, D.C.
• In the late 1980s, officials from the Smithsonian Institute inspected the cars and recommended that they be saved for their historical value. In 1991, the NHTSA ordered the crash testing of the cars in a test centre in Ohio.


• Frustrated by the move, Minicars' Donald Friedman called the crash test "purposeful destruction" and bemoaned that "we will never know how much better [the cars] would have protected occupants than today's large cars. What a waste."
• The federal agency maintains the cars were destroyed as part of routine safety testing, but automobile activists (including Ralph Nader) maintain that the NHTSA was reacting to a federal government directive to oppose higher fuel efficiency in U.S.-made cars.


• This was not the first time safer car prototypes have failed to make it to market. In the 1950s and 1960s insurance companies paid for the design and construction of at least two "Survival Cars."
• To experience an audio tour of a prototype safety car, go to our additional clip Designing a better 'Survival Car'.
Medium: Television
Program: Marketplace
Broadcast Date: Oct. 31, 1976
Guest(s): Nicholas DiNapoli , Donald Friedman, Donald Struble
Host: George Finstad
Reporter: Joan Watson
Duration: 6:51

Last updated: June 10, 2013

Page consulted on June 10, 2013

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