Opinion

Public raises weighty issue in car safety rating update

BY NORMA FARIS HUBELE

Guest Writer

You know how scary driving in Phoenix can be. You also sense that you’re safer in a heavier vehicle equipped with modern safety devices.

But should there be limits on how big an automobile can be? Numerous Americans concerned about the growing size gap they see on our roads recently urged the U.S. government to restrict the production of ever-larger cars, trucks, and SUVs.

Citizens “terrifi ed” by gap

They were commenting on the National Highway Tra c Safety Administration’s proposal to update the New Car Assessment Program. This is the government’s crash testing program that generates the 5-Star Safety Ratings you see on stickers at the dealership.

Given the chance to voice concern about safety on our roadways, one man wrote:

“Standing in front of any newer model (e.g. Ram 1500 or Chevy Silverado), the front hood is almost as tall as I am - and I’m around 6’ tall! It’s frankly terrifying. It’s terrifying driving next to these things in a regular car. It’s more terrifying as a pedestrian and cyclist.” (Excerpt from regulations.gov/comment/NHTSA-2021-0002-0251)

And this commenter has good reason to be scared. The bigger the di erence in vehicle weights, the more unequal the risk of fatality in a two-vehicle crash, regardless of seat belts, airbags, and vehicle design.

When a car collides with a pickup, SUV, or minivan, car occupants absorb more of the crash’s energy than occupants in the larger vehicles. As a result, car occupants died 3 times more often than the other occupants in these two-vehicle collisions in 2019.

The car industry dryly refers to this imbalance in fatality risk as incompatibility. In 2016, over a dozen vehicle makers signed a voluntary agreement to reduce their vehicle’s’ incompatibilities. That included beefi ng up the protection for occupants in cars (e.g., more airbags) and re-designing bumpers on pickups, SUVs, and minivans to better align them with those of cars.

A recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety did fi nd some improvements related to those changes. That is, fewer car occupants were dying in crashes with SUVs and smaller pickups. But the larger pickups were still causing more deaths in cars.

Regulators must curb plans

Today’s trucks are typically about 1,000-2,000 pounds heavier than cars, but in the most extreme case can be more than 5,000 heavier. There’s no end in sight to this disturbing gap. Edmunds. com has reported that bigger vehicles are the overwhelming favorite of pickup truck buyers. In 2019, 80% of pickup trucks sold had extended, 4-door cabs.

Electrifying these vehicles will only make the problem worse. New technology is making it possible for drivers to accelerate 0-60 mph at alarming rates: Tesla’s Cybertruck in 2.9 seconds, General Motors’ Electric-powered Hummer in 3 seconds and Ford’s F-150 Lighting™ in about 4 seconds (estimated).

But no one is talking about the stopping distance of these behemoths. Unless these vehicles are substantially lighter in weight, electric vehicles take the same amount of stopping power as combustion-powered vehicles. They may accelerate faster, but they can’t stop faster. It’s simple physics.

And these larger vehicles are so big that drivers can’t see much of what’s in front of them. Such frontal blind spots are putting the most vulnerable road users, pedestrians and cyclists, at greater risk.

The government proposes to expand its 5-Star Safety System to include a rating of new automated driver assistance systems. That’s an important step in the right direction to prevent some of these crashes. But the federal regulators need to go further.

The government has the power to limit the size and acceleration of vehicles manufactured in the United States. At this critical moment, regulators need to throw their weight behind saving thousands of lives and injuries rather than appeasing the industry.

Because safety on the road should be a right, not a matter of have and have not.

Ahwatukee resident Norma Faris Hubele is professor emerita of Arizona State University and creator of TheAutoProfessor.com, a website that helps families make safer car choices. Her book, Backseat Driver, The Role of Data in Great Car Safety Debates is due out in August.

Senators can help Arizona workers by stopping PRO Act

BY COLIN DIAZ

Guest Writer

Senators Sinema and Kelly have an opportunity to stand up for the workers and small employers of Arizona by stopping, once and for all, the PRO Act, and any of its egregious provisions.

Union-backed politicians in Washington have been playing a game of “hide the ball” with the PRO Act, which stands for the Protect the Right to Organize Act.

Obviously, American labor law currently protects the rights of workers to form a union. What supporters of the PRO Act seek, however, are ways to make it easier for union bosses to organize workplaces by relying less and less (perhaps not at all) on worker sentiment.

One anti-worker provision of the PRO Act, for example, would eliminate the secret ballot in union elections and replace it with a “card check” system.

Under a card-check system, instead of conducting a traditional union election in the proper sense, union organizers simply need to secure public signatures from a certain threshold of employees. As soon as the union has the necessary signatures, it can represent all of those employees in a workplace.

Another provision requires employers to hand over private employee information, like their home address, for example, to union bosses during an organizing e ort. It’s easy to see how these two provisions together would expose workers to intense pressure, even threats and intimidation.

Under yet another PRO Act provision, once a workplace has been organized, it becomes compulsory for workers to join the union or pay union dues. Refusal to do so results in employee termination. Under this provision, Arizona right-to-work law, as well as those of every other right-to-work state, would be scrapped.

By now, it should be clear what the PRO Act is about: making unionizing easier by restricting worker free choice.

Fortunately, the PRO Act has not yet become law; it lacks su cient support in the U.S. Senate.

Nevertheless, its supporters have attempted to insert these and other provisions into di erent bills considered more likely to pass. First, they added key PRO Act provisions to the Build Back Better Act. When that failed, the House snuck provisions into the America COMPETES Act.

It remains unclear if a fi nal compromise version of the COMPETES Act between the House and Senate will contain these zombie job-killing provisions. Senators Sinema and Kelly could help workers once again by insisting that they are excluded from the fi nal bill.

Then they should tell their colleagues that it’s the game over for the PRO Act.

Colin Diaz is president and CEO of the Tempe Chamber of Commerce.

Lost in Adel’s death is a recognition of her humanity

BY DAVID LEIBOWITZ

Tribune Columnist

She served as Maricopa County Attorney for 900 days, the fi rst woman to hold the o ce. But Allister Adel was more than that. Dead too soon at age 45, Adel was many things that rarely mattered during her time in the public eye. She was a daughter, a wife and a mother of two grade-school boys. She loved her dogs, and the Rotary Club. She was a loyal friend to those who knew her.

Adel also dwelled in the world of politics, though. For many people, especially those who opposed her brand of conservative Republican politics, that meant she was worse than human detritus. Adel was a villain, a punching bag, a piñata. The way politics is practiced today, it is never enough simply to disagree with those we oppose. Instead, we must smash them to bits.

This is true of both sides, red and blue, Dem and GOP. Nowadays, to talk politics is mostly to spew hate. Even if it means attacking a person at their most vulnerable points and grinding them to dust.

With Adel, who I counted as a friend, it is no secret that she struggled with alcohol. I am not here to suggest that the media, which covered her foibles in o ce with urgency, was wrong to do so. To hold public o ce is to be in the spotlight, and rightly so. Adel was accused of too many absences, of failing to maintain her sobriety, of not being the top prosecutor our county needs. She denied the charges, but still they kept coming. Until on March 21, she stepped down.

Five weeks later she was dead, having su ered what her family described as “health complications.”

Across the cesspool that is social media wafted a sense of glee from noxious bastards and bots.

From Twitter moron @Peterson_ JFrank: “I believe in karma big time… This bitch got what she deserved… I will piss on her grave if I ever have the chance….”

From @Shannonagain2: “AA had no problem *legally* destroying lives. no guilt, here. She was a menace. Corrupt. As are most attorneys. AND POLITICIANS.”

From @SRunningcloud: “She was a wicked woman. Her acts of racism reached the level of genocide. She’s burning in Hell. No doubt. That’s how much bad karma she has to work out. Eternal fi re of hell is what Allister Adel has earned from her time on Earth.”

This vomitus spew was not reserved merely for Adel’s death. As she struggled publicly through rehab and with the responsibilities of her position, her every move drew not just stories, but hot takes, name calling and a sense of joy that peaked with each sign of struggle.