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Comment by Grishnakh | Hacker News Reader

>Your tax dollars at work.

Wrong.

This video and test were done by the IIHS, an insurance-industry funded groups. The DOT crash tests are lame; it took the IIHS to push offset-frontal crash tests like this. The Federal government thinks that all auto crashes are frontal head-on crashes with no offset whatsoever.

IIHS and European tests are far better, but as usual, the US standards are stupid and backwards, just like they are for vehicle lighting and everything else. The DOT requirement for those idiotic "sealed beam" headlights are what kept the fronts of cars looking so ugly for so long, while the Europeans had moved to better-designed halogen bulbs and housing long before but couldn't export them to the US.

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>>Your tax dollars at work.

> Wrong.

>This video and test were done by the IIHS

I believe GP was not referring to video, but to the safety legislation leading to starkly improved safety performance of the 2009 vehicle (I thought their second line made this very clear)

In short this is a result of the principle-agent problem. Politicians can be influenced. The government has little time to get in, and when regulations are set they are rarely updated... meanwhile the IIHS helping insurers save money (by setting correct car insurance premiums) also sparked consumer demand for high safety ratings when shopping for cars.

This is very much the free market at work. Money (which people like to call "Greed") drives both consumers and insurers to find the scientifically best car. Insurers have more appropriate loses, and customers have fewer deaths (or a better safety level for their dollars spent).

The IIHS makes the knowledge about car safety much less asymmetric in the market.

The UL does a similar thing, and I think this is the model that is more effective.

It doesn't take an act of congress for the IIHS to come up with a new test and new standards as technology improves and new areas of risk are discovered!

Edit: I see my parent is being downvoted. He pointed out the basic facts of the situation, but since it was not sufficiently authoritarian he is being downvoted. I feel this site is anti-intellectual.

That is a narrative that (correct or not) explains U.S. car standards. But I'm pretty sure that, last time I was there, government and politicians exist in Europe. What's the explanation for regulation that (apparently, at least for the GP poster) works better?

A vastly lower lobby magnitude?

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