The Consumer Expectation Test: Fostering Unreasonable Expectations of Safety

Automakers have implemented an incredible amount of safety features into vehicles over the past century. For as long as automakers have been implementing those features into vehicles, however, they have had to defend themselves against critics and purported safety advocates wanting to know why a particular safety innovation was not implemented sooner and why it was not more effective, as consumers 'expected.' On their face, many safety-related criticisms appear valid, given that in 2005 alone, more than 2.7 million people were killed or injured in more than six million police-reported traffic accidents. <i>See</i> NHTSA's National Center for Statistics &amp; Analysis, <i>Motor Vehicle Traffic Crash Fatalities and Injuries &mdash; 2005 Projections</i>, DOT HS-810-583 (2006), available at <i>www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/ pdf/nrd30/NCSA/PPT/2006/810583.pdf.</i>

16 minute read February 27, 2007 at 10:09 AM

By

John D. Sear