The federal government agency responsible for automobile safety is forcing Toyota to make some of its pickup trucks less safe for infants and small children.
You read that correctly. Less safe. More dangerous. This is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration hard at work, endangering your children.
Toyota will issue a voluntary recall of 160,000 Tundra pickups from model years 2003 to 2005 this fall, in order to remove the switch that disables the passenger side airbag. The reason for the switch in the first place is so that if someone mounts a car seat in the front passenger side, the airbag will not go off and further endanger the child riding there. (Airbags deploying against a child car seat can cause much more harm to the child than the actual crash.)
And the reason they’re doing this is because the federal government passed a stupid regulation in 2002 requiring a secondary mounting system for child car seats, called Lower Anchorages and Tethers for Children, to be installed in the vehicle along with the airbag cutoff switch. A pointless regulation, since the child car seat can also be secured using the existing seat belt.
Toyota petitioned the NHTSA for a waiver in 2005, but the waiver was denied.
And what do the bureaucrats have to say for themselves? What can they say to defend such a stupid decision? They said that the expensive LATCH system is required because some people don’t secure the child seat with the seat belt properly. This is true; many people don’t — even after receiving instructions with the child seat and with the truck on how to secure a child seat using the seat belt. What makes these regulators think that these same people will use the LATCH system properly?
Toyota has no other choice, Chris Tinto, Toyota’s vice president for regulatory affairs, told CNNMoney.com. Placing the LATCH system in the trucks’ front seats would have been far too expensive.
“We still think it’s better with the cut-off switches in,” said Tinto said. But rules are rules, so it’s out with the switches. . . .
In its final decision, (PDF) published on June 28, 2006, NHTSA pointed out that the method a manufacturer might choose to remedy a compliance issue is not a determining factor when deciding that it must be fixed, so Toyota’s warning made no difference.
Any issue NHTSA might have with Toyota’s solution to the problem will have to wait for another round of memos.
“We are closely reviewing Toyota’s remedy,” said Rae Tyson, a spokesman for NHTSA. — CNN Money
New Tundra pickup trucks are being built without the switches to disable the airbag, and the back seats contain the required LATCH system.
Rules are rules, indeed, and that’s what you get with government regulation: Rigid rules which can’t be set aside when they conflict with actually making a safe product, or even when they conflict with common sense. Sooner or later you will run across one of these rules. Let’s just hope you survive the experience.
In the meantime, the recall is voluntary, so you don’t have to take your truck back to have the airbag switch removed, and if you have a small child and any bit of sense, you won’t.
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buff daddy
Jul 16, 2006
I might be wrong about this, but I thought that it was against the law in the United States to have a child under the age of 12 to sit in the front seat of a moving vehicle?
If that’s the case, then in theory, the danger is not in removing the switch, it’s the falsely implied message that “You can mount a child seat in the the front passenger seat” in the recall’s description!
Why can’t they just come up with a way to make it impossible to mount a car seat in the front passenger seat to begin with? This way, they can ensure the saftey of every child against faulty and/or ineffective saftey enhancements AND ensure the saftey of every child from parents who might not know what the dangers are of having their child in the front passenger seat! What would you rather have… An very comfortable seat for the adults passenger in your car or a passenger seat in your car that a child won’t die in?
Rob Miller
Jul 16, 2006
Hmm, I think the danger is that flipping the switch is “optional” – ie, it’s possible to forget to flick the switch either “off” when mounting a child seat or “on” when taking the child seat out. They should make a system in which the airbag automatically disables if there is less than X lbs of weight on the seat, solving both problems.
buff daddy
Jul 16, 2006
Hi Rob,
Wouldn’t that be a moot point if it’s illegal to drive a motor vehicle with an underaged child in the front seat? In cases like this where the percentage of risk to a child’s life is at an unacceptable level, I believe that the “One apple DOES spoil the bunch” theory be applied to any new saftey design in automobiles instead of thousands of saftey “features” that may or may not be available in all cars or even used if it were.
I got this from the LPCH.org:
The following statistics are the latest available from the National SAFE KIDS Campaign, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC):
* About 73 percent of child safety seats or booster seats are improperly used.
* One-third of children ride in the front passenger seat, increasing the risk for injury and death.
* Properly installed and used child safety seats can reduce the risk of death by 71 percent for infants and 54 percent for children ages 1 to 4. Child safety seats can also reduce the need for hospitalization among children ages 4 and under by 69 percent.
If we could somehow redesign all front-passenger seats in new vehicles so that it were IMPOSSIBLE to mount a car seat on it, wouldn’t the statistics quoted above be considerably lower in the years to come?
Hmmm… Maybe it shouldn’t be the auto industries concern at all… Why can’t the manufacturers of child seats be required to make their products impossible to fit in the front passenger seat instead…
Dana
Jul 16, 2006
Laws vary from state to state, especially regarding pick up trucks. If children are not allowed to ride in the bed of the truck, then they kind of have to ride in the front seat of a good number of trucks. This is from LA, just because it popped up first in the search:
“Pickup trucks with passenger airbags and no “shut-off” switch and no back seat cannot safely transport babies under 1 YOA. Babies this age must ride rear-facing and always in the back seat; the front may only be used if there is no danger from an airbag.”
And “not properly restrained” often means not restrained at all…or sitting in a parent’s lap. Regardless of what system you use, it won’t change stupid people’s stupid habits. And if you are confused about your vehicle or your car seat, a quick stop at the police station will give you trained officers installing the thing for you. We had to do that with our Saturn because the seat belt just would not hold down the carseat which was built for the LATCH system our Saturn did not have.
buff daddy
Jul 16, 2006
While the information you provide is worse than I expected, I thank you for providing it anyway, Dana!
Is this really the best way to correct this epidemic though? If parents have statistically proven time and time again that they can’t be trusted with the lives of their children, then the government MUST do it for them! What’s more important to us as a country… Knowing there are bad parents who’s ignorance caused the death of their children or hearing bad parents bitch and complain about how the government is telling them how to raise their children?
I’m being very serious about this… I am no longer willing to empathize with parents who claim ignorance as their excuse for the death of their child(ren). Let’s be totally realistic here… If the majority of child deaths in a car accident is the faulty logic of parents, then that is the ONLY thing that we should be focusing on. PERIOD. Nothing has yet been gained from allowing it to happen, right?
Michael Hampton
Jul 16, 2006
Hm, I think you’re in the wrong country.
I’d rather see such parents charged with homicide. One or two of those would smarten up the rest very fast. No further government regulation necessary.
Dana
Jul 17, 2006
I agree. The laws already exist and they aren’t helping much. I remember that really neat ad campaign when I was a kid (probably and IN thing). A state trooper ended each of these by saying, “I’ve never unbuckled a dead man.” And so it is. I have nothing against the individual states enacting seat belt laws and enforcing them when necessary. Perhaps they are taking their own lives into their own hands and I should just let them take personal responsibility for it…but I also pay for at least a portion of the medical expenses from stupid people doing stupid things and ending up in the hospital for it.
But laws don’t make people much smarter. If they are going to defy the current law to hold a child in their lap in the front seat of a car, I have little hope that any further regulation is going to help much. Government regulation gets us strange things like the above which clearly is counter-productive.
buff daddy
Jul 17, 2006
Hi Dana…
I think that the problem with government regulation is that they usually regulate the wrong entity. If those statistics don’t alarm you like they do me, then this will be a moot point; but I can’t believe that NO government regulation at all will make matters worse. Children have NO SAY in the matter at all, and parents are entrusted to protect their saftey to the best of their abilities. If children cannot be trusted to protect themselves, their parents cannot be trusted to protect them, the manufactures of both motor vehicles and car seats don’t care about protecting them AND the government doesn’t want to protect them, then WHO WILL protect them?
Like I said before, under most circumstances I would agree with you all on less goverment regulation is best, but when it comes to issues of PREVENTABLE child death (for the most part… I’m not implying that I think children CAN’T die in a car accident), then I can’t believe that any GOOD AND CARING parent would complain about being “forced” to buy a car seat that CANNOT BE MOUNTED IN THE PASSENGER SEAT OF A CAR! My 20 month old nephew is lucky to have two parents who put his saftey ahead of their own free will, but If they didn’t do that and I couldn’t “make” them, then I would be ESTATIC if the government MADE THEM DO IT then have to attend his funeral because nobody gave a damn.
buff daddy
Jul 17, 2006
Sorry… My comment addresses both you and Michael’s post.
forstand
Jul 17, 2006
I have a 2005 Toyota Tacoma and it has a switch that uses the ignition key to disable the passenger side air bag.
If my truck is recalled I will refuse to have the switch removed. I believe I have enough smarts as to know when to disable the air bag. And to re-enable it.
I don’t have young children or babies but have friends who do.
Dana Hanley
Jul 18, 2006
I think we are talking about two different things. Like I said, I have nothing against seat belt laws. Or having children properly restrained in a car seat. But we have laws regarding this. Enforce those laws, don’t introduce insane regulations that are going to drive up the costs for everyone, including those who do carefully consider the safety of their children. And, as in the case cited in this article, perhaps even make things more dangerous. Having a car seat that doesn’t fit into the front seat of a car will not prevent the mother who unbuckles her crying infant to console him from doing so. Nor will it ensure that it is properly installed in the back, or even used. We have laws in all 50 states regarding seat belts and car seats. Enforce them and let people bear the responsibility for their own actions, ie., prosecute them rather than seeking regulations to somehow prevent them from being negligent.
buff daddy
Jul 18, 2006
Point taken, Dana; and well said, might I add…
TheMan
Jul 23, 2006
I feel everyone here is missing the real point. We live in an unsafe world where people do unsafe things. One of the least of these unsafe things is what they choose to do with a child seat. All the government regulations have solved no world problems. I have been all over the world. There is homelessness, drunkenness, hate, carelessness everywhere.
If you read the newspaper you will see stories of people electrocuting themselves with hair dryers in the bathtub. People fall off ladders, cut their selves while cooking. They burn themselves in a variety of ways. Children stick their fingers in light bulb sockets and get electrocuted. That is the way of things.
Over the years I have seen things that would amaze anyone. All the times I wish I could record my memories so others can share in the insanity of life and see what I have seen. You would be able to see women that have no hope of ever being attractive putting on makeup while driving 60MPH on the freeway, coming up to slow traffic slamming their brakes then yelling who knows what. I suspect blaming the world for their own stupidity thinking it every bodies fault but their own. Men holding up and reading the Wall Street Journal at daybreak driving at breakneck speeds to rush to get that stock trade in before the market opens. People driving after drinking weaving all over the road. That is a real problem. Of all the road fatalities last year how many were caused by drunk drivers? How many were caused by careless drivers? If you really care about life do something about that. Stop worrying about a few kids. In the big picture they are irrelevant.
Children don’t listen to parents. A screaming child will distract even the most patient parent. Just because they should be in the child seat (regardless of if it is installed properly) doesn’t mean you can keep them there all the time. The statistical probability of a child being injured the few times it isn’t in the proper restraints is very small. Society needs to stop trying to regulate everything. Give police / parents a little discretion. Don’t accuse them of manslaughter just because a few kids are hurt/killed because of an accident. Bring back some common sense to the world. Stop thinking your morals are superior to everyone else’s.
If we don’t stop the insanity of regulation now in just a few decades we won’t be able to live life. We will be doped up on drugs so we don’t have ANY emotion no love, hate, fear, joy, anything. Your kids won’t be allowed to climb a tree or swim in a river. You won’t be able to hike in the forest or enjoy loud music. Your life will be grey, from morning to night. You will only be a slave to the system. The second your child says an inappropriate statement it will be pulled out of class doped up even more and be subjected to electric shock therapy. It will be taken out of your custody and given to the state because you were a bad parent because your child said an inappropriate thing. The slightest infraction you make at work or in your home will remove all your privileges. The state will own your life, you will own nothing not even your own thoughts. You already lost your genes, they are owned by big companies like Celera and Genentech, and your proteins are being patented as you read this. The food you eat isn’t yours it is owned by a biotech that will sue you if you replant the seeds. Not that you should eat a tomato that has squid DNA, or corn that has a gene from a rat, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
All of this outrage over such an insignificant issue. Why does anyone care if government forced Toyota to come into compliance on a regulation? Toyota knew about the regulation before the vehicle was built. They chose to ignore it, and instead of everyone blaming Toyota for not designing a proper child restraint system into a pickup truck as if people should drive trucks for family cars they are complaining about the government. Trucks are work vehicles they are not for the family. If you want to have children buy a minivan or a sedan or a station wagon or even an environment killing SUV. A truck no matter what kind of cab is not a family vehicle. The government didn’t tell Toyota to disable the switch but not do anything to improve the safety. The government told Toyota to make the vehicle comply with regulations. Toyota had the choice to fix the truck anyway it chose. Toyota chose to make it less safe for small children in car seats. This should look bad for Toyota and everyone should go out and carry signs in front of Toyota dealers that say Child Killers.
For those of you who are thinking why we should force parents to not drive trucks it puts an undue burden on them if that is the only vehicle they have. My reply is that if they can’t afford a family vehicle they have no business starting a family. How will they afford the health care, the diapers, and the hospital stay for birthing? Why it is that society should be forced to bare the expenses and have another family on welfare just because someone couldn’t keep his zipper zipped.
My opinion is people have to bare the responsibility for their decisions. If they don’t have the money to give birth they do it like it was done a hundred years ago at home with your mom acting as a midwife. If people drive and don’t properly restrain their child and that child dies. If it is gross negligence charge them with manslaughter if it was simply an unfortunate accident from a one off situation society doesn’t need to punish them. They have to live knowing that they could have prevented that child’s death. Society doesn’t owe you anything. Our tax dollars are not for special interests and charity. Government is not supposed to micromanage individual choice. Laws should be created and enforced for issues dealing with society as a whole, such as if you drink and drive you go to jail. You don’t go to jail for having had alcohol you go to jail for putting the public safety at risk by driving in an impaired condition. Public drunkenness is another if you are simply drunk in public but not disrupting anyone no jail, but after you cross the line and start disrupting people you go to jail.
We don’t need a million laws. We need a few simple laws that are enforced. The first law should be personal responsibility. You are responsible for your actions. You can’t blame Hostess for making Twinkies have too much sugar or McDonalds for making french fries with fat. You ate it you killed someone or you got fat, it is your fault. You can’t blame tobacco for giving you lung cancer you smoked it, it is your fault. (Except for those people that started smoking because of health claims. If you create a product and claim it helps people’s health but it turns out to kill them it is that company’s responsibility for damages, and if employees of that company knowingly withheld information they are liable and should go to jail.)
I can go on and offend just about everyone because we all have things we think we are entitled to. The truth hurts, you are not the center of the universe society doesn’t owe you anything and we are going to force you to take responsibility for your own actions.
Start spreading the word.
Michael Hampton
Jul 23, 2006
Amen! Preach it, brother! Hallelujah! Praise Gawd!
Becky
Jan 05, 2007
While I don’t believe that Toyota should be taking the switch option off the passenger side air bag, it is still important to have the latch system for five point harness car seats. There have been cases where it has nothing to do with parents putting the seat belt on correctly. In one case a brother and sister were in the same car, in matching car seats. The car they were in was hit and the brothers seat belt failed while the sisters continued to work. She lived, and he did not make it. The only problem was the seat belt didn’t function correctly upon impact. No parent could have seen that coming.
My point is that we should not be relying on airbags, or seatbelts. It has clearley been proven that sometimes they work, and others they just don’t. What we do have control over is the car seats we buy and putting them in properly.
An annoyed parent
Jan 21, 2007
One question and one question only. Plain and simple. Should the government have the right to tell a parent how to take care of their child while they are contained in automobiles? I dont have a problem with child restaints. But I do have a problem with the government calling it child endangerment if a parent takes a child out of a child restraint. Then not only do they break the law and call it child endangerment but the punishment is… a fine, go to jail, get your kids taken away, or worse of all…. all of the above. Now my father works at the fire department so I know that carseats and seatbelts can save lives and have. But I do not agree that the government can tell a parent how to take care of their child. What if you are on a long trip and your child is hungry or needs changed or something that needs attentioned to? Do you take them out every 1/2 hr for the different need? Or not because it is a law and you can get in trouble if you violate it. I want the decision of “risking” my child while i am in an automobile. One last thing. It is way more dangerous for children to be in the front and I do not agree with it. But if a parent wants their child up there with them, then let them. It should be their choice and their fault if something would happen. So go ahead and let Toyota do what ever they please. I like the idea of the switch on airbags. It’s a great idea. I think they should leave it personally. But in the end… just let the parent decide how they want their child placed in their car. DO you agree or disagree?
Becky
Jan 21, 2007
The comment that was posted before this raised some questions in my eyes. I am the parent of 2 boys, and we have been on some long trips. Your child, or children should mean enouph to you that you pull over and feed them somewhere safe, or change them when you stop or pull over as well. If the child has to wait a few minutes it won’t kill them. Children should not be unbelted, or lap babies in a moving car or truck. If you pack bottles, even if you are nursing you can usually feed them in the seat they are in, and just stop for burping, and diaper changes. Even if you are nursing, they made breast pumps for a reason! The answer to the government having the right to make the laws about what you may or may not do with your children is easy. If you are not a registered voter then become one, and help vote what you think might be the right officials into office. Sitting around and complaining about these things won’t do any good, so take some action!
babs
Jul 01, 2007
So what is the safest thing to do if you only have a front seat to restrain a 18lb baby? If you don’t have an airbag i assume it is to put them rear facing in a car seat. but what if you have an airbag without a switch… go to the dealer and get it disabled.