I can remember when Chrysler first made the bold commitment to equip every one of its new cars with an airbag. It was in 1988, and the move caught the industry off guard, even though at that time front seat belts had been required equipment for years. In 1988, auto safety was still a nascent concept in which most of us had relatively little interest, and the air bag meant nothing to us (and remember it was only one and in the steering wheel).
Just about no one understood the potential long-term significance of Chrysler’s commitment, which became a game changer. Most in the industry thought it might be a differentiation strategy for the struggling, third-place U.S. auto manufacturer. Lee Iacocca was Chrysler’s CEO, and by 1988 he was a celebrity for turning the company’s fortunes around; some people even mentioned him as a possible candidate for the U.S. presidency. (Oh, and remember he convinced the US Government to lend them the money to keep the auto maker afloat).
I believe that Iacocca’s airbag initiative had a lot to do with shaping and changing American consumer attitudes toward paying for safety equipment in the new cars they bought. As history would have it, over time air bags became a consumer requirement, as valued as automatic steering, power windows, FM stereo radios and air conditioning. Today, no consumer would ever buy a new vehicle without a whole set of multiple air bags and safety features.
Now, we ‘re digging deep into our pockets, not for one or dual air bags, but a cache of six, eight or ten that surround us completely. Do we really understand that’s an extra, maybe, $5,000 in features which few of us believe we’ll ever need one day? And I doubt that many people can appreciate how often damaged vehicles, that would otherwise be cost-effective to repair, actually end up in the junkyard because of the additional costs to replace all the deployed air bags from a crash.
Well, since that first Chrysler airbag we’ve reached the point where, according to reports, 44% of us want to some form of dirving assistance technology in our next car. This could be for parallel-parking, auto-emergency braking, lane-changing alerting and swaying, or whatever else the engineers from Detroit can dream up for us. It seems that these days we’re ready to pay for just about any technological gizmo that makes our vehicles safer to drive, that protects us from ourselves. One could say that Mr. Iacocca had it right when he set us off in this direction back in 1988.
Rising social desire for auto safety equipment has had an obvious impact on fleet expenditures. Over the past ten years, the auto market has raised the bar for minimum safety equipment in their vehicles and additional training to ensure proper vehicle operation with new magical features.
Now, fleet specifications will have to address drivers’ visions for safety features, which are growing larger and faster than existing policy. Who ever thought that driver demand for safety would exceed the requirements of standard fleet safety practices and policy?
Wouldn’t it be nice if this growing driver demand for more vehicle safety was also accompanied by the natural adherence to safer driving practices? Until that happens it seems that fleet organizations are more likely to be forced to spend more on vehicles with ever more expensive safety features without a reciprocal benefit of fewer crash expenditures. Why? Because risky driving behavior still needs to be solved. Is it possible that the wonder of these safety features is encouraging our drivers to be more carefree, even complacent, while enjoying that ride in our magical driving machines? I wonder what Lee would say?
