Car industry 'buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP'

The worrying part here isn't that the cars are not safe, or that TTIP will allow certified cars from the US be sold in EU, but that the industry tries to hide it.

And that there is apparently a gap between certification in the US and certification in the EU.

The most interesting part of this for me is that there is a difference at all. The difference is not explained in the article.

I've never lived in the US; what is the difference between EU and US cars in this respect?

Edit for clarity: What I meant, is /why/ is there such a difference in safety? What physical differences between the cars cause that?

At the risk of sounding cynical and jaded, is anyone remotely surprised by this? The EU has been pushing car encouraging manufacturers to work harder at car safety for longer, and more effectively than the US has.

Seat belts? Volvo. Air bags? First made standard in Mercs and Porsches, at a time when Ford and GM were lobbying against being made to include them. They became optional and then standard between the mid to late 90's, while legislation in the US made them a requirement in 98.

Shaped airbags? Citroen. Side impact airbags? Volvo. Curtain airbags? BMW.

The big difference though is the Euro NCAP ratings. It's near impossible to get a good score on them with just airbags, so the car manufacturers are forced to do more to score well, and it's become a solid marketing tool.

On the other hand, FMVSS 208 (the American testing standard) are designed to require an airbag to be able to stop an adult male not wearing a seatbelt, so fire far too hard, causing a lot of issues. Whilst they'll stop you dying, they'll cause huge trauma and other issues in doing so.

EU car safety technology regulation and manufacturer incentivisation is just a long way ahead, and has been for nearly two decades. So it's not surprising when something like this comes out.

[edit to include important side note]

Never wear anything flammable with sleeves while driving. Airbags are small explosions and can set flammable clothing on fire, causing severe burns &| death. If you need to be warmer, turn on the heater.

Also, never put your thumbs near the centre of the steering wheel. You don't want to be trying to get out of a car after an accident with broken thumbs, which is what you get when the airbag deploys.

I don't understand the issue here, cars sold in Europe already include many US cars obviously, and cars that sell in Europe are usually safety tested, for example by Euro NCAP. Here is a US car available in Europe, that has an excellent five star safety score in NCAP http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/jeep/cherokee/8871

Now if "research actually established that American models are much less safe when it comes to front-side collisions" then those differences presumably apply to US models that aren't currently sold in Europe, and thus have never been tested here. If a model eventually will be sold in Europe (in any numbers) it will presumably be tested in Europe too, and those safety differences would show up in the tests?

It doesn't worry me that some new car is approved for sale while not being safe, I wouldn't buy it until I see five Euro NCAP stars, and that I think goes for most European consumers. Relaxing the approval wouldn't change the testing! If US manufacturers want to sell cars in Europe they will have to not meet regulations but satisfy NCAP.

(That said: cars like the new mustang might never be tested in NCAP, nor will it have to to compete with European performance cars which often aren't tested either, or score poorly. Performance car buyers don't seem very safety concerned so crashing expensive cars that sell in small numbers doesn't seem worthwhile).

> designed to require an airbag to be able to stop an adult male not wearing a seatbelt,

What? To me it seems obivous that the right thing to do is have the seatbelt be part of the switch for the airbag -- no seatbelt, no detonation!