scholarly journals Impact of CARB’s Tailpipe Emission Standard Policy on CO2 Reduction among the U.S. States

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaewon Lim ◽  
DooHwan Won

U.S.Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set the nationwide emission standard policy, but each state in the U.S. has an option to follow the higher emission standard policy set by CARB (California Air Resources Board) in 2004. There are 14 “CARB states” that follow California’s more restrictive standards. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of CARB’s tailpipe emission standard policy. Using the panel dataset for 49 U.S. states over a 28-year study period (1987–2015), this paper found the long-term policy effect in reducing CO2 emission from CARB’s tailpipe standard, and its long-run effect is 5.4 times higher than the short-run effect. The equivalent policy effect of the CARB emission standard in CO2 reduction can be achieved by raising gasoline price by 145.43%. Also, if 26.0% of petroleum consumed for transportation is substituted by alternative clean fuels (natural gas or electricity), it will have a comparable policy effect in CO2 reduction. Findings in this study support to continue the collaborative efforts among the EPA, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and California in order to achieve the CO2 reduction goal set by CARB and adopted by the EPA in 2012. The packaged policy approach rooted in persistent public and political support is necessary for successful policy implementation.

Author(s):  
Subasish Das ◽  
Srinivas R. Geedipally ◽  
Karen Dixon ◽  
Xiaoduan Sun ◽  
Chaolun Ma

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) guideline on state motor vehicle inspection programs recommends that states should maintain a vehicle safety inspection program to reduce the crash outcomes from the number of vehicles with existing or potential conditions. Some states have started to terminate the vehicle safety inspection program because of insufficient effectiveness measures, budget constraints, and modern safer automobiles. Despite the consensus that these periodic inspection programs improve vehicle condition and improve safety, research remains inconclusive about the effect of safety inspection programs on crash outcomes. There is little recent research on the relationship between vehicle safety inspection programs and whether these programs reduce crash rates or crash severities. According to the 2011–2016 Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data, nearly 2.6% of fatal crashes happened as a result of the vehicle’s pre-existing manufacturing defects. NHTSA’s vehicle complaint database incorporates more than 1.4 million complaint reports. These reports contain extended information on vehicle-related disruptions. Around 5% of these reports involve some level of injury or fatalities. This study used these two databases to determine the effectiveness of vehicle inspection regulation programs in different states of the U.S. A statistical significance test was performed to determine the effectiveness of the vehicle safety inspection programs based on the states with and without safety inspection in place. This study concludes that there is a need for vehicle safety inspections to be continued for the reduction of vehicle complaints.


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (10) ◽  
pp. 2094-2118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sourish Sarkar ◽  
Balaji Rajagopalan

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the value of information in consumer safety complaints for organizational learning. Design/methodology/approach Empirical analysis of this study uses a novel secondary data set, which is formed by combining complaints data filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for potential safety defects, and design change information from 2003 to 2011 model-year vehicles in the USA. Findings First, the paper demonstrates the value of information embedded in complaints. Second, in the case of radical product redesigns, owing to the lack of direct applicability of consumer feedback based learning, the impact of learning on product safety is found to be muted, third, the results suggest that the safety complaint rates vary by vehicle classes/categories and, fourth, the findings differ from prior research conclusions on vehicle quality. Prior research finds the debuting car models have the lowest repair rates among all car models produced in a given year, but the current study finds the debuting models to have the highest rates of safety complaints. Originality/value Quality management literature rarely examines the safety complaints data (which, unlike other consumer feedbacks, focuses exclusively on the safety hazards due to flaws that result in accidents). This paper fills the gap in literature by linking safety complaints with future product quality and organizational learning.


Author(s):  
Edmundo Rodarte ◽  
Jerry L. Purswell ◽  
Robert Schlegel ◽  
Richard F. Krenek

There are a variety of conditions that can exist in the post-crash environment which make rapid escape necessary for survival or to avoid further injury. These include a post-crash fire, the vehicle going into the water, or avoiding being struck in a secondary collision. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has defined this parameter vehicle escapeworthiness. It has been estimated in past research performed by the author for NHTSA that escapeworthiness becomes important in up to 7% of all vehicle crashes. Since escapeworthiness research was performed in the early 1970's, the advent of passive shoulder belt systems has made it necessary to again review the impact of this development on escapeworthiness. In particular, the inability of the occupants to release the passive restraint because the door cannot be opened after the crash, coupled with the inability to release the passive restraint due to its design or a lack of experience, or knowledge of how to release the passive restraint while the door is closed, creates a serious problem. Thus, the present study was performed to investigate the impact of passive restraint systems on the time required to escape from the vehicle under various conditions of available escape routes, and physical condition of the occupants. The experimental design included the variables of age, gender, escape route, level of incapacitation and type of passive restraint system. The times to effect an escape as well as the method of escaping were determined through videographic analysis of all escape trials. The findings demonstrated that the use of passive restraint systems increased the time to escape significantly, ranging from 37 to 65 percent for the respective conditions. This difference may determine whether a person survives or not after some post-crash conditions. The results have significance for the design of passive restraint systems for easy release, while at the same time not creating an incentive for some users to routinely leave the passive restraint unfastened.


Author(s):  
Hideki Kaida ◽  
Naoto Kihara ◽  
Daisuke Takabatake

Tsunami, hurricane storm surge, and waves generate debris such as shipping containers, wood logs, and vehicles. Impact forces exerted on structures in the inundation zone by such debris might result in severe structural damage of structures. Thus, reliable prediction of debris impact force is essential for the safe design and risk assessment of structures in the inundation zone. In this study, we carried out full-scale air-borne and flood-borne vehicle impact experiments. The experimental results enable characterization of the vehicle impact and prove the applicability of a theoretical equation (Haehnel and Daly, (2004)) in which the impact force of debris is estimated by using the impact velocity, axial stiffness, and mass of the debris. In addition, by analyzing NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)’s experimental data, a list of axial stiffness for various types of vehicles was constructed, which is important in predicting the flood-borne vehicle impact force.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 7976
Author(s):  
Zhongyu Han ◽  
Hatim O. Sharif

Understanding how crash factors are impacted by rain is critical to road safety planning and management. This study assesses the impact of rain on traffic safety by conducting an analysis of the fatal crashes related to rain in Texas from 1994 to 2018. The fatal crash data was gathered from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Environmental variables used in the analysis include month of the year, time of the day, temperature, and weather condition. The roadway-related factors identified include the posted speed limit, the number of lanes, route sign, and Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). The driver-related factors identified include age, gender, and the number of licensed drivers in total. Relative risk analysis was performed to statistically quantify the impact of rainy conditions at the hourly and monthly time scales. On average, rain-related fatal crashes represented about 6.8% of the total fatal crashes. However, the proportion shows higher variability at the annual, monthly, and hourly time scales and seems to be influenced by other factors such as the age and gender of the driver, type of the road, and posted roadway speed limit. Total and rain-related crashes show statistically significant decreasing trends when normalized by the total number of licensed drivers or vehicle miles travelled. The relative risk of a fatal crash during rainy conditions was always greater than 1.0 at hourly, monthly, and annual time scales. However, it shows significant variability at the monthly (1.07 to 2.78) and hourly scales (1.35 to 2.57). The relative risk is higher in less urbanized and drier counties, in general. Gender and age analysis reveals that male and young drivers are more likely to be involved in a fatal crash but less likely to be killed in the crash.


2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-93
Author(s):  
Marion G. Pottinger ◽  
Joseph D. Walter ◽  
John D. Eagleburger

Abstract The Congress of the United States petitioned the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences to study replacement passenger car tire rolling resistance in 2005 with funding from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The study was initiated to assess the potential for reduction in replacement tire rolling resistance to yield fuel savings. The time required to realize these savings is less than the time required for automotive and light truck fleet replacement. Congress recognized that other factors besides fuel savings had to be considered if the committee’s advice was to be a reasonable guide for public policy. Therefore, the study simultaneously considered the effect of potential rolling resistance reductions in replacement tires on fuel consumption, wear life, scrap tire generation, traffic safety, and consumer spending for tires and fuel. This paper summarizes the committee’s report issued in 2006. The authors, who were members of the multidisciplinary committee, also provide comments regarding technical difficulties encountered in the committee’s work and ideas for alleviating these difficulties in further studies of this kind. The authors’ comments are clearly differentiated so that these comments will not be confused with findings, conclusions, and recommendations developed by the committee and contained in its final report.


1981 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. S. Ludwig ◽  
F. C. Brenner

Abstract Belted bias and radial Course Monitoring Tires were run over the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration tread wear course at San Angelo on a vehicle instrumented to measure lateral and longitudinal accelerations, speed, and number of wheel rotations. The data were recorded as histograms. The distribution of speed, the distributions of lateral and longitudinal acceleration, and the number of acceleration level crossings are given. Acceleration data for segments of the course are also given.


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