Uncovering the Safety Secrets & Blunders of Your Car or SUV … Past, Present, Future!

ABSTRACT — Just how safe is your car? And what’s going on with the latest autonomous technology? Whatever you drive, do you really know the level of safety that’s designed in both to prevent accidents, and then to protect you and your family if there’s a crash? As the price and complexity of our cars and SUVs and pickups skyrockets, just how informed are you about what you might buy? Let’s look at the basics, and then examine how our vehicles and roads and traffic have affected our lives, our travel, our wallet, and the environment, today and tomorrow. Are headlights really able to safely illuminate the road ahead? Do trucks lack safety features that could save many lives? What’s the latest NHTSA v. Tesla fiasco all about? Did Tesla secretly short-change a critical safety feature? And are our vehicles too obese for the planet’s safety?

SPEAKER — Byron built and launched rockets as a teenager in Chicago, and dreamed of becoming an astronaut. But after Polaris and Minuteman, he shifted into auto safety, and criss-crossed the nation for 50 years analyzing how and why accidents and injuries occurred, and how they could be prevented. Testifying in court cases, and to NHTSA and Congress, and on TV, he fights for safer vehicles for us all. And he also wrote the Universal-NBC televised story of a medical emergency on an Apollo mission, about a year before Apollo 13. For more info, please see: http://autosafetyexpert.com

Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Kenneth Carpenter, NASA-GSFC, 301-286-3453

 
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