1st Edition

Backseat Driver The Role of Data in Great Car Safety Debates

By Norma Faris Hubele Copyright 2023
200 Pages 67 B/W Illustrations
by Chapman & Hall

200 Pages 67 B/W Illustrations
by Chapman & Hall

200 Pages 67 B/W Illustrations
by Chapman & Hall

Buying the safest car for your family shouldn’t be up for debate. Yet for decades, car safety advocates, manufacturers, and lawmakers in the United States have clashed over whether to make automobiles safer. All sides armed themselves with data in the hopes of winning the great car safety debates. In this way, crash statistics and the analysts who studied them made history. But data were... Read more

Glossary of Selected Terms

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. A Strange Start for a Movement

Chapter 3. Crash Data Make a Difference

Chapter 4. Measuring Progress with Data

Chapter 5. The Roof Crush Resistance Debate

Chapter 6. The Incompatibility Debate

Chapter 7. The Fuel Efficiency Debate

Chapter 8. The Safety Ratings Debate

Chapter 9. Two Recall Debates

Chapter 10. The Automated Driver-Assistance Systems Debate

Chapter 11. The Self-Driving Car Debate

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

Index

Biography

Norma Faris Hubele, PhD has served over 30 years as a professor, consumer advocate, and automotive safety expert. She was the first director of strategic initiatives at the Fulton School of Engineering at Arizona State University, where she is now a Professor Emerita. An expert witness in over 120 car safety cases, Dr. Hubele has educated the courts about when statistics can or cannot inform decisions. She is a co-author of a widely used textbook, Engineering Statistics. Dr. Hubele is founder and CEO of TheAutoProfessor.com, a free website for new car safety ratings and information.

"Overall, the book presents an insightful recount of how the use of data in car safety has changed over time, and gives a glimpse of what the future might look like. The author has used graphics effectively throughout the book. It is an interesting read for those particularly interested in automotive safety and/or the use of data or statistics in car safety, and in social processes in general."
- Shuangzhe Liu in Technometrics, February 2024