In the news recently has been the report that President Obama nominated Mark Rosekind to head up the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). NHTSA has not had a permanent leader since David Strickland resigned in December of 2013, and the Deputy Administrator, David Friedman, has been running the agency since then.
It is certain that the first priority for Mr Rosekind will be to address concerns that the agency is not doing a good enough job handling auto safety recalls. The ignition switch and airbag recalls of 2014 have led to significant criticism of the agency.
But there is a line in Mr Rosekind’s resume that interests us in a different way. Since 2010, Mr Rosekind has been a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, the outfit we hear about whenever an airplane crashes but which investigates transportation accidents of all kinds. Mr Rosekind is reported to be an expert in pilot alertness, and there is now speculation that as the head of the NHTSA he might have the agency give careful scrutiny to car-based internet and infotainment systems.
We can only hope so. As car enthusiasts we want not only to control our own vehicles, but we want all the other drivers to do so too. Dashboard touch-screen interfaces and voice-command systems are here, and while they are far more distracting and far less intuitive than the old-fashioned knobs and levers, there is not likely to be any going back to the old ways.
So the challenge is to keep drivers alert and involved, something we enthusiasts enjoy but which most drivers do not. Airline pilots long ago went from being active controllers to passive monitors of the aircraft they fly, and whether we like it or not such changes are coming to the highway. If Mr. Rosekind can make it so that drivers can do a better job of driving, even as the car takes over more and more of the mundane tasks, we’re all for it.
We have long been critical of the fact that the automakers haven’t been able standardize such things as how to turn on the headlights or the wipers. Each time one moves into a different car, there’s risk for an “oops” because the controls for everything are unique to that vehicle. Add to this every carmaker’s ideas for how to merge the old features such as climate control with the new features such as internet access, and we have a recipe for drivers staring at their dashbaord when they should have their eyes on the road.
Of course, as head of a government agency, Mr Rosekind’s actions are going to manifest themselves in the form of regulations, and increased government regulation leads to increased complaints about government intruding into our lives. But as aural and tactile and visual interfaces multiply in new cars, it will take regulation to ensure that a person who, say, rents a car at the airport will know how to drive it.