Hemmings highlights late-70s attack against U.S. bumper regulations

September 4, 2020 Steve Media Analysis 0
1976 Ford Elite with 5 mph bumpers

Hemmings got political recently by highlighting a 1978 attack against U.S. bumper regulations then on the books. In his “Four Links” feature, Daniel Strohl (2020) pointed to a story in a staunchly libertarian magazine called Reason.

Reason magazine 1978 cover

Strohl introduced the linked story by noting, “Whatever you think you know about the 5-mph bumpers of the mid-Seventies, it’s probably only part of the full story.”

It’s true that Jack Solomon’s (1978) article offered some useful background. However, Strohl only hinted at a crucial fact: Solomon did not write an objective analysis. Quite the contrary. This was an advocacy piece published by a think tank that has opposed many automotive regulations.

An attack dog against government regulations

How libertarian is Reason? The magazine’s parent organization displays the following quote from the Wall Street Journal on its “About” page:

“Of all the nation’s conservative or free-market policy groups, it may be the most libertarian among them, the Reason Foundation in Southern California, that ends up having the most direct impact on the actual functioning of government.”

Name the topic and Reason has likely opposed government involvement. In the case of the auto industry, that has included fuel economy standards, a national industrial policy, the bailout of General Motors and safety standards.

To offer but one example, Steve Chapman (2010) concluded that “when it comes to reducing highway bloodshed, we are better off relying on consumer demand and competition among carmakers.”

This is why you can pretty easily guess the outlines of Solomon’s attitude about bumper rules.

The feds demand that bumpers do their job

1974 Plymouth front bumper
Plymouth shows how new bumpers for 1974 work (Old Car Brochures).

For those too young to remember, for the 1973 model year passenger cars sold in the U.S. were required by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to withstand a 5-mph impact in front and a 2.5-mph impact in the rear.

Over the next seven years the rules were toughened. Most notably, rear bumpers were also required to withstand 5-mph impacts and all bumpers had to be a certain height (NHTSA, 1981).

These rules were not popular in the car buff media. For example, Brock Yates (1983) argued that the NHTSA used “openly distorted data” to support the 5-mph bumper standards. This was a more high-octane spin than Solomon’s (1978) contention that NHTSA “ignored real-world data” regarding the cost of repairing cars that had been in a crash.

1976 AMC Pacer front bumper

Mercedes-Benz once built beefy bumpers
Bumper design varied substantially. For example, AMC Pacer’s free-standing bumpers (top image) were not as visually obtrusive as those on a Mercedes-Benz (click on images to see more photos).

Of course, car designers were also not excited about bumper standards. Dean’s Garage commentator Allen Omes (2013) may have spoken for many when he complained about rules that resulted in “huge bumpers and extra overhang to most everything.”

Solomon channels auto industry views

Solomon pulled together major strands of this discontent in his essay. You don’t have to be a knee-jerk supporter of the regulatory state to question some of his facts and logic. For example, Solomon drew heavily upon data from sources with vested interests. That included individual automakers as well as the Auto Club of Southern California.

Also see ‘Late-60s design film shows Detroit losing it’

Solomon did not acknowledge the potential bias of data from these sources. Yet he railed against research by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety that was viewed favorably by the NHTSA. Indeed, Solomon (1978) pointed a finger at the insurance industry lobby when concluding, “Once again, the government was purchased by the highest bidder, and the consumer takes the boot.”

1970 Ford Thunderbird had an exceptionally fragile front bumper
Solomon pointed to research that cars had not become more fragile. Really? Flimsy bumpers were arguably at their peak in the early-70s. Behold, the 1970 Ford Thunderbird (Old Car Brochures).

Some of Solomon’s arguments look rather disingenuous. As a case in point, when complaining about the added weight of 5-mph bumpers, he concluded:

“Is it any wonder that the curb weight of a typical mid-size American passenger car of the mid-1960’s increased from 3600 to 4400 lbs. or over 22 percent, during the past decade of federal intervention in highway safety?

The 5-mph bumpers were indeed heavier — particularly early on when they were tacked on rather than integrated into a car’s basic design. However, Solomon did not admit that U.S. cars were also putting on pounds because they were getting bigger, glitzier and more powerful.

For example, in 1972 — a year before the start of bumper rules — a mid-sized Ford was nine inches longer and five inches wider than in 1965. This would have translated into extra weight without any new safety features.

Reagan-era report finds value in bumper rules

The political pushback against regulations in the 1970s led the federal government to start doing cost-benefit studies. In 1981 the Reagan administration released a report by the NHTSA that evaluated bumper rules.

1981 NHTSA bumper standard evaluation

The report concluded that front bumpers reduced the frequency of damage between 28 and 37 percent. This translated into a net benefit even when secondary costs were factored in such as higher gas consumption due to added weight.

In contrast, rear bumpers showed a net cost. Among the reasons why front bumpers were more cost-effective was because they were damaged 25-50 percent more frequently than rear bumpers.

I imagine that Solomon would have found ways to dismiss this report. And under Reagan the NHTSA did cut the crash-test speeds from 5 mph to 2.5 mph for cars built after 1982 (Wikipedia, 2020). However, it says something that fairly positive findings came out of an administration hostile to regulation.

Deregulation has led to increased repair costs

A subsequent study by the IIHS found that relaxing bumper rules increased the repair costs of 5-mph crashes. For example, a 1999 Mazda Protege sustained $4,609 in damages — up from $1,930 for the previous-year’s model.

Why the difference? “The problem stemmed from a redesign,” according to New York Times reporter Cheryl Jensen (1999). “To trim about two pounds, part of a broader effort to reduce weight and improve mileage, Mazda had eliminated an aluminum bar and energy-absorbing foam.”

Like many newer cars, the Ford Escape has a skimpy bumper
Jason Torchinsky (2018) argued that bumpers have become so useless that they are “like going into a battle with your shield held behind your ass.”

A few years ago Jason Torchinsky (2018) went as far as to argue that “the bumper, as it once was known, is effectively gone.” This has resulted in a rich irony. Due to the old federal standards, the bumpers on a late-70s Honda Civic “are tougher than anything on your huge SUV.”

High tech sits there, exposed to all the world

If bumpers worth their name were helpful in the 1970s, they could be doubly so now. The modern vehicle often has an extensive number of sensors and cameras located near bumper level.

“A minor collision that used to only require a bumper cover replacement can now involve bumper cover and radar replacement, along with pre- and post-system scans and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems recalibration,” noted Mike Antich (2019).

Also see ‘CO2 emissions: Automakers still partying like it’s 1975’

This can lead to some eye-popping repair costs. A study by the American Automobile Association found that a minor front or rear collision can cost as much as $5,300 to fix for vehicles with ADAS (Edmonds, 2018).

Autoline on high car repair costs
John Van Alstyne (2018) found that the 2018 Kia X900 could cost $34,000 to repair a “minor” left-front-corner hit. The industry average was $8,000.

Even headlights have soared in cost. In 2018 the IIHS found that replacing “just one front headlight on two-thirds of the good-rated vehicles costs more than $1,000.” The Kia Forte tallied $1,788 and the BMW 5 series cost $3,242 for a complete headlight assembly (Young, 2018).

Time again to curb the industry’s ‘witless excesses’?

Despite Yates’ antipathy toward regulations, he did offer an important caveat: “Bad automobiles came before bad laws. To be sure, federal bureaucrats have since swung the regulation pendulum too far, but that too was an inevitable response to Detroit’s witless excesses” (1983, p. 254). 

Are we now experiencing another round of witless excesses when it comes to bumpers? Torchinsky (2018) seemed to think so. However, he offered a glimmer of hope:

“I have confidence that automotive designers can come up with modern bumpers that look good but without the paint and fragile plastic-chrome grille bits and fragile, expensive lamps and sensors — or, at least they can design bumpers that actually protect the expensive parts instead of offering them up as sacrifices to the god of one little stupid mistake.”

I share Torchinsky’s confidence in designers. However, they aren’t the folks who are in charge. No automaker operating in the U.S. has recently shown much leadership on bumpers. My guess: This is unlikely to change until the government steps in again.

Advocacy pieces like Solomon’s helped get us to where we are today.

NOTES:

Shipping weights are from the Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975 (Gunnell, 2002) and the Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999 (Flammang and Kowalke, 1999). 

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