Interesting story on how rescue teams are struggling to keep up with advances in auto safety:
“We build more fire stations, we make faster fire trucks, we’ve got helicopters to get you to the hospital,” said Roberts, an expert who teaches extrication to colleagues around Florida. “But what’s slowing us down are these vehicles that are harder for us to get into.”
The problem has rescue workers scrambling to update their tools and explore different ways to attack cars with their cutters, spreaders and saws. Some agencies with equipment more than a few years old are arriving at accident scenes and finding out that it will no longer do the job.
The obvious answer is to design newer vehicles with rescue requirements in mind.
Automakers say they are doing more to make safety information available to rescuers and tool makers before new models come out. For instance, Ford is already offering a look at the skeleton of the 2009 F-150 pickup, built with the strongest steel construction the company has ever used.
“We want to facilitate the discussion as much as possible, because we understand the critical nature of their work,” Ford spokesman Wesley Sherwood said.
Safety information is nice, but what about a standard for vehicle safety that rescuers can be trained on and practice? For example, surely the hybrid engineers can find a way to route cables in a consistent fashion that is free and clear of a rescue saw or least give rescuers the right of explaining their preferred cutting path.
I think what the auto designers should implement are quick-release devices. Then instead of having to cut through the girders, rescuers can just cut through the quick-release bolts and do whatever needs to happen next.
The link is now dead.
However, I do wonder if we are talking about security features here, or safety features? No matter how well the immobilizers etc. protect against theft of the whole car, I have never yet seen a sedan type automobile (well, other than the most expensive “bulletproof” limos) that had an ounce of security against forced entry: just put a brick through the window and reach through.
On the other hand, some of the modern safety features: integral roll cages, reinforced chassis, side mounted airbags etc. could certainly make life tough for those trying to cut their way in.
Possibly they could create something like the HAZMAT databases being provided to fire departments, so that an emergency team enters the model number on a laptop and instantly gets a map of the best places to cut?