princess
03-27-2006, 11:04 AM
Nearly all vehicles nag the unbelted
By Jayne O'Donnell, USA TODAY
Riding around without your seat belt on? Chances are your car is going to nag you to buckle up.
Nearly all automakers now install systems to bug the unbelted. They go beyond the chimes and lights that are required when you start the car and can continue intermittently for as long as nine minutes. Safety advocates say the systems can save lives, but some car owners think they are annoying.
Among the latest: the General Motors system, on 75% of its models. The automaker says it should be almost imperceptible to those who buckle up and less aggravating to those who don't. But a safety researcher thinks it may not be noticeable enough to push the unbuckled into their belts.
Ford Motor had the first reminder system, introduced in 1999. The system in Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models warns with six seconds of chimes and lights 10 times in five minutes if drivers - and, in most models, passengers - are unbelted.
In 2002, Jeffrey Runge, former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, asked all automakers to install similar technology. A study that same year by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that the Ford system increased belt use to 76% from 71%.
GM's system relies heavily on lights, uses shorter chimes and warns less frequently than other systems - just three times in 41/2 minutes. Jim Khoury, GM's manager of advanced safety development, says research showed even those who wear belts don't always buckle up immediately so don't need to be reminded very early or loudly.
"Our first criteria was that we can't annoy people that use their belts. They don't need to be reminded," he says.
Susan Ferguson, IIHS' senior vice president of research, isn't sure lights work as well as lengthy chimes: "We know more intrusive systems can be effective. We're not as sure systems that are less annoying will be as effective."
Ferguson is completing a study of Honda's system, which uses lights and chimes 18 times over nine minutes to remind the unbuckled.
Such a system would have driven Jolie Morris crazy. She had a 2004 Ford Explorer that she drove to the end of her tenth-of-a-mile-long driveway in Alaska to wait for her children's school bus. Morris says she always wears a seat belt but not in her own driveway. The intermittent chime irritated her so much that she consulted the owner's manual and disabled it.
IIHS found 86% of people liked the Ford system and 3% disabled it. "There is a balance between being insistent enough and thinking, 'My goodness, this is really annoying,' " Ferguson says. "I don't think we really know what it is yet."
By Jayne O'Donnell, USA TODAY
Riding around without your seat belt on? Chances are your car is going to nag you to buckle up.
Nearly all automakers now install systems to bug the unbelted. They go beyond the chimes and lights that are required when you start the car and can continue intermittently for as long as nine minutes. Safety advocates say the systems can save lives, but some car owners think they are annoying.
Among the latest: the General Motors system, on 75% of its models. The automaker says it should be almost imperceptible to those who buckle up and less aggravating to those who don't. But a safety researcher thinks it may not be noticeable enough to push the unbuckled into their belts.
Ford Motor had the first reminder system, introduced in 1999. The system in Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models warns with six seconds of chimes and lights 10 times in five minutes if drivers - and, in most models, passengers - are unbelted.
In 2002, Jeffrey Runge, former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, asked all automakers to install similar technology. A study that same year by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that the Ford system increased belt use to 76% from 71%.
GM's system relies heavily on lights, uses shorter chimes and warns less frequently than other systems - just three times in 41/2 minutes. Jim Khoury, GM's manager of advanced safety development, says research showed even those who wear belts don't always buckle up immediately so don't need to be reminded very early or loudly.
"Our first criteria was that we can't annoy people that use their belts. They don't need to be reminded," he says.
Susan Ferguson, IIHS' senior vice president of research, isn't sure lights work as well as lengthy chimes: "We know more intrusive systems can be effective. We're not as sure systems that are less annoying will be as effective."
Ferguson is completing a study of Honda's system, which uses lights and chimes 18 times over nine minutes to remind the unbuckled.
Such a system would have driven Jolie Morris crazy. She had a 2004 Ford Explorer that she drove to the end of her tenth-of-a-mile-long driveway in Alaska to wait for her children's school bus. Morris says she always wears a seat belt but not in her own driveway. The intermittent chime irritated her so much that she consulted the owner's manual and disabled it.
IIHS found 86% of people liked the Ford system and 3% disabled it. "There is a balance between being insistent enough and thinking, 'My goodness, this is really annoying,' " Ferguson says. "I don't think we really know what it is yet."