Electric Cars are an Accident Waiting to Happen; Firefighters Petition Air Resources Board for Safety Measures.a stringent review of potential safety hazards and the formulation of strict safety standards Safety standards are standards designed to ensure the safety of products, activities or processes, etc. They may be advisory or compulsory and are normally laid down by an advisory or regulatory body that may be either voluntary or statutory. for electric vehicles (EVs), a determined delegation of emergency service and firefighting 1. firefighting - What sysadmins have to do to correct sudden operational problems. An opposite of hacking. "Been hacking your new newsreader?" "No, a power glitch hosed the network and I spent the whole afternoon fighting fires." 2. experts converged today on the California Air Resources Board California Air Resources Board (CARB) is the "clean air agency" of the state of California in the United States. Established originally in 1967, it is a part of the California Environmental Protection Agency, an organization which reports directly to the California . The occasion was a public meeting of the agency's board, at which technological progress of the electric car mandate was scheduled for discussion. Said Darlene Skelton, president of the non-profit National Institute of Emergency Vehicle Safety (NIEVS): "No vehicle standards currently exist for hazards unique to electric vehicles, even though tens of thousands of them will be forced onto our highways before we know it." Citing what she feared would set a chilling precedent for large-scale production of the mandated vehicles, Skelton described the safety regulations applied to EVs already in service: "According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the National Highway Safety and Traffic Administration, all EVs on the road today have either been exempted from federal standards or have slipped through loopholes in federal vehicle standards," she noted. Ralph Craven CRAVEN. A word of obloquy, which in trials by battle, was pronounced by the vanquished; upon which judgment was rendered against him. , NIEVS vice president and a firefighter with over 30 years of experience in emergency situations and hazardous substances, called existing emergency worker training materials "woefully woe·ful also wo·ful adj. 1. Affected by or full of woe; mournful. 2. Causing or involving woe. 3. Deplorably bad or wretched: inadequate" to address the unique safety hazards associated with EVs. Said Craven: "By potentially putting emergency response personnel into situations where they are either uncertain or have misinformation mis·in·form tr.v. mis·in·formed, mis·in·form·ing, mis·in·forms To provide with incorrect information. mis concerning all possible conditions, inadequate EV safety materials will further endanger en·dan·ger tr.v. en·dan·gered, en·dan·ger·ing, en·dan·gers 1. To expose to harm or danger; imperil. 2. To threaten with extinction. the lives of firefighters and the public at large." Echoing Craven's concerns was Jan Dunbar, Division Chief for Hazardous Materials Incidents for the City and County of Sacramento. Referring to the issue of serious safety risks associated with electric vehicles, Dunbar remarked: "The California Air Resources Board does not want and is not willing to deal with these problems." Dunbar deplored the seeming lack of official interest in what firefighters classify as a major safety threat: "CARB is putting the cart before the horse," he said. "Electric vehicles may be a good idea, but they are creating a whole new set of other problems. The people at CARB are just turning their heads away from this issue." Firefighter Terry Scortt, a member of the Hazardous Materials Committee of the California State Firefighters Association, noted that his colleagues are well-equipped to respond to emergencies involving conventional vehicles, since those cars have been subject to federal safety standards since the 1960s. Scortt's organization would like to see comparable standards established for electric vehicles. "It's only common sense to demand that electric cars should be subject to the same rigorous safety standards as any other transporting equipment. It would be irresponsible to put them on the road until that is accomplished," he declared. Craven presented the CARB boardmembers with a petition endorsed by more than 70 fire chiefs and fire departments throughout California calling for CARB to rescind To declare a contract void—of no legal force or binding effect—from its inception and thereby restore the parties to the positions they would have occupied had no contract ever been made. rescind v. its EV mandate, due to take effect in 1998, "if it cannot be proven that electric cars can be operated without jeopardizing the safety of emergency workers and the public." CONTACT: National Institute of Emergency Vehicle Safety Darlene Skelton, 702/425-4300 |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion