Governments must regulate safety because automotive companies have a financial incentive to cut corners, sacrificing safety for profits. However, society pays a high price for current methods of regulation. Current regulations produce a proliferation of bureaucracy, paperwork, government agencies and documentation. Each aspect of the vehicle, from headlamp aim to strength of seat backs, is explicitly spelled out in legal documents. All of the people who write, read, interpret and implement these papers could produce safer cars if they concentrated on safety engineering, rather than paperwork.
Current regulations stifle creative thinking by eliminating possible alternatives.
Because regulations are so specific, other alternatives become illegal, even if they are an improvement from a safety point of view. Current regulations stifle technological advancement by increasing the costs of introducing a new design. Each new design must pass a large number of expensive and time-consuming tests. Current regulations give companies an acceptable minimum safety level' Current regulations give companies an 'acceptable minimum safety level'. That is, the car companies are satisfied that the car is 'safe enough' when it can pass the regulations.