Let's be free!

Every American has greatly benefited from the increase in both awareness of crash safety and the regulations forced upon US Automakers. The establishment of crash and safety testing has made a HUGE impact (no pun intended) on traffic fatalities. There was a time that the Europeans looked down on the US safety standards and insisted that their manufacturers were responsible enough to not be policed in such a way. The Europeans finally saw the light and introduced the EuroNCAP testing program to provide consumers with a thorough evaluation of how cars behave in an accident. There are many people that claim the latest EuroNCAP series of tests are even more thorough than those enforced by the NHTSA in the United States.

Because the US Government forces companies to comply to NHTSA standards it makes it very expensive for European manufacturers to sell some of their most popular cars in the US. Not because those cars are unsafe, many of them are VERY successful in the EuroNCAP tests, but because there is a huge cost associated with engineering and testing those cars for both standards. GM Chairman Bob Lutz is pushing for the US Government to recognize the EuroNCAP ratings as an acceptable equivalent to those of the NHTSA.

That would allow global automakers like Ford and GM a much easier road to manufacturing and selling the same cars in both the US and European market. Although the emissions regualtions are different and would still require completely different engines for each market, it's a lot easier to swap the engines on a manufacturing line versus engineering a completely different vehicle for each market.