Automobiles, trucks, buses and other road vehicles should have a built-in mechanism that would prevent them from going over 80 mph. There is no reason automobiles should exceed 80 mph anywhere. Police or other enforcement vehicles should be exempted.

Perhaps, as technology improves, vehicles traveling on certain roads would be able to communicate with roadway infrastructures to determine the speed limit on that road and automatically limit the vehicle’s speed accordingly.

All tractor-trailer trucks should have synchronized braking systems installed in order to provide safer braking and avoid ‘jack-knifing’ during sudden slowing.

Trucks (and perhaps all vehicles) should have forward-looking video cameras installed that would record a wide angled view of the roadway, possibly also including the driver’s cabin so as to record driver actions as well. Not only would this provide an abundance of data during accident investigations, but it could also be a sizable source of income to drivers since cameras would also record the illegal or dangerous driving activities of other drivers. People whose vehicle cameras captured such activities could turn that information over to the police for prosecution and they should get a portion of the fine amounts levied against the violators.

All automobiles, trucks, buses, etc., should have ‘black box’ devices that would record important data that would aid in reconstructing events that may have led up to an accident or incident or yield data that may aid law enforcement in solving crimes or other unlawful activities, such as speeding. The black boxes should record the last 24 hours of vehicle run time. It should obviously be a crime to tamper with these boxes. Some of the things recorded in these boxes should be vehicle speed, angle of steering wheels, gas and brake pedal positions and perhaps other things like the number and direction of forces acting upon the car during a crash.

Hazard lights on motor vehicles should be characterized by the red and yellow lights on the vehicle blinking in series. Never should just one color blink because this may cause confusion among other motorists who may not see both lights, causing them to think that the vehicle with the hazard lights merely has its turn signals activated. Moreover, both sets of blinking lights would cause the vehicle to have much higher visibility among other motorists.

All motor vehicles ought to be equipped with blinker reminder alarms that would sound every 10 seconds to alert and remind the driver that the blinker is on.

Car seatbelt alarms should sound only when the occupants are not wearing seatbelts when the car is in the ‘drive’ gear. If the car has just been put into ‘drive’, but has not moved faster than 10 mph, then the alarm should sound periodically, like every 5 seconds. If the car is moving at a speed of greater than 10 mph, the seatbelt alarm should sound continuously.

Headlights Angled Down

Vehicle headlights should not be bright enough, when viewed head on at a distance of 50 feet or so, to cause excessive glare that may be dangerous to other drivers. Maybe all non-high beam headlights should be angled down a minimum of 3 degrees.

Daytime Running Lights

All vehicles should be equipped with daytime running lights.  These should probably be integrated into the regular headlights rather than require vehicles to use separate lamps. These lights should be active during all times when the motor is running. During the daytime, only head lights would be required to be luminous. Such lights make vehicles more visible during normal and inclement weather conditions significantly reducing the chances of collisions.

Nighttime Headlights – Forget To Turn On

All vehicles should be required to have some system to remind drivers to turn their vehicle lights on during the dark.  Such reminders could be something like a photodetector that would detect ambient light levels and determine if lights should be turned on.  Another way would be to set the lights to turn on and off automatically based on the time of the day.  The vehicles’ internal clock would adjust for the drift of sunrise/sunset times across the seasons. Or these clocks could be linked to the internet.

Automobiles, trucks, boats, and all kinds of other vehicles and machinery or products that need to be periodically licensed or registered should be required, as a condition of their license renewal or re-registration, to be thoroughly inspected to insure proper working order and to satisfy the requirements of any outstanding mandatory recalls. Roadway vehicles should be inspected at least every two years.

The organizations or agencies responsible for licensing or registration, should also be responsible for maintaining a database of all goods that have been subject to recalls and ensure that the owners or those goods know of any outstanding recalls.

Automobiles should all be designed with their fuel tank caps located on the driver’s side of the vehicle. This way people would be required to always pull up on the right side of gasoline station pump islands. In addition, people would never be required to think about which side of the vehicle the gas cap is located.

All automobiles should have devices on the front and rear which would tell the driver how far away the vehicle is from hitting or touching an object. Cameras would probably be the best option.

All buses, except local and short distance adult mass transit buses, should be equipped with seat belts and require passengers to use them. Minors should always be required to wear seatbelts except on local mass transit vehicles.

Cars should not be required to have front license plates, but a significant fee should be charged for this arrangement.

Automakers should be encouraged to find a way for occupants in a vehicle to open electric windows without requiring a key placed in the ignition. Though it is not a general safety issue (because doors could be opened without the key from the inside), it is very frustrating for an ignition key to be required to operate electric windows.  If battery power is required for this feature, then there should be an automatic timer that would shut this function off one hour after the car is turned off.

The same is true for automobile radios, which usually require an ignition key. To ensure that the radio won’t drain the car’s battery if accidentally left on, there could be a 1 hour timer that will automatically shut it off when the car is turned off. (Idea based on: John Clark, 7-13-03, USA Today.)