RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) The Brazilian government may delay "by one or two years" the implementation of a law requiring automakers to install frontal air bags and anti-lock braking systems in all new cars, the finance minister said Wednesday.
Safety advocates decried the idea of any delay, saying that in terms of safety, Brazilian cars are already decades behind those produced for consumers in the U.S. and Europe despite Brazil now being the globe's No. 4 auto market.
Earlier this year, an Associated Press investigation into the safety record of cars sold in Brazil found they had significantly fewer safeguards than the same or similar models sold in the U.S. and Europe. Using Health Ministry data, the AP found that Brazilians die at four times the rate as Americans in passenger car wrecks and that fatalities rose more than 70 percent in Brazil in the past decade while falling 40 percent in the U.S.
Independent tests have been conducted in Germany on Brazil's most popular car models, and the results are bleak. Brazil's top-selling cars, most lacking air bags and advanced brake systems, failed their crash tests.
Brazil's government said in 2009 that it would gradually require automakers to install air bags and anti-locking braking systems in vehicles. By Jan. 1, 2014, all vehicles were to include two frontal air bags and the brake system.