Living Today: Issues of modern living

AUTO SAFETY

An audit by the U.S. Transportation Department inspector general finds that the government's system for identifying vehicle defects relied too heavily on industry reporting.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration agreed with the finding in the 56-page report, released on Wednesday, which was prompted by 271 deaths and more than 700 injuries blamed on defective Firestone tires, most mounted on Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicles. The audit was performed at the request of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., following hearings that brought Ford and Firestone executives to Capitol Hill in September 2000 to testify about the Firestone tire recall.

NHTSA opened a preliminary investigation of potentially defective tires on May 2, 2000. By that time, Japanese-owned Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. was named in more than 60 lawsuits involving allegations of defective tires.

In early August, NHTSA was investigating 21 tire-related deaths. That number more than doubled in less than a week.

"The Firestone tire incident illustrates the need for ODI (NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation) to be more proactive and innovative in information gather techniques," the report said.

Critics of the government auto safety agency said NHTSA should have detected the tread separation problem long before Firestone recalled 6.5 million ATX, ATX II and Wilderness tires believed still on the road in August 2000. Ford began voluntarily replacing 13 million Wilderness AT tires on its vehicles in May 2001 it said might be unsafe. Bridgestone/Firestone agreed to recall 3.5 million more tires under government pressure last October to end the federal investigation.

THE ECONOMY

Americans believe the U.S. economy will begin its recovery in the next six months. That's according to the Ipsos-Reid "Consumer Economics National Poll," which reported that 42 percent of the 1,000 people surveyed said they expect their local economies to be stronger six months from now.

Forty-six percent of respondents said they expected their personal finances to be stronger six months from now.

The survey also indicated that Americans were concerned about job security. Of those polled, 47 percent said they were currently less confident about job security now than they were six months ago. Moreover, 44 percent said they or someone they know well lost their job in the past six months as a result of economic conditions.

But when asked to look ahead at the next six months, 22 percent said economic conditions would very likely cause them or someone they know well to lose their job.

The Ipsos poll found that consumers remain cautious about purchasing. Nearly half of all consumers (48 percent) said they were less comfortable making a major purchase (such as a car or house) than they were six months ago; 31 percent said they were more comfortable.

A similar pattern was evident when consumers were asked about making other purchases. Forty-one percent said they were less comfortable now making other household purchases; 36 percent said they were now more comfortable than they were six months, the poll said.

SURFING THE 'NET

A new study finds daytime is "prime-time" on the Internet -- completely dominating daytime media use in the same way that television dominates evenings.

That's according to the Online Publishers Association, which profiled consumers who had accessed the Internet from work in the past 30 days ("At-Work Users"), and contrasted them with Internet users who hadn't ("Non-Work Users").

The vast majority of At-Work Users (91percent) also log on from home and spend more time on the Internet on a typical Monday-Friday than they spend watching television. Thirty-four percent of total media minutes are spent on the Internet, according to the study, while 30 percent are spent watching television and 26 percent are spent listening to the radio. Even among Non-Work Users, the amount of time spent on the Internet during the workweek is second only to TV.

In addition, 79 percent of the At-Work Users report the Internet has made them more productive workers, and 69 percent indicate that it helps them balance their personal and professional lives.

"Busy working people now spend more time on the Internet than they spend either watching television, listening to the radio, or reading newspapers or magazines," said Michael Zimbalist, acting executive director of the Online Publishers Association. "It is clear that the Internet is an extremely positive force in these users' lives."

The U.S. at-work Internet audience numbered 52.8 million in 2001, according to Jupiter Media Metrix. They are significantly more likely to be between the ages of 18 and 34 than Non-Work users (45 percent vs. 26 percent), are more likely to be highly educated (70 percent have at least a bachelor's degree vs. 50 percent) and have considerable spending power (45 percent have household income greater than $75,000 vs. 22 percent).

REALITY TV

TV programming executives seem to be getting over Hollywood's initial reluctance to exploit the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and have started TV projects based on that day's events.

CBS is moving ahead on a project by Lawrence Schiller, the journalist turned producer who has produced shows on O.J. Simpson and JonBenet Ramsey murder. The program reportedly will chronicle the first reactions of government and military officials after terrorists crashed the first of two passenger jets into the World Trade Center.

"It deals with the heroes on the ground and those people who broke the rules, invented new rules, and in some instances ... had to deal with something they'd never thought they would have to deal with," Schiller told Daily Variety.

Schiller's project could lead up to the crash of United Flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field after passengers -- aware that hijackers were planning to use the plane as a bomb -- took matters into their own hands and foiled the plan.

But Schiller said he will not try to recreate the events on board the plane. "That would be an invasion of privacy," he said, "and I'm not interested in doing that."

At least two other TV projects based on the Sept. 11 attacks are in the works -- including one that would use the stories of those on Flight 93 and one that would focus on the Hamburg, Germany, terrorist cell suspected of carrying out the hijackings.

(Thanks to UPI Hollywood Reporter Pat Nason)