Toronto, Ontario — Sept. 16, 2019 — With reports releasing such as the National Safety Council’s A Road to Zero, the council’s outline to reaching zero vehicle-related fatalities by 2025, the next logical standpoint would be to ask: when will we see zero crashes altogether?
For the collision repair industry, It is a classic ‘rock and a hard place’ scenario. Ideally, no one should have to experience a car crash, but as vehicles experience fewer accidents, our industry is left fending for itself.
General Motors has been rather public as of late with its vision of a world without crashes. The company recently released a study that measured the capabilities of 3.7 million GM vehicles from 2013-2017, touting significant safety findings — specifically in automated safety features. It outlines a road map toward a future where collisions a statistically less likely to happen.
Shannon Tardiff, a manager for a Chevrolet-certified collision centre said she was not fazed by the study, and that even if OEMs can eliminate all collisions, there will still remain every other category of a crash for repairers to fix.
“I don’t think we will ever be out of a job,” Tardiff said. “There will always be damage happening to vehicles, whether it’s an animal, an act of god, or vandalism — there’s always going to be something.”
Tardiff continued explaining that while she can enjoy the prospect of a world with fewer collisions, there is plenty of road still to go down.
“[A collision-free world] would be all-around better for everybody, but I think we’re absolutely a few years out from that for sure,” she said. I can’t say definitively that it’s going to happen, but that’s where we’re looking to go.”
Added Tardiff, “obviously I wouldn’t want to not fix cars anymore!”
