Automobile Consumer Issues

Pittsburgh Region

PA CleanWays, Allegheny County Chapter
http://www.pacleanways.org/allegheny/
A nonprofit environmental organization that helps people and their communities clean up mountains of trash from PA lands and waters through a local road, stream, and area adoption program that complements the state's Adopt-A-Highway program. The Allegheny County chapter was formed in September, 2000, to empower Allegheny County and City of Pittsburgh residents to eliminate illegal dumping and littering in their communities.

Pittsburgh Clean Cities
http://www.cleancities-pittsburgh.net/
links to alternative fuel, clean air, and environmental protection information; Alternative fuel activities in Pittsburgh region.

Pittsburgh Gas Prices
http://www.pittsburghgasprices.com/
Gas prices as reported by volunteers in the Pittsburgh area.

Southwest Pennsylvania Ozone Action Partnership
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/aq_apps/aqpartners/forecast.asp?vargroup=sw
A coalition of businesses, governments, community groups and individuals that educates the public about the dangers of ground-level ozone and encourages people to take voluntary actions to reduce their contributions to air pollution. You will find an ozone forecast on their web page.

Pennsylvania

Drive Clean Pennsylvania
http://www.drivecleanpa.state.pa.us/
This is the official website for the Pennsylvania Vehicle Emission Inspection & Maintenance Program. Here you can find a list of emission inspection stations near you.

PA CleanWays
http://www.pacleanways.org/
A nonprofit environmental organization that helps people and their communities clean up mountains of trash from PA lands and waters through a local road, stream, and area adoption program that complements the state's Adopt-A-Highway program.

Pennsylvania DEP: Bureau of Air Quality
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/aq/
As part of Pennsylvania's initiative to provide wider public access to electronic media, this service offers the most comprehensive on-line resource for air quality information in the Commonwealth.

Pennsylvania Association for Safety Education, Inc.
http://adtsea.iup.edu/pase/
PASE represents driver educators and other traffic safety professionals as they strive to improve highway safety efforts in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania through public information and education programs, lifelong driver education programs, legislative input, research and networking.

Pennsylvania Insurance Department
http://www.ins.state.pa.us/
This website from the State of Pennsylvania provides competitive auto insurance rates by counties under "consumer information"

Your Guide to Auto Insurance Premiums - Western Pennsylvania

United States

AAA Fuel Gauge Report
http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/
AAA's media site for retail gasoline prices. AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report is the most comprehensive retail gasoline survey available. Everyday over 60,000 self-serve stations are surveyed.

Fuel Cost Calculator
http://www.fuelcostcalculator.com/
Find out how much you'll spend on gasoline for your specific car on a trip from one US city to another.

American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association (ADTSEA)
http://adtsea.iup.edu/adtsea/
The professional association which represents traffic safety educators throughout the United States and abroad, ADTSEA has over 1,000 professional and corporate members and is located at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Highway Safety Center, Indiana, PA. The website includes a nice collection of links on driving safety.

Buckle Up America
http://www.buckleupamerica.org/
Buckle Up America is a campaign to encourage proper seat belt and child safety seat use in the United States, coordinated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration with the assistance of the Academy for Educational Development, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that helps organizations operate social marketing campaigns.

Crashtest.com
http://www.crashtest.com/
A site that gathers crash-test information from agencies around the world so that they can be searched in one place.

Fuel Economy.gov
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/
A joint site by the US Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency that allows you to compare the fuel efficiency of various cars.

Green Car Journal Online
http://www.greencar.com/
The Green Car Journal consumer magazine offers a unique perspective that's largely absent from mainstream automotive magazines: consistent and thorough coverage of vehicles and technologies that takes environmental performance into account.

GreenerCars.com
http://www.greenercars.com/
An annual review of the energy efficency of this year's vehicles by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/
Information on air bags, safety ratings of vehicles, new car safety features, child safety, search for recalls on your car, etc.

Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS)
contains data on all vehicle crashes in the United States that occur on a public roadway and involve a fatality in the crash. This Web site provides instant access to FARS data via the Query Engine, Wizard, and Reports Library.

SaferCar.gov
http://www.safercar.gov/

Union of Concerned Scientists: Clean Vehicles
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/
This organization develops and promotes strategies to reduce the adverse impacts of the US transportation system. They focus on Advanced Vehicles (encouraging automakers to build and sell battery-electric, hybrid-electric, and fuel-cell vehicles); Cars and SUVs (cleaning up conventional automobiles); Trucks and Buses (cleaning up heavy trucks and buses).

Hybrid Center
http://www.hybridcenter.org/
Includes information about hybrids and a buying guide and comparison chart for hybrid vehicles.