By CARL WEISER
Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON - Stickers on the windows of new cars soon could sport information designed to save drivers' lives: the car's crash-test ratings.

Sen. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, introduced a package of bills Friday aimed at reducing the No. 1 cause of deaths for Americans 4 to 34 - car crashes.

His bills also would mandate clearer "birth" dates for tires, push safety groups to use more child-sized dummies in crash tests, and require states to rank and publicize their most dangerous roads and intersections.

"It might mean you tell your 16-year-old daughter: 'Don't drive on that road,' " said DeWine, a father of eight.

The centerpiece of his package is the Stars on Cars bill. It would require that stickers on new cars - the ones that show gas mileage, base price, standard equipment - show the car's crash-test ratings, which are expressed as a grade of one to five stars.

Those scores are available on the Internet or in Consumer Reports.

"But they're not available in the dealer's showroom, the one place where you most need that information," DeWine said.

Delivery driver Bill Petersen of suburban Cincinnati said if vehicle safety information were available on cars' price stickers, it probably would benefit both car sellers and buyers.

"I'd like to see it," said Petersen, who stopped by a Ford dealership on his day off Friday to take a look at the new Ford Mustang Mach 1. "Instead of having to go to Consumer Reports or check the Internet for the safety rating for a car, it'd be right there. It'd definitely help me make a decision to buy faster."

Car makers said Friday they would work with DeWine on the bill but didn't endorse it.

"There's not much space left on that sticker," said Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

And with crash-test ratings available for seven different categories from rollover to front passenger, "there's the potential for information overload, and that could lead to being ignored by consumers, which is not good for anybody," Shosteck said.

Consumer groups, which joined DeWine at his news conference, called his efforts long overdue. Safety advocate group Public Citizen has been lobbying car makers and federal safety officials for nearly a decade to put the safety information on the cars themselves. DeWine's bill is the first attempt from Congress to mandate them.

Buyers want to know how safe the cars are, how likely they are to roll over, and what happens when the cars are hit on the side or front. If they're given that information, they will buy safer cars, said Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen's president.

Car companies now continue to churn out vehicles that earn only two or three stars, said Public Citizen's auto safety lawyer, Laura MacCleery.

"They're not motivated sufficiently to make vehicles that don't roll over, which is deadly," she said.

DeWine hopes to attach his bills to a once-every-six-year highway bill that is expected to pass this year. He said the cost of his bills would be almost nothing to both taxpayers and manufacturers, except for a revamped driver's education program, which would cost $20 million to $30 million a year.

Other highlights

Safe Kids, Safe Cars. The bill would encourage the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to use more child-sized dummies in its crash tests and come up with a child-sized crash dummy to see what happens inside a car during a rollover. "Dummies are very complicated and difficult to design," Claybrook said.

Tire birth dates. Tires now note the week and year they were manufactured, but it's hard to spot and decipher. (It's on the inner ring of writing.) DeWine's bill would require invoices to feature the month and year tires were produced and require retailers to disclose that information. "Tires are not like wine. They do not get better with age," DeWine said.

Dave Morris of Cincinnati, who was having his car serviced at a local Firestone store, said he'd never given much thought to the age of tires before he bought them.

"I just assumed I was buying new tires," Morris said. "I never thought about how long they'd been sitting on the shelf. I'm not sure how much difference it makes. But it's like buying milk at the grocery store. You always want the carton with the freshest expiration date."

Rubber Manufacturers Association spokesman Dan Zielinski said the trade group was studying the bill and hoped to work with DeWine. Tires do deteriorate, even without use, though the process can take years, he said.

Dangerous roads. States now collect and rank the most dangerous roads and intersections. Ohio publicizes such rankings, but other states do not. DeWine would make that mandatory.

Driver education. Calling driver training programs "at best, a very mixed bag," DeWine would create a National Office of Driver Training that would serve as a clearinghouse of information. His bill also would require states to have graduated driver's licensing programs to get federal money. Such programs phase in teenager drivers, allowing them more and more freedom as they become better drivers.

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(Contributing: Randy Tucker, The Cincinnati Enquirer)