Care for Crash Victims – Safer American States – August 2013


Care for Crash Victims – Safer American States – August 2013

July 30, 2013

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

We now have a new State by State Crash Death Mapping tool.

To help voters, consumers, media, and government officials better understand the magnitude of crash deaths and serious injuries we now have Crash Death Mapping Tools. These tools provide 10 years of crash deaths by State and by 2013 Congressional District.

See my attached August Monthly Report for details on a decade of Crash Deaths by State. I hope this helps us all gain political, moral, and economic support to advance safety care for crash victims.

 

Monthly Report – August 2013 – Safer American States – Download

 

Crash Death Mapping Tools

 

 

Care for Crash Victims – Building a Safer America


Care for Crash Victims – Building a Safer America

July 30, 2013

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Attached is my report on Building a Safer America.

I hope it helps you in your safety work.

Best wishes for a Safer America.

 

Monthly Report – July 2013

First National Conference on Street and Highway Safety – Hon Herbert Hoover – 1926

 

Ranking Crash Deaths by State — Red and Blue States Compared


Ranking Crash Deaths by State — Red and Blue States Compared

July 18, 2013

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

NHTSA has just issued Fatality Rates by States for the year 2011.

See http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811801.pdf

 

I have analyzed the data by my State Grading and Ranking system as previously published by Fair Warning.

See http://www.fairwarning.org/2012/11/traffic-deaths-a-surprising-dimension-of-the-red-state-blue-state-divide/

The 2011 data show that 21 of the 25 Worst States are Red States.

 

Only 3 Red States achieved Better than National Average Crash Fatality Rate — Utah, Nebraska, and Alaska.

Only 3 Blue States were Worse than the National Average Crash Fatality Rate — Delaware, Florida, and New Mexico.

No States received a Grade of “A” just the Blue District of Columbia achieved an “A” Grade for a fatality Rate of less than 5 Crash Fatalities per 100,000 population.

 

Four States received a Grade of “F” (Wyoming, North Dakota, Mississippi, Montana — all Red States) for Crash Fatality Rates greater than 20 Crash Fatalities per 100,000 population.

 

See my attached Table of States Ranked from Best to Worst.

Media, citizens, and members of Congress can find how many Americans died in their Congressional District in each of the past 10 years. See our Congressional Crash Death Mapping Tool at

http://www.arcgis.com/explorer/?open=ed97b17427b74b2e87ab925d55eb1313&extent=-20659591.7409969,875765.608846319,-3093254.85263374,8576895.45964956

 

Hopefully this information will help advance support for improvements in safety for all.

We can and must do better at protecting people from becoming crash victims.

 

Click here to download attached document.

 

 

The Jeep "Recall" — If Chrysler Had a Heart…


The Jeep "Recall" — If Chrysler Had a Heart…

July 9, 2013

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Please watch this video. A crash victim gives a first hand description of some of the consequences of serious burn injuries suffered in a crash. http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/264655/37/Jeep-Crash-Survivors-Push-NHTSA-For-More-Action

 

When Joan Claybrook was NHTSA Administrator, I had a small part in studies on the consequences of crashes on children and families. These studies are now on my web site at www.CareForCrashVictims.com under “Effects on Families”.

The NHTSA Report attached (p. 70) shows that each year there are about 1,000 fatal crashes involving fire and about 3,000 injury crashes involving fire.

 

If Chrysler had a heart and NHTSA had the courage of a Joan Claybrook….

We can and must do better protecting motorists from deaths and injuries.

 

Click here to download attached document.

 

 

Researchers in Germany Find 25% Reduction in Mortality Risk Using Helicopter EMS

Researchers in Germany Find 25% Reduction in Mortality Risk Using Helicopter EMS

July 9, 2013

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Colleagues in Germany have performed excellent and important research on care for injured people with helicopter based EMS.

See the attached paper in Critical Care Journal — Line 343 -34:

“According to our results helicopter transport was associated with a significantly reduced mortality risk of 25%.”

 

Their findings support previous work that led us to estimate similar reductions in mortality of crash victims was possible.

 

By the year 2000, we estimated that about a 20% reduction in mortality of crash victims with ACN, URGENCY software, and air medical rescue was possible. See Report Section 6.4 that was published by NHTSA — available at www.careforcrashvictims.com under ACN Evaluation.

 

“An ACN system should reduce the length of time between traumas and needed restorative medical care. Extrapolating from the findings of air transport fatality reduction studies (References 30 and 31), the ACN system could offer an approximate 20% reduction in fatalities from motor vehicle collisions. This estimate assumes that adequate medical facilities would be available. Unfortunately, no studies have been found to assess the time dependence of injury severity caused by motor vehicle trauma. Thus, any estimate of the affect of ACN on reducing injury severity would be little more than a guess. This area requires further study. However, an NHTSA-sponsored multidisciplinary research team has produced a computer program (References 2, 4, and 5) which attempts to produce an easily understood probability of serious injury estimate making use of data which would be available from an ACN system.”

 

In the 1990s I was privileged to work with Prof. Guenter Lob (Munich). Dr, Lob helped us develop the Atlas and Database of Air Medical Services (ADAMS) for the U.S.

 

The ADAMS 10th Edition Atlas with national and state maps showing air medical coverage in each state is now available on the Public Access portion at www.ADAMSairmed.org.

 

Papers on URGENCY software, ACN, and ADAMS are available at www.careforcrashvictims.com under URGENCY.

Imagine if we had our EMS helicopters being dispatched more intelligently using ACN, URGENCY software, and ADAMS GIS locations of helicopter and hospital resources relative to the crash site.

 

Since 1997, when we developed version 1 of URGENCY software at NHTSA, nearly 600,000 Americans have died of crash injuries. How many more must die before enough political will is developed to get NHTSA to adopt goals to provide Americans with timely, optimal emergency medical care using helicopters, ACN, and URGENCY software?

 

See petition to NHTSA Administrator David Strickland at www.careforcrashvictims.com under Blog dated May 18, 2012.

In the meantime, we need to sincerely thank our colleagues in Germany for their fine work that hopefully will bring us closer to saving more lives using these technologies sooner — in time to save more lives.

 

Click here to download attached document.

 

 

 

Watch the DOT Revolving Door — Who Will Pay Ray LaHood, How Much, & For What?

July 2, 2013

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Read this interview of Ray LaHood.

“Q: You need to make some money, right? People say you are the poorest member of the Cabinet. True?

A: Well, I am. We’ve put four of our kids through college. I’m going to take July and August, and hopefully the phone will ring and we’ll see who is on the other end. I would like to serve on a couple of boards. I am going to do some speaking and then maybe in the fall I’ll land somewhere. I don’t know. I am not retiring from life. I am retiring from DOT.”

Source:

Ray LaHood Q&A with the Tribune Chicago Tribune – by Jon Hilkevitch

But. Don’t cry for poor Ray LaHood. For just some of his prospects, see:

Ray LaHood’s post-Cabinet prospects

“There’s gold in the hills of transportation associations, and LaHood could make a pretty penny in the private sector.”

Cry for the more than 130,000 American crash victims that died in his 4 and one half years in office — more than the number of Americans who died in the Afghanistan, Iraq, and Viet Nam wars combined. And cry for the nearly 500,000 American crash victims seriously injured on his watch.