Month: November 2015

Yesterday President Obama awarded the Medal of Freedom to William Ruckelshaus.  Seehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ruckelshaus

And corporate controlled Congress is adding safety loopholes in legislation that is about to be enacted that will predictably cause more preventable deaths.

This is worse than negligent homicide. 

Even DOT Secretary Foxx notes, albeit in paragraph 8 – not paragraph 1, that safety is of concern.  “Last but not least, I remain concerned about whether Congress will use this opportunity to raise the bar on safety or lower it.  We have seen proposals put forward that limit NHTSA’s ability to recall dangerous rental cars. Both versions prevent states from using federal dollars to enforce motorcycle helmet laws, which saved more than 1,600 lives in 2013 alone. The proposals could also hide critical safety data about truck and buses companies from the public; limit our ability to perform safety inspections of motor coaches; and make it more difficult for us to enhance the safety of rail cars carrying crude oil.” See  https://www.transportation.gov/fastlane/defining-success-congress-advances-long-term-transportation-bill

Imagine if President Obama and Secretary Foxx had the safety of the American people as their first concern!  100 Americans dying, 400 seriously injured, and losses valued by DOT at $2 Billion every day apparently is not enough to make safety their first priority in policy – not just their words.

“The rate of Volkswagen’s reporting to the NHTSA database is the lowest among major automakers over the last decade, including Honda and Chrysler, the Stout Risius data compiled for Bloomberg show. To ensure fair comparisons among car companies of different sizes, the rates were calculated per million vehicles on the road. The average of 11 automakers was 306 per million; Volkswagen’s rate was 34 per million.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has said he will summon automakers to Washington to discuss the need for accurate reporting of safety defects, including the death and injury reports. The meeting is expected before the end of the year.

“NHTSA will often note the number of incidents involving injury or death when initiating investigations or working with automakers to understand whether a recall is necessary,” said Neil Steinkamp, a Stout Risius managing director who analyzed the database for missing lawsuits. “The accuracy of these reports can be influential in identifying trends that NHTSA would act on.”   See

http://www.autonews.com/article/20151102/OEM11/151109992/vw-failed-to-report-death-3-injuries-linked-to-vehicles-to-nhtsa

NHTSA Withholds Fatality Rates Under Copyright Excuse

NHTSA has additional broader databases such as FARS where death rates by manufacturer are not published – but should be.  

On request, NHTSA makes available data on the number of fatalities by automaker – but not by rates per registered vehicle.  See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/MonthlyReportforSeptember2015.pdf

NHTSA claims such registered vehicle population data is protected by copyright.

NHTSA can and should bypass the copyright “protections” to carry out its primary mission to protect American motorists.  

Bloomberg has shown it can do so by making such registration data “estimates”.

NHTSA’s duty to protect Americans will be tested.  Will NHTSA continue to keep Americans in the dark on how automakers are performing in protecting their customers?

Lou

This increase in tragedies are currently being ignored by too many in the media, and many in Congress.

The current Congress is ignoring predictable crash deaths as far into the future as the eye can see.