Month: April 2016

Mother of Daughters Killed In Truck Under-ride Crash Asks NHTSA Questions the Media Should be Asking


Mother of Daughters Killed In Truck Under-ride Crash Asks NHTSA Questions the Media Should be Asking

April, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Marianne Karth asked NHTSA for information on Truck Underride Deaths. 

NHTSA provided a revealing and disturbing set of data.

For twenty years about 4 people every average week an American motorist died of their injuries according to NHTSA’s FARS data.  From 1994-2014 the total amounting to 5,081 deaths were recorded by NHTSA.  See attached.
Year after tragic year the number has remained almost constant at more than 200 deaths each year.

See http://annaleahmary.com/2016/04/truck-underride-fatalities-chart-from-the-fars-1994-2014/

Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) have access to such data, so why don’t we see more stories?  See DOT and NHTSA databases available at IRE at http://ire.org/nicar/database-library/

Let’s get the media focusing on our clear and present dangers here at home in the U.S.A. today.
Let’s get the media to produce change for the better with news we can use.
Lou

 

Corruption As A Right???


Corruption As A Right???

April, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
Resources for fighting for safety:  
Law article and NY Times Editorial:
Book on how our safety is bought:
Conference on how we can fight back against Big Money and Power:https://www.breakingthroughpower.org/
Lou

 

Corporate Crime Reporter Interview of Ben Kelley on Death by Rental Car

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Please read this to better understand how rigged things are in America against crash victims. http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/ben-kelley-on-death-by-rental-car/

As you read it remember that taxpayers bailed out Chrysler.

Lou

Cancer Moonshot vs. No Crash Injuries Moonshot


Cancer Moonshot vs. No Crash Injuries Moonshot

April, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

What is the difference between President Obama creating a Cancer Moonshot – but not a Crash Injury Moonshot?  

1.  Cancer does not have a lobby against government action.

2.  Crash Injuries have a huge lobby against government action.  This despite the fact that an end to crash injuries is within sight – in a decade.

The “Strange Indifference to Highway Carnage” continues at the highest levels of the U.S. government.  Seehttp://www.fairwarning.org/2012/09/a-strange-indifference-to-highway-carnage/
Lou

 

Breakthrough to Lifesaving Information on Auto Defects


Breakthrough to Lifesaving Information on Auto Defects

April, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

The Center for Auto Safety announced a legal breakthrough.  

The facts that it took a lawsuit and nearly 4 years to get NHTSA to do its job should raise questions in the American people’s minds including:  1.  Why?   2.  How many people were and will be needlessly injured and killed because of the delay.

3.  How do we get NHTSA to work for the people and not the auto companies?

See http://www.autosafety.org/how-to-find-technical-service-bulletins-and-other-manufacturer-communications-via-nhtsas-search-portal/

 

April 25, 2016202-328-7700

How to Find Technical Service Bulletins and Other Manufacturer Communicationsvia NHTSA’s Search Portal

On February 4, 2016, the Center for Auto Safety (CAS) filed a lawsuit against Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx seeking to enforce the Congressional mandate in in the “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act” (MAP-21) enacted on July 6, 2012.

MAP-21 provided that “the Secretary shall make available on a publicly accessible Internet website, a true or representative copy of each communication to the manufacturer’s dealers or to owners or purchasers of a motor vehicle or replacement equipment produced by the manufacturer about a defect or noncompliance with a motor vehicle safety standard prescribed under this chapter in a vehicle or equipment that is sold or serviced.”

To make the Bulletins searchable by consumers, MAP-21 required: “an index to each communication, which– (A) identifies the make, model, and model year of the affected vehicles; (B) includes a concise summary of the subject matter of the communication; and (C) shall be made available by the Secretary to the public on the Internet in a searchable format.”

On March 25, DOT finally announced its intent to start obeying the law by issuing a Federal Register notice stating it would post all Technical Service Bulletins and communications to dealers on defects in vehicles, regardless of whether the defects were safety related. DOT also required manufacturers of vehicles and equipment to prepare indexes to TSBs and dealer communications, as a guide to consumers looking for information on potential vehicle problems.

Soon after, NHTSA began posting TSBs only to its website through the safety portal used for recalls, complaints, and related information. Electronic communications to dealers should begin to be posted in the summer of 2016. You can locate these communications by following the three easy steps listed in the following pages.

Thanks to the Center for Auto Safety, Public Citizen, and their founder Ralph Nader for this breakthrough.
Lou Lombardo

 

Auto Dealers Lobbying Against Safety


Auto Dealers Lobbying Against Safety

April, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Safety Advocate Rosemary Shahan asks that we spread the word about lobbying campaign against safety recalls. At a time when everyone is focusing on improving safety recall compliance rates, the National Automobile Dealers Association has been downplaying the risks of safety defects / recalls. This is the latest public statement, from the President of the NADA —  someone in the business who may be regarded by the public as an expert, regarding how seriously to take safety recalls. This is incredibly dangerous and irresponsible.  Automotive News reports:

Incoming NADA Chairman Jeff Carlson vowed to keep up the group’s fight against government overreach and pledged to make the group more consumer-focused in 2016.

In a speech at the convention, the Colorado dealer who drove a beer truck to pay his way through college, said dealers nationwide need to be engaged in NADA’s policy and legislative advocacy mission.

“It’s no secret that the dealer franchise system has been under attack, unfairly and relentlessly,” Carlson said on Saturday. “But the best defense is a good offense.”

He urged support of a U.S. Senate bill, S. 2663, to unwind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s guidance on dealer-originated auto loans, which Carlson called an “overreach into our business model.”

Carlson said only dealers should be authorized to perform all recall repairs for all customers, though he cautioned against legislation to require dealers to fix all recalls on used cars prior to sale.

Such a move would ground millions of cars unnecessarily and diminish vehicle trade-in values, because only 6 percent of recalls are “hazardous,” he said, citing a 2014 analysis by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

Carlson said: “Washington must understand that all recalls are not the same.”  See 

http://www.autonews.com/article/20160402/RETAIL06/160409936/1379#disqus_thread

Lou