President Obama’s Visit to Detroit Auto Show & Safety Vision
January, 2016
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
President Obama’s Visit to Detroit Auto Show this week is being cast as a political victory lap, but it will mask further giveaways to industry. Safety leaders are already telling it like it is.
See NY Times article at
What to watch for, but probably won’t see: 1. For President Obama’s tears for the nearly 230,000 people that died of crash injuries and were counted by NHTSA under Obama’s watch so far + another estimated 33,000 that will die this year. And for the estimated 1 million that will have suffered serious crash injuries under his two terms as President. See NHTSA stats at http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812217.pdf
2. For President Obama to apologize for not meeting with safety advocates such as Ralph Nader and citizens to rectify NHTSA’s corporate captivity. He has often met with CEOs. See http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/opinion/weak-oversight-deadly-cars.htmland https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/CFCV-MonthlyReport-March2014.pdf
3. For President Obama to acknowledge that his appointees have met with auto CEO’s, agreed to weak agreements behind closed doors, gone through the revolving door to work for the auto industry, and left people to continue to die. See the latest fatal Jeep court case at http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/01/15/massive-suit-over-fatal-pennsylvania-crash.htmand http://www.autosafety.org/jeep-grand-cherokee-fires-homepage
4. For President Obama’s apologies for a 7 year failure to adopt a Vision Zero Goal for crash deaths and serious injuries in or by a new vehicle in a decade. Seehttps://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/MonthlyReportforJanuary2016-Corrected.pdf
5. For President Obama to take his thumb off the scale favoring (more of the same) candidate Clinton over (change) candidate Sanders. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/blog/blog-hillaryguns/
As one of our community noted wryly: “This one’s had me smiling since the “Historic Agreement” was breathlessly leaked to Reuters a few days ago on the 11th. Then after four days of suspense we get… Jing Tinglers and Sparkle Ponies and a nice photo op: no task objectives… no implementation dates… no resource commitments… no metrics to measure success or failure… and above all, no regulations that might improve safety. Checking my calendar, it’s 371 days until Foxx and Rosekind will need new jobs. The historic agreement looks just like a resume.”
Lou
