Roadside Memorials – Messages That NHTSA Won’t Send
March, 2016
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
Roadside Memorials convey information that NHTSA’s data won’t. Relationships. Signs of love and loss. Evidence of human pain and suffering that are lost in NHTSA’s dry data. I have always thought of NHTSA’s statistics as being devoid of human emotions and human consequences.
NHTSA does not count: * the children orphaned
* the broken families and members left behind and bereft
* the grandparents and grandchildren
* the unborn
* the people who die of their injuries after 30 days of the crash
* the people who die of injuries sustained off public roads (parking lots, driveways, etc. categorized by NHTSA as NITS) See http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/042015.pdf
From data to statistics to information to knowledge to action. The purpose of collecting data is to result in actions to end the tragedies.Yet we have seen how NHTSA has failed to protect us for decades.
It has taken citizens telling their stories to build enough political power to force governmental change – for the better.
Some examples:
* Cally Houck’s story Death by Rental Car. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/blog/blog-safetyvictory11/
* Janette Fennell who founded KidsandCars.org. See http://www.kidsandcars.org/ and http://conta.cc/24deY6W
* Marianne Karth family who collected 20,000 signatures for a Vision Zero Petition. Seehttp://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/
Imagine if the families of the 3,686,139 people who have lost their lives in vehicular violence told their stories or put up a roadside memorial. Seehttps://www.careforcrashvictims.com/clock.php
We could get a Vision Zero Goal for an end to crash deaths and serious injuries in or by a new vehicle – in a decade – a reasonable goal already adopted by Volvo and others. Yes we can!
Lou
