Category: Blog

GM Recall Scandal Ignites Nader Call for Legislation and Senate Bill Introduced


GM Recall Scandal Ignites Nader Call for Legislation and Senate Bill Introduced

August, 2014

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

See Nader interview at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZZHeIArIRQ

See informative articles on introduction of Senate Bill athttp://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140801/AUTO01/308010094/1148/rss25#comments

See Bill Summary athttp://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/MVHSEASummary.pdf

and http://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/media-center/news-releases/automotive-and-highway-safety-bill-introduced-by-mccaskill

Lou

NHTSA and Hyundai Agree to a Civil Penalty of $17.35 Million


NHTSA and Hyundai Agree to a Civil Penalty of $17.35 Million

August, 2014

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
NHTSA – Hyundai Agreement The attached Agreement was co-authored by NHTSA & Hyundai in private meetings.  As you read it consider the following questions: 
1.  What should the corporate penalty be for withholding from the public information that could result in preventable deaths and disabilities for American people?
2.  Who should decide?
3.  Under what transparency conditions should the decisions be made?
Senate Bill on Penalties
Senate Hearings Ahead
Senator McCaskill’s Committee is holding Hearings soon on NHTSA’s performance and participation in both GM and NHTSA’s failures to protect the public — for nearly a decade in the case of the GM Ignition Switch Recall.
The Times asked for comment:

“Rosemary Shahan, president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, said that provision may be a result of regulators being “under more scrutiny than ever before,” but that it was a welcome surprise.

“I hope it’s a trend,” she said.”

I agreed and thought the agreement penalty was a slap on the wrist for a corporation of Hyundai’s size.How does one judge the significance of a NHTSA – Hyundai agreement penalty of $17.4 million?

Hyundai – NHTSA Agreement on Value of Fine

The cost of a single 30 second ad for the Super Bowl was $4 million plus a production cost of about $1 million.  Seehttp://admeter.usatoday.com/story/sports/ad-meter/super-bowl/2014/01/20/ad-meter-story-super-bowl-ad-costs/4476441/

Hyundai bought two 30 second ads for this last Super Bowl at a cost approaching $10 million.  Seehttp://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/hyundai-advertise-fox-s-broadcast-super-bowl-xlviii/244008/http://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/super-bowl-ad-chart-buying-super-bowl-2014/244024/

Compare that $10 million to NHTSA’s annual budget for the Office of Defects Investigation which also is about $10 million.
Now let’s compare the cost of those two Super Bowl ads to the DOT policy value of just one statistical life — $9.1 million.  See attached DOT Policy Guidance on Value of Life (a morally reprehensible but required bureaucratic policy exercise of placing a dollar value on life).  
Why Did NHTSA Agree?
Appearances often are important in Washington especially when an agency and a company are facing negative scrutiny for known failures to protect people in favor of profits.  As a regulator, if NHTSA has been shown to be a weak regulator, it must at least appear tough before the Hearings.  
And if you can make GM look like it is not as bad as others, too, that’s a smart political opportunity.   As shown in NHTSA – Hyundai Agreement “Nature of Action” items 5, 6, and 8 both GM and Hyundai were notified by their supplier of a brake fluid corrosion problem in 2012.  GM, in November 2012, issued a Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) to its dealers in the U.S. and informed its customers.  Hyundai, in March 2013, issued a TSB to its dealers but not to its customers.
The Agreement states:
“WHEREAS, it is the mutual desire of NHTSA and Hyundai to resolve the TQ14-002 without the need for further action, to avoid the legal expenses and other costs of a protracted dispute and potential litigation:…”  Hyundai and NHTSA agree to the terms of the Consent Order (See attached).
Note: To my knowledge, neither crash victims past, present, and future nor consumer advocates were participants in these private meetings between NHTSA and Hyundai.  Nor does the Agreement address the tax deductibility of the civil penalties or legal and other expenses of Hyundai.  So taxpayers may be paying for this in more ways than one.
Hopefully, the Hearings will address these issues on behalf of the public interest as consumers, taxpayers, insurance premium payers, and motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians.  
The NHTSA – Hyundai Agreement came out as the nation was noting the 40th Anniversary of the resignation of President Nixon for criminal activities, abuses of power, coverups, and obstruction of justice.  One can read transcripts of the Watergate Tapes with discussions of Nixon with CEOs of Ford and GM (Henry Ford II, Lee Iacocca, John Roche) discussing weakening auto safety and air pollution regulations.  See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/Nixon-Transcriptions.pdf
Presidents Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, Clinton and Obama, as well as VP Biden, and candidate Romney have failed the American people.  More than two million Americans have died of crash injuries since Nixon took office.  Seehttp://www.fairwarning.org/2012/09/a-strange-indifference-to-highway-carnage/
So is the NHTSA – Hyundai Agreement more evidence of covering up the corporate control of NHTSA?
Lou

 

A Step Toward A Safer America – Texting to 911- Safer America, Care for Crash Victims, Crash Statistics, USA Crash Deaths Statistics, USA Crash Research


A Step Toward A Safer America – Texting to 911

August, 2014

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Please see new FCC Action on Texting to 911.http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-rules-promote-widespread-text-911-availability

Lou

 

U.S. News Article on GM Recall and Nader’s Warnings


U.S. News Article on GM Recall and Nader’s Warnings

August, 2014

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

To recognize Nader’s warnings, it takes a scandal involving tragedies….

See http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/susan-milligan/2014/04/02/gms-recall-debacle-shows-ralph-naders-auto-warnings-still-ring-true

And we still don’t know how much GM and NHTSA knew using OnStar data.  

“OnStar handles about 10,000 emergency service requests a month, GM says. The figure that could go down as drivers have a greater understanding about what is (and isn’t) going on with their car….

A company spokesperson declined to comment on how the system’s data could have informed GM about faulty parts.”

See  http://fortune.com/2014/08/06/gm-car-safety-mary-chan/

Over the decade of this scandal, a GM report, published by NHTSA, in 2007 suggests there may have been about 3,500 airbag non-deployment frontal crashes.

Has NHTSA requested all such airbag non- deployment frontal crash OnStar data be made available to the public?
Lou

 

NHTSA Web Site Launches Recall Status of Vehicles by VIN Look Up


NHTSA Web Site Launches Recall Status of Vehicles by VIN Look Up

August, 2014

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Good News:  NHTSA has a new tool to help motorists with recalls.  See

http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/2014/New-free-online-search-tool-for-recalls-using-VIN-released

 

Volvo and IIHS See Vision Zero Crash Fatalities & Serious Injuries by 2020 Coming Into View


Volvo and IIHS See Vision Zero Crash Fatalities & Serious Injuries by 2020 Coming Into View

August, 2014

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

See the latest article on Vision Zero Progress athttp://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2014/08/death-free-highways-have-become-a-real-possibility/

Now if Congressional leaders would begin setting such a goal for the nation and/or the President would adopt such a goal, our chances of achieving it would be greatly improved.

We need such national leadership at this time to turn tragedy into safety here in the U.S.A.

See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/MonthlyReport-June-July-2014.pdf

Proverbs teach us “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

We can, and must, adopt such a noble and moral goal.  Yes we can.

Lou

 

Will GM Recall Spur Auto Safety Reform?


Will GM Recall Spur Auto Safety Reform?

July, 2014

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

A must read “reality check” has been published in the LA Times by a giant of auto safety.  

Ben Kelley concludes:“NHTSA’s acquiescence in such delays support arguments that it is too responsive to the cost-containment agenda of the auto companies. Its inability to effectively police the industry has almost certainly invited such profit-driven misconduct. Recently, a top agency attorney, in comments to an auto industry group, admitted that “the first line of defense against safety defects is not NHTSA.” Rather, it is the auto companies themselves. “Our agency’s job is to make sure your company is doing its job and to catch problems when it does not,” he said, leaving unaddressed the obvious question of why the NHTSA failed for a decade to “catch” GM’s ignition switch defect.

The answer to that question is that NHTSA is abysmally underfunded and understaffed, and lacks a foundation of tough laws to support its regulatory mission. Nothing in today’s political environment suggests that is going to change soon.”

See http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0729-kelley-gm-recalls-20140729-story.html

Based on my decades of work at NHTSA and now trying to shine the light on NHTSA’s captivity by corporate interests, I must support his grim conclusion.

When the President of the U.S.A. briefly mentioned auto safety – without noting the problem of more than 150,000 crash deaths on his watch – he used a black Cadillac as a photo prop.  He looked like a corporate puppet moving on the strings of GM.  How’s that for use of the bully pulpit? 

See http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/07/15/president-speaks-importance-our-nations-infrastructure

I voted for him twice.   I hoped he would cut the GM control of auto safety positions and deadly policies at NHTSA.  Tragically for too many Americans that has not happened.  
As usual, we must thank Ben Kelley for giving us this reality check.
And we must again thank the LA Times for this article and Michael Hiltzik for the question that continues to haunt and challenge the nation:  “Only oversight by a Congress and president truly devoted to the public interest, not commercial interests, can keep regulatory agencies focused on the people’s business.

But when business gets its say on Capitol Hill and the White House too, what’s the ordinary person to do?”

See  http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/26/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20140126

Lou