September, 2013
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
Hopefully Administrator Strickland will act in the public interest to restore “Rollover” and “Extrication” to the Triage Guidelines and restore credibility and effectiveness to the NHTSA CIREN Program.
September 2013 Monthly Report.
July 30, 2013
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
Attached is my report on Building a Safer America.
I hope it helps you in your safety work.
Best wishes for a Safer America.
First National Conference on Street and Highway Safety – Hon Herbert Hoover – 1926
July 30, 2013
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
We now have a new State by State Crash Death Mapping tool.
To help voters, consumers, media, and government officials better understand the magnitude of crash deaths and serious injuries we now have Crash Death Mapping Tools. These tools provide 10 years of crash deaths by State and by 2013 Congressional District.
See my attached August Monthly Report for details on a decade of Crash Deaths by State. I hope this helps us all gain political, moral, and economic support to advance safety care for crash victims.
Monthly Report – August 2013 – Safer American States – Download
Crash Death Mapping Tools
July 18, 2013
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
NHTSA has just issued Fatality Rates by States for the year 2011.
See http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811801.pdf
I have analyzed the data by my State Grading and Ranking system as previously published by Fair Warning.
The 2011 data show that 21 of the 25 Worst States are Red States.
Only 3 Red States achieved Better than National Average Crash Fatality Rate — Utah, Nebraska, and Alaska.
Only 3 Blue States were Worse than the National Average Crash Fatality Rate — Delaware, Florida, and New Mexico.
No States received a Grade of “A” just the Blue District of Columbia achieved an “A” Grade for a fatality Rate of less than 5 Crash Fatalities per 100,000 population.
Four States received a Grade of “F” (Wyoming, North Dakota, Mississippi, Montana — all Red States) for Crash Fatality Rates greater than 20 Crash Fatalities per 100,000 population.
See my attached Table of States Ranked from Best to Worst.
Media, citizens, and members of Congress can find how many Americans died in their Congressional District in each of the past 10 years. See our Congressional Crash Death Mapping Tool at
Hopefully this information will help advance support for improvements in safety for all.
We can and must do better at protecting people from becoming crash victims.
Click here to download attached document.
July 9, 2013
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
Please watch this video. A crash victim gives a first hand description of some of the consequences of serious burn injuries suffered in a crash. http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/264655/37/Jeep-Crash-Survivors-Push-NHTSA-For-More-Action
When Joan Claybrook was NHTSA Administrator, I had a small part in studies on the consequences of crashes on children and families. These studies are now on my web site at www.CareForCrashVictims.com under “Effects on Families”.
The NHTSA Report attached (p. 70) shows that each year there are about 1,000 fatal crashes involving fire and about 3,000 injury crashes involving fire.
If Chrysler had a heart and NHTSA had the courage of a Joan Claybrook….
We can and must do better protecting motorists from deaths and injuries.
Click here to download attached document.
July 2, 2013
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
Read this interview of Ray LaHood.
“Q: You need to make some money, right? People say you are the poorest member of the Cabinet. True?
A: Well, I am. We’ve put four of our kids through college. I’m going to take July and August, and hopefully the phone will ring and we’ll see who is on the other end. I would like to serve on a couple of boards. I am going to do some speaking and then maybe in the fall I’ll land somewhere. I don’t know. I am not retiring from life. I am retiring from DOT.”
Source:
Ray LaHood Q&A with the Tribune Chicago Tribune – by Jon Hilkevitch
But. Don’t cry for poor Ray LaHood. For just some of his prospects, see:
Ray LaHood’s post-Cabinet prospects
“There’s gold in the hills of transportation associations, and LaHood could make a pretty penny in the private sector.”
Cry for the more than 130,000 American crash victims that died in his 4 and one half years in office — more than the number of Americans who died in the Afghanistan, Iraq, and Viet Nam wars combined. And cry for the nearly 500,000 American crash victims seriously injured on his watch.
May 22, 2013
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
NHTSA has put one of its finest statisticians to create a very detailed major report on the effects of aging and gender on fatality and injury risk of vehicle occupants in crashes. NHTSA is now seeking public comment with the following notice. In a nutshell as we age we become more vulnerable to crash forces.
Injury Vulnerability and Effectiveness of Occupant Protection Technologies for Older Occupants and Women (DOT HS 811 766):
This report quantifies the effects of aging and gender on fatality and injury risk of vehicle occupants, based on statistical analyses of crash data. Fatality risk, given similar crashes, increases by about 3 percent per year that people get older, starting around age 21. Risk is, on average, 17 percent higher for a female than for a male of the same age, but the added risk for females has substantially diminished in recent vehicles. Older people are susceptible to thoracic injuries, especially multiple rib fractures. Women are susceptible to neck and abdominal injuries and, at lower severity levels, arm and leg fractures. All of the major occupant protection technologies in vehicles of recent model years have at least some benefit for adults of all age groups and of either gender; none of them are harmful for a particular age group or gender.
You may view the Federal Register notice in PDF format at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-05-28/pdf/2013-12520.pdf or in text format at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-05-28/html/2013-12520.htm. Comments are due on September 25, 2013 and should be sent to Docket No. NHTSA-2013-0072. The notice explains how to send comments.
If you have any questions about this report, please feel free to contact the author and Chief of the Evaluation Division, Charles J. Kahane, Ph.D., 202-366-2560, chuck.kahane@dot.gov.
In a nutshell as we age we become more vulnerable to crash forces.
In a paper I co authored in 2005 published by NHTSA I tried to address how we could use occupant age in URGENCY software to expedite appropriate emergency medical care. See www.careforcrashvictims.com click on URGENCY.
One more comment as I skimmed this Report is I wish NHTSA would not refer to potentially fatal crash forces as “insults”.
See p. 43
TABLE 2FATALITY RISK, GIVEN SIMILAR PHYSICAL INSULTS, RELATIVE TO A 21 YEAR OLD OCCUPANT OF THE SAME GENDER IN THE SAME SEAT POSITION DRIVERS AND RF PASSENGERS, ALL CARS AND LTVs, BY OCCUPANT AGE Hopefully the next NHTSA Report will address potential remedies for all crash victims who are aging every year — and not use the word “insults” for injurious crash forces.
