Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
Legal Reader has kindly published my article submitted pro bono on Pedestrian & Bicyclist Safety.
Hopefully it will help prevent tragedies
Please feel free to share it with your friends, families and anyone else.
Sincerely,
Lou
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
Consumer Reports has launched a safety initiative with huge life saving potential.
The need for such information on the crash to save lives was impressed upon me in the 1990’s.
After working for more than a decade to help get airbag crash protection into cars, I was managing a NHTSA project in which we were investigating crashes, injuries, medical treatments, and outcomes at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami Florida.
Our second crash (case #91-002) was a horrendous 55 mph Delta V, multiple impact, crash of a 1991 Volvo with airbags.
The driver was not belted and the fatal internal injuries were “occult” i.e. not obviously reflective of the crash severity which only became clear after a full crash investigation had been performed. See
https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/940714.1.1.pdf
This crash gave NHTSA the insights that airbags were giving the emergency medical community a different, more subtle, set of injury indicators known as occult injuries.
See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/home/occult-injury-database-studies/
In the late 1990s, under the leadership of Administrator Ricardo Martinez and later Administrator Jeffrey W. Runge, both Emergency Physicians, NHTSA created the Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) program which aimed at improving all aspects of auto safety. See two NHTSA reports that I worked on
When I was handing out the final Report one morning to the Principal Investigator from the Michigan CIREN Center before anyone else had arrived, I remarked “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a CIREN Center in each of the 50 States?” His answer made the hair on my neck feel the chill of death. He emphatically said “I don’t want that.”
Since he was well funded by the auto companies, that was the beginning of the end of the CIREN program.
So if we are to make safety progress with automatic crash notification and Urgency software it will take more than I have been able to achieve.
There are millions of reasons the American people need Consumer Reports’ efforts now to help people get the timely and optimal protection from crash injuries they need to reduce mortality, morbidity and tragic consequences of their crashes.
I have tried to quantify some of these reasons using historical NHTSA data on more than a million crash deaths and DOT Policy guidance on dollar values of statistical lives lost. See
Please consider helping by signing the Consumer Reports Petition at CR.org/acnpetition.
Put People before Profits
Lou
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
As NHTSA is about to record the 4 millionth American death due to crash injuries. I described the history of crash deaths in 2016.
See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/MonthlyReportforJanuary2016-Corrected.pdf
It is now time to report some good news.
Unfortunately the good news is not from NHTSA.
The good news is that Consumer Reports has initiated a campaign to get NHTSA to do its job.
Consumer Reports has launched a campaign to get NHTSA to mandate, as a Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, that automakers provide Automatic Crash Notification and URGENCY software with information on the probability of the presence of serious injury. Such equipment would be required in all new vehicles free of charge.
The lack of such lifesaving equipment is a problem that I have worked on since 1991 when an airbag equipped Volvo resulted in a fatality without such protection. See Case number 91-002 at
https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/940714.1.1.pdf
See my article on the Consumer Reports Life Saving Initiative at
https://www.legalreader.com/consumer-reports-takes-steps-to-save-lives/
The potential to save lives is enormous.
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
Crash victims of Truck Underride Tragedies are taking their case for safety to the one court higher than the Supreme Court – the Court of Public Opinion.
Marianne Karth who lost two daughters in a truck underride crash has been working intensely along with many others for greater safety for years. And now support for safety is growing stronger.
Legal Reader has kindly published an article on the subject that I have submitted Pro Bono.
Please see
Lou
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community
Members:
The best information source to help you be smarter and to be safer is Consumer Reports.
I have just written an article, pro bono, for Legal Reader to help readers make wiser auto purchasing decisions.
See
https://www.legalreader.com/use-your-power-of-choice/
But consumers need the best possible purchasing auto safety information — especially as crash fatalities and serious injuries continue to grow.
And people need Consumer Reports to do more and better.
One important thing Consumer Reports can do is add information on the number and location of airbags in each model. The IIHS has such information and can collaborate with Consumer Reports to make it more widely available.
See https://www.iihs.org/topics/airbags#how-front-and-side-airbags-work
In addition, Consumer Reports can inform its readers of the safety importance of the car color choice with “White” being about 10% safer.
See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/muarc263.pdf
Be informed.
Be wise.
Be safer.
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
After 3 decades of work to improve care for crash victims, I am pleased to report life saving progress.
Legal Reader has published a recent article that I submitted “pro bono”.
See https://www.legalreader.com/apple-iphone-14-crash-detection-saves-lives/
May this new technology continue to improve and save many more people’s lives.
Be safe,
Lou Lombardo
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
The National Safety Council has published an infographic that conveys important information about the injury problem in America. https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/deaths-by-demographics/top-10-preventable-injuries/
Please see that Motor Vehicle related deaths as of 2020 are now in second place tied with Falls. But Falls are the number one cause of injuries in America.
Legal Reader has just published an article I submitted pro bono on the subject of Prevention of Fall deaths and injuries. https://www.legalreader.com/save-lives-with-apple-fall-detection-wearable-airbags/
I hope you will find this information helpful in bringing about life saving and injury prevention ASAP.
Prevention of Fall deaths and injuries is now increasingly possible.
For more health and safety for all of us.
Lou
