January, 2017
Please watch video of Ralph Nader on America’s Lawyer at https://trofire.com/2017/01/05/pap-ralph-nader-the-corporate-plot-to-destroy-your-legal-rights-americas-lawyer/
Lou Lombardo
January, 2017
Safety record in truck tragedies increase of 15% in U.S. is compared with E.U. progress in reduced truck tragedies of 23%. See attached graphic.
January, 2017
People who can’t afford to buy new cars recently voted for change. The result is an election that put Republicans in political control of the White House and both Houses of Congress.
Both the Democrat and Republican parties and the media have let the public down for decades in the area of auto safety. See http://www.fairwarning.org/2012/09/a-strange-indifference-to-highway-carnage/
Now Michael R. Lemov has written an article on the life or death problems of sale of used cars that have been recalled but not fixed thanks to legal loopholes in existence for 50 years. See http://www.thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/315350-buying-that-new-used-car-congress-must-put-safety-first
January, 2017
At the end of the Obama years, the vehicle violence record dictates we look for how we can better protect ourselves, our loved ones, and our society. Over the last 8 years vehicle violence in America resulted in: * 250,000 lives lost * 1,000,000 serious injuries including burns, brain injuries, spinal cord injuries resulting in paralyses, and crippling limb injuries.
* costs estimated by NHTSA to amount to $6 Trillion
And these vehicle violence losses are growing at an increasing rate.
Consumer Reports is now asking important questions: “As Trump Takes Office, What’s Top of Consumers’ Minds?” See http://www.consumerreports.org/consumer-protection/as-trump-takes-office-what-is-top-of-consumers-minds/?loginMethod=auto
CR survey notes that 66% of Americans do not trust the government to look out for consumer interests.
The CR survey also notes auto safety on the list. “Automakers, as well as the high-tech companies whose products increasingly play a role in the driving experience, must make safety their top priority when engineering and deploying new cars and technologies, and be quick to respond when their products are found to have problems. As CR’s CEO, Marta Tellado, noted last fall: “The world needs visionary companies that push the envelope and create products that exceed our expectations. But ambition must be balanced with accountability: When emerging technologies bring with them new risks, it must be the company and not the consumer that shoulders them.”
CR Tools Empowering People
CR Videos: See http://www.consumerreports.org/video/view/cars/auto-test-track/5276249573001/2018-toyota-camry-preview/
December, 2016
Please see Advocates Release below.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 7, 2016
Contact: Allison Kennedy, 202-408-1711, akennedy@saferoads.org
STATEMENT OF PETER KURDOCK,
DIRECTOR OF REGULATORY AFFAIRS
ON RELEASE OF DO-NOTHING
ENTRY-LEVEL DRIVER TRAINING RULE
Meaningless Rule Issued by FMCSA Disregards Congressional Mandates, Federal Court Precedent, Experts Convened by the Agency and Common Sense
Rule Only Adds to Agency’s Shameful Legacy of Failing to Issue Effective Training Rule to Advance Safety and Protect the Public
As fatal truck crashes reach levels not seen in years, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has once again shirked its duty to protect truck drivers and the public by issuing a rule that fails to require a minimum number of behind-the-wheel (BTW) training hours for new Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) applicants before sharing the road with American families. The agency’s history of issuing ineffective proposals for CDL training is simply inexcusable when the safety of the motoring public and commercial drivers is at stake.
Congress, safety groups and families of truck crash victims have been battling to get the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to act on a CDL training rule for over two decades. Individuals operating a large commercial motor vehicle (CMV), either a truck weighing as much as 80,000 pounds or a motorcoach full of passengers traveling home for the holidays, need to have some actual BTW training. Currently, the FMCSA requires only 10 hours of classroom instruction with no BTW training requirement. In 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a CDL training rule that failed to require BTW hours. In 2012, Congress directed FMCSA to issue a rule requiring BTW training as part of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21, Pub. L. 112-141). That same year, FMCSA’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC), comprised of transportation and safety experts also recommended that the agency require a minimum number of BTW hours as part of any training rule.
In 2015, FMCSA convened a group of experts to draft a training rule as part of a Negotiated Rulemaking. All but two members of the group supported a requirement that ensures candidates would receive a minimum amount of BTW training. The vote was unanimous as to the members of the group representing safety groups, training schools, the motorcoach industry and individual drivers. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued earlier this year reflected the consensus reached by the group. Yet, in a complete reversal, the Final Rule issued today strips the BTW requirement and ignores the consensus reached by experts who have collectively spent decades examining this issue.
The FMCSA’s decision regarding BTW training also ignores established industry practice and defies common sense. The leading CDL training schools already require that their students complete a minimum number of hours of BTW training. Numerous states also require that licensed CDL training schools provide a minimum number of BTW hours. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires candidates seeking a commercial pilot’s license must have accumulated approximately 250 hours of flight time. Transportation occupations are not alone in requiring that new entrants gain practical experience before earning a license. Barbers licensed in Virginia must accumulate 490 hours of minimum performances and nail technicians must have 275 hours. FMCSA, however, believes there should be no minimum hours required to master the difficult job of safely operating a CMV.
The agency’s utter failure to once again issue a training rule that will require that CDL applicants gain experience that can only be obtained by actually operating a CMV comes at a critical time. In 2015, 4,067 people were killed in crashes involving large trucks, representing an increase of 4 percent from the previous year and a 20 percent increase from 2009. This is the first time truck crash deaths have exceeded 4,000 since 2008. Further, early release data for 2015 shows that 116,000 people were injured in crashes involving large trucks — an increase of 57 percent since 2009. The annual cost to society from crashes involving commercial motor vehicles is estimated to be over $110 billion.
The agency has a history of failing the public, and has once again done so by issuing a weak and ineffective rule that will do nothing to advance safety.
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Another “Shameful!” failure of the Obama Administration to protect people by working to end vehicle violence.
December, 2016
People who buy used cars are in danger and put us all in danger thanks to government actions and in-actions.
Excellent articles that can help people thinking of buying used vehicles are being published.
The NY Times reports:
“The public has long been wary of used cars and the claims of roadworthiness by the dealers who sell them. On Friday, the nation’s main advertising regulator issued a ruling that consumer groups complained will give used-car dealers too much leeway in the disclosures they are required to make.
The Federal Trade Commission, in a decision that also drew criticism from some lawmakers, said that General Motors and two big used-car chains could advertise their used vehicles as having been carefully inspected and repaired even if the cars might still be subject to safety recalls for problems that had not been fixed.
The only requirement would be that the dealers must advise buyers that the cars could be subject to recalls and tell them how to determine if they are. There would be no requirement that any recall problems be specified or that any repairs be made.
The ruling follows a succession of high-profile cases in which automakers concealed crucial information from car owners, including General Motors’ failure to disclose a deadly ignition switch flaw, Volkswagen’s misrepresentation of pollution emissions, and Honda’s failure to report potential safety problems for more than a decade.” See
Virtually every manufacturer large and small has been the subject of a recall in recent years, but some brands fare better than others in this regard. To that end, the statisticians at the car shopping website iSeeCars.com in Boston, Mass., analyzed recall histories going back to 1985 to determine which brands have recalled the lowest percentage of vehicles, relative to those sold in a given year, and which brands’ recalls pose the fewest dire consequences, among other metrics.” See
December, 2016
Bloomberg reports:
Nov. 30 — Advocates will play up the competitiveness and economic advantages of retaining federal greenhouse gas standards for passenger vehicles in a bid to win support from an incoming Trump administration that has suggested the rules could be scaled back.
Retaining the Environmental Protection Agency’s tailpipe standards, which require vehicle manufacturers to achieve the equivalent of 54.5 miles per gallon on average in model year 2025 if all of the required emissions reductions are met solely through fuel economy improvements, will save cash-strapped consumers money at the gas pump and place American manufacturers on equal footing with their foreign competitors, advocates say.
“If these standard are reduced, it’s his strongest base of support that will be hurt the most,” Jack Gillis, an automotive expert at the Consumer Federation of America, told Bloomberg BNA….
While automakers have so far only sought tweaks to the federal program, rolling back the standards could push some states, particularly California, to pursue their own requirements. That would lead to the sort of patchwork regulatory approach manufacturers sought to avoid with their initial support for the EPA and NHTSA’s joint federal standards.
“The auto companies need to be careful what they wish for,” Dan Becker, director of the Center for Auto Safety’s Safe Climate Campaign, told Bloomberg BNA.
