December, 2016
November, 2016
See legislators release below:
Original Message From: Barry, Giselle (Markey) <Giselle_Barry@markey.senate.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2016
To: Barry, Giselle (Markey)
Subject: Markey, Blumenthal, DeGette to NHTSA: Update 50-Year-Old Seatback Safety Standard to Prevent Fatal Collapse, Investigate Automaker Compliance with Reporting Requirements
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Giselle Barry (Markey) 202-224-2742 Maria McElwain (Blumenthal) 202-224-6452 Lynne Weil (DeGette) 202-225-4431
Markey, Blumenthal, DeGette to NHTSA: Update 50-Year-Old Seatback Safety Standard to Prevent Fatal Collapse, Investigate Automaker Compliance with Reporting Requirements Lawmakers disappointed with automakers’ failure to prevent seatback collapse, notify federal government when death and injuries occur Washington (November 22, 2016) – Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) today sent a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) urging an update to the 50-year-old seat safety standard that can harm or kill backseat passengers when front seatbacks collapse during a rear-end crash. The Center for Auto Safety estimates the seat safety defect leads to the death of at least 50 children per year. The letter from Markey, Blumenthal, and DeGette also asks NHTSA to investigate automakers’ apparent failure, as discovered by the lawmakers’ investigation, to comply with the agency’s Early Warning Reporting (EWR) System requirements to submit information on incidents involving death or injury. Finally, the lawmakers call on NHTSA to strengthen EWR and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) so that the public can know if seatbacks are involved in injuries and fatalities. In May 2016, Senators Markey and Blumenthal sent letters<http://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/markey-and-blumenthal-query-automakers-on-seatback-safety> to 16 automakers asking them to respond to questions about vehicle seating systems and known incidents of seatback collapse. Most automakers did not fully or specifically respond to the lawmakers’ questions. The lawmakers’ analysis of the written responses, available records of seatback collapse incidents, and NHTSA’s databases demonstrates: * Although automakers claimed they sufficiently meet or exceed the 50-year-old seatback strength standard, accidents involving seatback collapse that lead to deaths and injuries continue to occur in many vehicle makes and models; * Automakers have not reported all cases of seatback collapse to NHTSA’s Early Warning Reporting (EWR) system as required by federal regulation, and NHTSA has not verified the accuracy or completeness of the EWR data that is submitted; and * Reporting categories in EWR and FARS lack specificity and transparency so that entries relating to incidents of seatback collapse (or other potential safety defects) are easily identifiable. “This standard is clearly out-of-date and must be updated to adequately protect back seat passengers,” write the lawmakers in the letter to NHTSA Director Mark Rosekind. A copy of the letter to NHTSA and the lawmakers’ analysis can be found HERE<http://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/NHTSA-FMVSS%20207%20Nov%202016.pdf>. An ongoing investigation by CBS News found 107 cases of seatback collapse across 35 states that resulted in an injury or death over the last 30 years. Several of those cases that should have been reported to EWR weren’t found in the database, which is required by law. Additionally, the Center for Auto Safety found 3,455 injuries and 326 deaths listed in the EWR in which ‘seat’ was a contributing component, but it was impossible to determine whether a seatback collapse occurred because NHTSA does not require and automakers do not provide information sufficient to do so. In the letter, the lawmakers ask NHTSA to, provide copies of all death and injury reports requested by the agency for those injuries and deaths, and to share any police report information. “NHTSA previously indicated that there was not sufficient data on seatback collapse to permit an informed decision on rulemaking action in this area,” write the lawmakers in their analysis. “Information on injuries and fatalities due to seatback collapse would be readily available from police reports, but without a dedicated field in EWR or FARS to methodically collect and organize such information, it is likely that NHTSA will continue to claim the problem of seatback collapse does not exist or is not pervasive enough to change.” ###
November, 2016
Now the NY Times published an article on auto insurance that gives useful information to consumers citing work created by a crash victim. The same three auto companies were found to be highly rated.
“There’s a conflict here between shareholders and policyholders,” Mr. Karr said. “We’re showing how companies have run their businesses, and that’s not always in the interest of the policyholder.”
The ValChoice study divided the auto insurance market into three types of companies. The largest group — 48.3 percent — are publicly traded corporations like Allstate, Geico (which is part of Warren E. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate) and Progressive.
Among mutual companies, there are two different business models. Some companies return earnings to their policyholders in the form of dividends, while others do not pay dividends but keep the earnings at the company.
Mutual companies that do not consistently pay dividends to auto policyholders make up 42.3 percent of the market; Liberty Mutual is one of them.
Those that do pay dividends are the smallest subset of the market, with approximately 8 percent, ValChoice said. Also sometimes known as reciprocal insurance exchanges, they include USAA, the Automobile Club of Southern California, Amica Mutual and NJM Insurance….
When shopping for insurance, consumers often focus solely on price. Figuring out the differences in claims payment histories at companies is much harder to do because the data is not readily available and requires significant digging to unearth. Analyzing the data, Mr. Karr said, can give consumers a better idea of the value they are receiving for the insurance premiums they pay.
“The paid loss ratio is such a direct measure of the actual value of an insurance policy,” said Mr. Karr. “If I’m paying money for insurance, it tells me how much is likely to come back to me if I have an accident.”
In essence, Mr. Karr said, consumers who buy from companies whose claims payments are lower are paying for lesser coverage. That value loss can add up to billions of dollars.
Charles M. Chamness, chief executive of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, agreed. “Mutuals exist to serve policyholders and allow management to focus on service and longtime financial security,” he said.
Mr. Karr got the idea to start ValChoice after he was hit by a car and had trouble getting his medical bills paid by insurers.
“When I came away from it, I thought there was a lot people who needed to know about the operating characteristics of these companies,” Mr. Karr said. “People are mandated by law to buy insurance; they should be able to get quality information about what it is they are buying.” See
ValChoice
You can get a free report on your insurance at ValChoice. See https://www.valchoice.com/
Lou Lombardo
November, 2016
An excellent article in Forbes shows how auto companies have stalled government safety actions for decades – especially during both the Bush and Obama administrations – after the dangers of seat-back failures were made clear.
One illuminating factor in this reporting is that it goes beyond statistics of the deaths, but also addresses the suffering of tragic injuries. “Thomas Comella and Victoria Thomas have suffered so much already it would be best for them not to know that three legislators are now telling federal regulators that the seat backs in American vehicles are too weak and can easily collapse in rear-impact crashes.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Rep. Diana Degette of Colorado say the failure of seat backs can cause the driver or front-seat passenger to be flung into the back seat, suffering serious injuries or killing a child seated back there.
The Senators say the federal safety standard – adopted in 1972 – must be upgraded.
Comella and Thomas have known that for almost two decades.
It was how their worlds ended.
Comella, 50, was driving a minivan outside of Cleveland in 1999 when traffic slowed. His vehicle was hit from behind. He remembers the impact being slight, similar to getting bumped by one of those Dodgem bumper cars at an amusement park.
But his seat back broke. The seat belt no longer held him because seat belts are designed to keep occupants from being thrown forward. When he hit the back seat he suffered a spinal injury that left him blind and paralyzed except for the very limited use of his arms.”
Thomas was 19 in 1997 when her car slid backwards into a pole, striking with a force estimated at about 11 miles per hour. The seat back broke. She suffered a spinal injury that paralyzed her legs.
I talked to Comella and Thomas and wrote about seat-back failures 15 years ago when I was covering automotive safety for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. I’ll post the full story below; but the short version is that way back then seat-back failure was a well-known issue and safety researchers said there were solutions.” See http://www.forbes.com/sites/jensen/2016/11/29/seat-back-collapse-15-years-later-feds-still-fail-to-address-a-deadly-problem/#7f0e4026585b
For more on seat-back failures see https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/blog/blog-deadlyseatbacks/
Lou
November, 2016
On this Thanksgiving day, some of the people I am especially thankful for having worked with include the following:
* Joan Claybrook
* Clarence Ditlow
* Ralph Nader
* Marianne Karth
* Cally Houck
November, 2016
The NY Times has two articles that raise the question of the pen being mightier than the sword.
“Dozens of major regulations passed recently by the Obama administration — including far-reaching changes on health care, consumer protections and environmental safety — could be undone with the stroke of a pen by Donald J. Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress starting in January, thanks to a little-used law that dates back to 1996.
And it comes with a scorched-earth kicker: If the law is used to strike down a rule, the federal agency that issued it is barred from enacting similar regulation again in the future.
The obscure law — called the Congressional Review Act — was passed 20 years ago at the behest of Newt Gingrich, then the House speaker and now a member of Mr. Trump’s transition team. It gives Congress 60 legislative days to review and override major regulations enacted by federal agencies. In the Senate, the vote would not be subject to filibuster.
The president can veto the rejection, which usually renders the law toothless. But when one party controls both the White House and Congress, it can be a powerful legislative weapon.
So far it has only been successfully used once: In 2001, a Republican Congress invoked it to eliminate workplace safety regulations adopted in the final months of President Clinton’s tenure. President George W. Bush signed the repeal two months after his inauguration, wiping out stricter ergonomics rules that had been 10 years in the making.
On Jan. 20, when Mr. Trump takes office with a Republican-controlled Congress — one that has indicated its zeal for undoing President Obama’s doings — more than 150 rules adopted since late May are potentially vulnerable to the ax, according to an analysis by the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center.
“It allows the election results to be applied almost retroactively, to snip off activity that happened at the end of the last administration,” said Adam Levitin, a law professor at Georgetown.” See
After steady declines over the last four decades, highway fatalities last year recorded the largest annual percentage increase in 50 years. And the numbers so far this year are even worse. In the first six months of 2016, highway deaths jumped 10.4 percent, to 17,775, from the comparable period of 2015, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. See statistics at https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812332
“This is a crisis that needs to be addressed now,” Mark R. Rosekind, the head of the agency, said in an interview….
“Most new vehicles sold today have software that connects to a smartphone and allows drivers to place phone calls, dictate texts and use apps hands-free. Ford Motor has its Sync system, for example. Others, including Honda, Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz, offer their own interfaces as well as Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto.
Automakers say these systems enable customers to concentrate on driving even while interacting with their smartphones.
“The whole principle is to bring voice recognition to customers so they can keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel,” said Alan Hall, a spokesman for Ford, which began installing Sync in cars in 2007….
But Deborah Hersman, president of the nonprofit National Safety Council and a former chairwoman of the federal National Transportation Safety Board, said it was not clear how much those various technologies reduced distraction — or, instead, encouraged people to use even more functions on their phones while driving. And freeing the drivers’ hands does not necessarily clear their heads. “It’s the cognitive workload on your brain that’s the problem,” Ms. Hersman said….
“Insurance companies, which closely track auto accidents, are convinced that the increasing use of electronic devices while driving is the biggest cause of the rise in road fatalities, according to Robert Gordon, a senior vice president of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America.
“This is a serious public safety concern for the nation,” See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/business/tech-distractions-blamed-for-rise-in-traffic-fatalities.html
November, 2016
Press Release:Nov. 30, 2016
Contact: Harvey Rosenfield, harvey@consumerwatchdog.org, (310) 392-0072 Adina Rosenbaum, arosenbaum@citizen.org, (202) 588-7720 David Rosen, drosen@citizen.org, (202) 588-7742
Agency Response to Request for Rules Requiring New Technologies Is Six Months Overdue
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Three of the nation’s leading consumer advocates have sued the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in a federal district court in Washington, D.C., for failing to respond to a formal request that the agency require automakers to adopt advanced safety technologies that could prevent or limit the injuries and property damage from an estimated 910,000 automobile crashes every year.
On Jan. 16, Consumer Watchdog, the Center for Auto Safety and Joan Claybrook, former NHTSA administrator and president emeritus of Public Citizen, petitioned NHTSA to require cars to use Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) – a set of three technologies that use combinations of radar, lidar (reflected laser light) and cameras to alert the driver and intervene if a rear-end crash is imminent.
Under federal law, NHTSA was supposed to grant or deny the petition within 120 days – by May 12. NHTSA has yet do to so.
In the meantime, on March 17, NHTSA announced that it had reached an agreement negotiated behind closed doors with 20 car companies to allow them to roll out weak versions of the technology on an unenforceable “voluntary” basis over a 10-year period, evading formal federal safety protections. Represented by Public Citizen and Consumer Watchdog, the plaintiffs filed the lawsuit on Nov. 23, asking the court to order NHTSA to issue a decision on the petition within 30 days.
As the complaint states: “The danger to public safety caused by defendants’ failure to initiate a rulemaking to require AEB technologies to be installed in light vehicles counsels in favor of expeditious action on plaintiffs’ petition. The pace of defendants’ decisional process is unreasonable in light of the statutory deadline for responding to the petition… and the nature and extent of the public interests at stake.”
“This year, NHTSA has devoted enormous agency resources to ‘driverless vehicles,’ which are years or even decades away, while a safety system that is ready to start saving lives right now has been relegated to the whims of the auto companies,” said Harvey Rosenfield, founder of Consumer Watchdog and one of the lawyers in the case.
“NHTSA continues to allow automakers to introduce advanced safety features at their own pace, by issuing ‘voluntary’ guidelines with no force of law,” said Michael Brooks, acting director at the Center for Auto Safety. “For too long, the agency has postponed requiring the proven lifesaving technology of Automatic Emergency Braking. NHTSA should immediately issue a rulemaking that defines performance requirements for these systems and mandates their installation in all vehicles without delay.”
“Voluntary standards don’t work,” said Claybrook, the former NHTSA administrator and president emeritus of Public Citizen. “They protect manufacturers, not consumers. AEB is one of the most important lifesaving automotive systems available today. Yet the U.S. Department of Transportation is refusing to use its statutory authority to assure that consumers can rely on a safe AEB system in every car sold in the U.S. and won’t even answer our consumer petition for action.”
“The agency’s time to respond to the petition has long since passed,” said Adina Rosenbaum, the attorney at Public Citizen representing the plaintiffs. “The agency should end its delay at once and comply with its statutory obligation to respond.”
About the Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) Petition
AEB consists of a suite of three technologies:
NHTSA has already endorsed the AEB system and already rates new cars on whether they include these safety features. The agency is considering whether to require installation of the equipment in heavy vehicles such as trucks. But the voluntary agreement announced in March does not require that AEB become standard equipment in cars. Instead, it represents an unenforceable pledge to implement weak versions of the systems. Neither NHTSA nor consumers may challenge the automakers’ violation of the agreement.
A copy of the federal complaint is available for download here. Click here to download a copy of the Jan. 16 petition and here to download the May 23 letter from the consumer advocates urging NHTSA to act on the petition.
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