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Powers of the Pen and Our Safety

November, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

The NY Times has two articles that raise the question of the pen being mightier than the sword.

The President’s Pen – Regulations

“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

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/business/with-trumps-signature-obamas-rules-could-fall.html?emc=edit_tnt_20161115&nlid=37926955&tntemail0=y&_r=0

The Corporate Executive Pens – Designs

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

The Pens of the Press and The People – Our Safety

These two article in the NY Times show how we the people need the press to provide the public with the information to use our own pens to protect our safety and happiness. Our pens can and must need be the mightiest – especially in this new world of connected citizenry.

Here’s hope for a safer future for all.

Lou Lombardo

Consumer Advocates Sue NHTSA for Ignoring Automatic Emergency Braking Petition

November, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

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

Consumer Advocates Sue NHTSA for Ignoring Automatic Emergency Braking Petition

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:

Forward Collision Warning alerts a motorist (via audio or visual signals) that a collision with a car in front is imminent;
Crash Imminent Braking intervenes when the driver does not respond to the Forward Collision Warning by automatically applying the brakes to prevent a collision or reduce the vehicle’s speed at impact; and
Dynamic Brake Support applies supplemental braking when the braking applied by the driver is insufficient to avoid a collision.

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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Marianne Karth Participates in Nader Conference On Tort Law & Breaking Through Power

October, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Marianne Karth, mother who lost two daughters in a crash, writes an eloquent summary of what she learned at this Conference.

Marianne has a dream that all Americans can be spared her family tragedy.“Here’s to the realization of my dream of a nationwide network of mobilized traffic safety community advocacy groups to educate and empower citizens to take back their right to a day in court as one more strategy to help us realize the vision of moving toward zero preventable deaths and serious injuries from vehicle violence.”

See http://annaleahmary.com/2016/10/ralph-nader-conference-highlights-tort-law-benefits-tort-reforms-assault-on-right-to-day-in-court/

Marianne’s dream should become the dream of all Americans – before tragedy strikes their families.

Motor vehicle violence in the U.S.A. currently results in:

* 100 deaths per day

* 400 serious injuries per day i.e. brain, spinal cord, burns, amputations, etc.

* $2 Billion in losses per day in the U.S.A. today.

Before this clear and present danger happens to you and yours, adopt her dream and make it yours.

The Conference info and some video is available athttps://www.breakingthroughpower.org/

Lou Lombardo

Center for Auto Safety Comments on VW Diesel Scandal Settlement

October, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

“CAS Staff Attorney Michael Brooks:

“It is great news that VW diesel owners can now be reimbursed, and that Volkswagen must begin to repair the environmental damage their emissions deception caused. However, automakers will not change their illegal behavior unless the government pursues significant criminal penalties against executives who take or condone such actions. We look forward to news of federal criminal charges against the VW executives who participated in this fraud on the American public.”

Safe Climate Campaign Director Dan Becker:

“The government did a good job preventing further harm from VW’s diesel fraud. Most heavily polluting diesels will be removed from the road and cannot be resold unless fixed. Other automakers must learn from this scandal that they dare not disable pollution controls, lie to the government or fleece consumers. Those lessons will be reinforced when the government brings criminal charges against VW officals who perpetrated this fraud.”” See

http://www.autosafety.org/cas-statement-on-volkswagen-15-billion-emissions-settlement/

Center for Auto Safety Wins For the People In Court Decision on Chrysler Secrecy

October, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Please see the following article on important victory by Clarence Ditlow and the CAS to unseal FCA documents.

http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202769118747/Chrysler-Loses-Supreme-Court-Fight-Over-Sealed-Documents?slreturn=20160904095005

Chrysler Group LLC’s battle with the Center for Auto Safety to keep sealed certain documents relating to an alleged defect in several vehicle models ended Mondaywhen the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the automaker’s appeal.

In FCA US v. Center for Auto Safety, the company had asked the justices whether the “good cause” necessary to place discovery documents under a protective order was sufficient to keep them sealed.

“While FCA US is disappointed that the Supreme Court declined review, we look forward to presenting our case in the district court,” a Chrysler spokesman said.

In November 2013, several car owners sued Chrysler over the alleged power-system defect. Concerned that thousands of drivers might experience power-system failures, they sought a preliminary injunction ordering Chrysler to warn customers. Almost all of the evidence submitted by the car owners in support of the motion was sealed, as was evidence in opposition offered by Chrysler.

When the district court denied the motion, the Center for Auto Safety moved to intervene in the suit to seek the unsealing of the documents associated with the preliminary injunction motion.

The district court refused again to unseal the documents, saying that the “compelling reasons” standard that ordinarily applies to court records does not apply to non-dispositive motions, so preliminary-injunction motions may be sealed under a lower “good cause” standard.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit disagreed. The appeals court said the public’s right to access court records extends to preliminary injunctions and those records can only be sealed for compelling reasons.

In June, the Center for Auto Safety noted on its website that the Ninth Circuit’s decision was cited by U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego when he unsealed documents in the Trump University real estate school lawsuit.

Chrysler’s petition, filed by Thomas Dupree of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, had drawn support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Washington Legal Foundation and other business groups. The Center for Auto Safety was represented in the high court by Leslie Bailey and Jennifer Bennett of Public Justice in Oakland.

Update: This story was updated with comment from FCA Group.

Contact Marcia Coyle at mcoyle@alm.com. On Twitter: @MarciaCoyle.

DOT Waffles on Ethical and Safety Issues of Autonomous Vehicles

October, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Mike Lemov has written an Op-Ed published in The Hill.

“On Sept. 20, the Department of Transportation, by law our primary national traffic safety enforcement agency, issued its long awaited “guidelines” for the development and sale of driverless cars. The Department attempted, Solomon-like, to balance its guidance between ensuring public safety and promoting the speedy development of driverless cars (called “Highly Automated Vehicles”) for use on our roadways.

For all its fanfare, DOT’s guidance failed to achieve its primary mission of ensuring safety.

DOT and its delegate agency NHTSA did not issue any new enforceable safety regulations for driverless vehicles, at least for the present. It did not propose any premarketing standards or requirements for automated cars, except to say it will shortly ask all producers of driverless cars and component systems to answer a comprehensive questionnaire about their proposed designs and test methods. Absent was any commitment by the federal government to actually regulate the new cars before they are sold to the public for use on public roads.

The omission is discouraging and could prove dangerous, particularly in view of the current record of partially automated vehicles getting into accidents. Some of these crashes have been deadly. It seems as if the guidelines were designed to preempt states such as California which already has issued enforceable safety regulations, such as requiring a driver and a steering wheel in all vehicles.

The Department did warn producers that the current penalties for not reporting a safety related defect publicly would apply to the automated cars, despite the weakness of the current penalties and the agency’s failure to force reporting of past lethal dangers of non-driverless cars, such as Toyota’s sudden acceleration, General Motors’s ignition shut off problem and Takata’s exploding airbags. In all these cases, and many more, the lack of adequate federal civil and any criminal sanctions apparently induced manufacturers to gamble on not reporting the accidents, even while people were being injured and killed.

The ethical and safety issues raised by the Department’s waffle are troubling.” Seehttp://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/302647-driverless-cars-ethics-and-public-safety

Hopefully, Congress will look into the ethical and safety failures of DOT officials who have allowed the rising rate of crash victims in the U.S.A. today:

* 100 deaths per day

* 400 serious injuries per day

* $2 Billion in losses per day

Lou Lombardo

Journal of Trauma Publishes Paper on Time and Place of Death From Automobile Crashes

October, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Dr. Howard R. Champion, a surgeon who has worked to improve care for crash victims since at least 1986, has a new paper out in the Journal of Trauma (attached).

Short History of Efforts To Improve Care for Crash Victims

I have had the honor to work with Dr. Champion over the years. A little background information.

1980’s – By 1980 the U.S. had lost 2.2 Million Lives to Vehicle Violence Dr. Champion was co-author of the landmark 1989 Journal of Trauma paper “Trauma Triage: Vehicle Damage as an Estimate of Injury Severity”. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2724382

At NHTSA, his work was very highly regarded and listed in CIREN Report HS 809 564 pp. 107 – 110. Available at https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/CIREN2.pdf

1990’s – By 1990 the U.S. had lost 2.7 Million Lives to Vehicle Violence Dr. Champion’s work in the 1980s contributed to the American College of Surgeons’ 1990 publication “Resources for the Optimal Care of the Injured Patient.” In 1991, NHTSA faced a mystery of an air bag fatality that turned out to be an airbag success story – albeit a tragic story. NHTSA had assigned me to manage a Congressional earmark project to build a Trauma Center in Miami, FL. A small percentage of the project funding was allocated to research on crashes, injuries, treatments and outcomes. One objective was to observe how new airbags coming into the fleet were performing. As NHTSA investigated its first air bag fatality on my project, NHTSA R&D became intensely aware of the need to improve triage, transport, and treatment decision-making for saving crash victims. The Trauma Center had not yet been built and the crash victim was transported to the massive Jackson Memorial Hospital. The crash victim had been in a very high severity multiple impact crash in a 1991 Volvo traveling at an estimated 60 mph into a traffic control box and then into a concrete pole. He was unbelted and weighed 323 lbs. He was initially stable. He was later taken to the operating room for seemingly correctable problems. He deteriorated, developed severe problems, found to have massive internal injuries and died of multiple organ system failure.

At NHTSA our focus was on the engineering of the Volvo airbag. We brought together the leading bio-mechanics and airbag engineers to understand what caused the injuries. We spent a year trying to determine whether the airbag was improperly designed, did the airbag go off on the first impact or the second impact, was the victim on the airbag when it went off? Etc. It turns out that the limits the Volvo airbag was designed for was about a 60 mph barrier impact for a belted, average size male – not an unbelted 323 lb. male in a multiple impact crash with the second impact into a concrete pole.

When I told a trauma surgeon from Baltimore about our engineering mystery, he pointed out that the emergency medical system including the hospital failed to immediately recognize the presence and severity of the internal injuries. At the hospital, they did not know how severe the crash was because he lacked major facial injuries that were usually were present in severe crashes. That led to Dr. Jeffrey S. Augenstein et al describing the challenge of identifying occult injuries in air bag protected crash victims. See Case #91-002 inattached SAE paper 940714.

In 1993, NHTSA published a Research Note, that I co-authored, titled “Detection of Internal Injuries in Drivers Protected by Air Bags” See p. 37 at https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/CIREN2.pdf

In 1994, NHTSA published a poster for the Emergency Medical community titled “Look Beyond the Obvious” to help detect internal injuries in air bag equipped vehicles. See CIREN Progress Report #2, Pages 37-45 at https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/CIREN2.pdf

In 1996, NHTSA Administrator Ricardo Martinez, the agency’s first emergency physician to head the agency, asked me to manage a research project with Dr. Champion as Principal Investigator to examine the relationships of crash characteristics to injuries. I had the privilege of bringing together a team of high level medical and safety researchers. We met monthly for a year analyzing available NHTSA data on crashes, injuries, and outcomes.

In 1997, Dr. Champion presented findings that it was possible to estimate the probability of the presence of serious injuries from crash data to the Administrator and top NHTSA executives – including demonstration of an URGENCY 1.0 algorithm. The continued development of an URGENCY algorithm was recommended for improving post-crash injury control. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/MartinezBriefing3-27-97.pdf And see https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/Malliaris970393.pdf

Based on this work, I helped in the publication of papers by the team members on Automatic Crash Notification (ACN), URGENCY, and Air Medical Services. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/home/urgency

In 1998, the research team produced the paper on Automatic Crash Notification published in AirMed. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/automatic-crash-notification.pdf

In 1999, the team’s paper on URGENCY was published in AirMed. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/urgency.pdf

In 1999, Dr. Champion presented a paper to the NTSB titled “Reducing Highway Deaths and Disabilities with Automatic Wireless Transmission of Serious Injury Probability Ratings from Crash Recorders to Emergency Medical Services Providers.” See http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/problems/studies/acns/champion.htm

In October 1999, the Congress, based in part on this research, enacted the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act specifying 9-1-1 to be the “universal emergency telephone number” and finding that “emerging technologies can be a critical component…to reduce emergency response times and provide appropriate care.” In 1999, the FCC also issued rules for Enhanced 9-1-1 service to automatically provide location information to emergency dispatchers.

2000’s – By 2000 the U.S. had lost 3.1 Million Lives to Vehicle Violence

In 2001, NHTSA published an evaluation report on a limited test of Automatic Crash Notification (ACN). See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/ACNEvaluation.pdf

In 2001, NHTSA published a paper “Development and Validation of the URGENCY Algorithm to Predict Compelling Injuries” See https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2001-06-0051/

In 2001, NHTSA published CIREN Report #1, which I edited, that carried chapters on the continuation of work on crashes, injuries, treatments, and outcomes to reduce deaths and disabilities. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/CIREN1.pdf

In 2003, NHTSA published a paper on the creation of the Atlas and Database of Air Medical Services (ADAMS) to help improve rescue of seriously injured crash victims to get them to definitive (timely and optimal) care at trauma centers. See http://www.adamsairmed.org/pubs/ITS_SSC.pdf

In 2003, NHTSA published CIREN Report #2, which I edited, that carried chapters on improving care for crash victims at Trauma Centers. It summarizes much of the work. See pp.37-45 at https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/CIREN2.pdf

In 2005, NHTSA published a paper by Dr. Champion and the team “New Tools to Reduce Deaths and Disabilities by Improving Emergency Care: Urgency Software, Occult Injury Warnings, and Air Medical Services Database”. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/2005-urgency.pdf

In 2005, another team of researchers I worked with produced a paper “Assessment of Air Medical Coverage Using the Atlas and Database of Air Medical Services and Correlations With Reduced Highway Fatality Rates”. This paper indicated the life saving potential for the ADAMS GIS by providing the data and software tools needed to enable users to view the air medical resources in this country on national, state, and local levels. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/amj-paper-4.pdf

By 2006, under the Bush Administration, NHTSA had reassigned me to work that appeared to me to have less promising life saving potential. I thought that I should retire and work on improving care for crash victims.

By 2007, GM had funded work at CDC to remove “Rollover and Extrication” from new Triage Guidelines. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/CFCV-MonthlyReport-March2014.pdf

By 2009, Dr. Champion had a paper published in the Journal of Trauma noting the importance of “Rollover and Extrication” in Triage Guidelines. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/rollover_paper.pdf

By 2009, BMW had shown what was possible with Automatic Crash Notification, URGENCY software, and communications with trauma centers and air medical services. Watch video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A30fi8-muk4

2010’s – By 2010 the U.S. had lost 3.5 Million Lives to Vehicle Violence

By 2015, the NHTSA data showed that both the number and percent of fatalities counted by NHTSA that died pre-hospital exceeded those that died in hospital. See

JS Final NHTSA Vehicle Deaths GraphData Percentages States 06-15-15-1 2015 at https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/home/urgency In 2015, Dr. Champion’s paper “Time and Place of Death from Automobile Crashes” was published by the Journal of Trauma. Copy attached. It shows that time and place of death data continue to support calls for improvements in the triage, transport, and treatment decisions of people seriously injured in crashes.

By 2016, twenty five years later, – and nearly 1 million American lives lost and nearly 4 million serious injuries later – NHTSA still has not published a federal minimum vehicle safety standard FMVSS for ACN, URGENCY software, and communications and dispatch protocols to trauma centers and air medical services when crashes have a high probability of presence of serious injuries. This despite 100 deaths per day and 400 serious injuries per day in the U.S.A. today. See

NHTSA has failed the American people. After 25 years, 56% of all deaths due to vehicle violence still occur without transport to any facility for emergency medical care. And of the 44% that are taken to “some” facility, not necessarily a trauma center for optimal care, many die for lack of timely and optimal care.

The science and safety technologies have been there for decades. The needless deaths and suffering continue.

Lou Lombardo