Category: Blog

President Obama did not do so and now we, and he, face his leaving office with an estimated additional 135,569 American lives lost in his second term.

Lou

NY Times publishes an excellent article on victims of vehicle violence due to air bag defects known for more than a decade.

“In the late 1990s, General Motors got an unexpected and enticing offer. A little-known Japanese supplier, Takata, had designed a much cheaper automotive airbag.

G.M. turned to its airbag supplier — the Swedish-American company Autoliv — and asked it to match the cheaper design or risk losing the automaker’s business, according to Linda Rink, who was a senior scientist at Autoliv assigned to the G.M. account at the time.

But when Autoliv’s scientists studied the Takata airbag, they found that it relied on a dangerously volatile compound in its inflater, a critical part that causes the airbag to expand.

“We just said, ‘No, we can’t do it. We’re not going to use it,’” said Robert Taylor, Autoliv’s head chemist until 2010.

Today, that compound is at the heart of the largest automotive safety recall in history. At least 14 people have been killed and more than 100 have been injured by faulty inflaters made by Takata. More than 100 million of its airbags have been installed in cars in the United States by General Motors and 16 other automakers.

Details of G.M.’s decision-making process almost 20 years ago, which has not been reported previously, suggest that a quest for savings of just a few dollars per airbag compromised a critical safety device, resulting in passenger deaths. The findings also indicate that automakers played a far more active role in the prelude to the crisis: Rather than being the victims of Takata’s missteps, automakers pressed their suppliers to put cost before all else.”

Safety Advocates have had to correct NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind – once again.

“This is a false dichotomy,” the advocates wrote. “The question is not whether autonomous technology must be perfect before it hits the road, but whether safety regulators should allow demonstrably dangerous technology with no minimum safety performance standards in place, to be deployed on American highways.”

Read the advocates’ letter here: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/ltrrosekind072816.pdf

The Chair is Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming and an orthopedic surgeon.

Please see the CAS Analysis and letter to NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind.

CAS Analysis Shows Tesla (Joshua Brown) & Jeep Shifter (Anton Yelchin) Deaths Lie at NHTSA’s Feet

July 15, 2016

The tragic deaths of Anton Yelchin and Joshua Brown due to faulty electronics must be placed squarely at NHTSA’s feet.  In its zeal to advance vehicle electronics, NHTSA has forgotten it is a regulatory agency to ensure vehicle safety, not a promotional agency to foster the development of vehicle technology.

Yelchin’s death is due to NHTSA creating a huge loophole in 1999 in FMVSS 102 governing transmission shift mechanisms.  Brown’s death is due to NHTSA’s failure to issue a FMVSS for self-driving controls and allowing Tesla to beta test an autopilot system using consumer as test drivers on public roads, something that has never before been done in NHTSA’s history.

Congress intended that compliance with the federal rules would both regulate and stimulate new technologies.  Today’s NHTSA has abandoned the regulatory side for the stimulation side at the expense of safety.  By issuing interpretative rules as it did on electronic shifters for BMW and not issuing Safety Standards as it did on self-driving vehicles, NHTSA created safety loopholes that inevitably led to the deaths of Joshua Brown and Anton Yelchin.

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Click here to view the CAS Letter to NHTSA Administrator Rosekind

America needs people in government, in industry, and the media to do their jobs protecting the American people.

In this election year, we are on the road to 4 million vehicle deaths in the U.S.A. in the next decade.  How many more deaths will it take to get the President to set a Vision Zero goal?  See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/MonthlyReportforJanuary2016-Corrected.pdf

Citizen Marianne Karth and her family have gathered 20,000 signatures for President Obama to issue an executive order to set a Vision Zero goal.  See

http://annaleahmary.com/tag/vision-zero/

What hidden strings are holding him back?

Put safety first, please.

Lou