Category: Blog

White House Petition To End Preventable Crash Fatalities

Dear Care For Crash Victims Community Members:

Marianne Karth has started a petition we all can sign.

In his final months as President, there is a chance we can get President Obama to act on the people’s behalf.

Please see, sign, and share the Karth family petition at:http://annaleahmary.com/2016/07/whitehouse-gov-petition-end-preventable-crash-fatalitiesappoint-natl-traffic-safety-ombudsman/

“Every average day in the U.S., 100 of our loved ones die in crashes and 400 more suffer serious crash injuries–along with $2 Billion in crash losses.

We propose that the President establish an independent Office of National Traffic Safety Ombudsman to be an advocate to eliminate preventable crash deaths and serious injuries.

We need someone who has a mandate to advocate on behalf of the victims, someone who is not compromised by competing interests. We call on the President to take this action to protect our families and loved ones from one of the leading causes of preventable death.

Traffic Safety has not been a national priority. Without this Presidential action, too many lives will continue to be lost to vehicle violence.”

The Karth family has already been successful in obtaining 20,000 signatures on a previous safety petition.  Let’s help with this too.

Lou

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____________________Lou Lombardowww.CareForCrashVictims.com

Jeep Fatality

Actor’s Death is Latest Example of Inadequate Recall Response; CAS Lays Out Action Plan for Chrysler to Prevent Further Deaths and Injuries due to Transmission Defect

Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin was killed June 18 when his 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee pinned him against his mailbox in a rollaway incident.  Yelchin’s death is unfortunately the latest example of industry and government incompetence in the face of vehicle safety defects.

On April 22, 2016, Chrysler issued a recall of 2014-2015 Grand Cherokees, as well as 2012-14 Chrysler 300s and Dodge Chargers, in order to add an additional part to enhance the Jeeps’ monostable gear selector.  The design of the monostable gear selector has been the source of much confusion for Chrysler owners, resulting in hundreds of rollaway incidents reported to both Chrysler and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).  Chrysler notes in its chronology that as of April 12, 2016 “FCA US has identified approximately 700 field reports potentially related to this issue which includes 212 crashes, 308 claims of property damage and 41 injuries.”

The vehicles involved had been under investigation by NHTSA since August 20, 2015, when the agency opened PE15-030.  When NHTSA upgraded the investigation to EA16-002 on February 3, 2016, the agency noted 121 crashes and 30 injury incidents in its opening memo.

Despite a clear defect affecting hundreds of owners with injury and potential death, Chrysler issued a Part 577 interim notification letter to owners promising to develop a fix by the 4th quarter of 2016. Just how quickly this fix would be available to owners is unknown, and given Chrysler’s recent recall efforts in fire-prone Jeeps, owners would be potentially subject to lengthy delays when seeking a remedy.

In a letter to Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne, CAS Executive Director wrote: The Center for Auto Safety calls on Chrysler to: · Notify owners not to drive these vehicles until repaired under the safety recall. · Provide free loaner or rental cars of comparable value to all owners until the vehicles are repaired under the safety recall. · For owners who cannot wait until a recall repair is available, buy the recalled vehicles by at original purchase or lease cost with deduction for use as is done under state lemon laws where the defect exists on the day the vehicle was bought. · Provide a detailed public timeline within 10 days of what is being done to make a recall remedy available, when parts will be available for all vehicles and who is doing the engineering for the recall. · Sergio Marchionne should publicly go and apologize to the family of Anton Yelchin.

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CAS Letter to Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne

CAS Letter to NHTSA Administrator Rosekind

16V-240 Part 573

16V-240 Amended Part 573

16V-240 Amended Part 573 Chronology

16V-240 Part 577

PE15-030 Closing Resume

Redacted Chrysler PowerPoint Presentation to NHTSA

EA16-002 Opening Resume

Chrysler Consent Agreement with NHTSA on Recall Performance

Anton Yelchin Death: Jeep Grand Cherokees Were Recalled for Rollaway Risk– 6/19/16

CAS FOIA: Missing Chrysler PE15-030 Documents

CAS FOIA: Missing Chrysler EA16-002 Documents

List of Chrysler Transmission Rollaway Recalls

Clarence Ditlow

Executive Director

Center for Auto Safety

1825 Connecticut Ave NW #330

Washington DC 20009

Safety Advocates Worried About Driverless Cars

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Fair Warning, in an excellent article, reports on numerous concerns voiced by safety advocates about the regulatory rush to self driving vehicles.

“On Valentine’s Day in Silicon Valley, one of Google’s experimental, self-driving cars sideswiped a city bus at 2 miles an hour. The incident marked the first time an autonomous car contributed to an accident on a public road, but did nothing to diminish the Obama administration’s enthusiasm for driverless vehicles.

A month after the crash, at an autonomous car conference in Dearborn, Mich., Mark Rosekind, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, said his agency and the federal Department of Transportation “are using all the tools we have available to advance what see as a revolution in technology,” according to his prepared remarks. “Our goal is to hasten this revolution.”

Enthusiasts say autonomous cars will grant mobility to the elderly and the disabled, transform congested freeways and eliminate the human errors responsible for most traffic accidents, which kill about 33,000 people per year. “Automated vehicles open up possibilities for saving lives, saving time and saving fuel,” said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in January at the North American International Auto Show, where he announced the administration wants to spend $3.9 billion, over ten years, to foster the development of driverless cars. “We are bullish on automated vehicles,” he said.

But some automotive safety advocates fear government is embracing the technology too quickly without carefully assessing its actual capabilities and practical implications. With billions of dollars at stake and aggressive lobbying by the tech and automotive industries, safety advocates worry that government regulators will allow themselves – and the public – to be steamrolled in the name of progress and innovation.

Rosemary Shahan, the founder and president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, is concerned that autonomous cars are not ready for the road. (Photo courtesy of Rosemary Shahan)

Rosemary Shahan, the founder and president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, is concerned that autonomous cars are not ready for the road.

“These cars are not ready for prime time,” said Rosemary Shahan, the founder and president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, a Sacramento, Calif.-based advocacy organization best known for spearheading passage of the state’s automobile lemon law.

Autonomous cars, which have been in development since at least 2009, are known to struggle in inclement weather; rain, fog and snow disrupt their sensors. “We should be requiring them to prove that they’re really ready” before rushing self-driving cars to consumers, Shahan said.

She’s also worried about draft regulations in California that would make occupants responsible for all traffic violations that occur while a driverless car is operating in autonomous mode. Shahan said manufacturers “should be willing to assume the liability.”

– See more at: http://www.fairwarning.org/2016/06/self-driving-cars/#sthash.V6EZIQZe.dpuf

Note the Revolving Door at DOT NHTSA as the Obama Administration comes to an end.
Lou
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____________________Lou Lombardowww.CareForCrashVictims.com

DOT NHTSA Approved Independent Monitor for Fiat Chrysler Note the DOT Revolving Door

Dear Care For Crash Victims Community Members:

The AP reported on the NHTSA & Fiat Chrysler approved “Independent” Monitor.

“Fiat Chrysler, also known as FCA, is under an order from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to hire an independent monitor to oversee the company’s recalls in response to misbehavior involving 23 recalls. The safety administration selected Slater from a list of three candidates supplied by Fiat Chrysler. The decision was announced by the automaker on Friday.

Gordon Trowbridge, a spokesman for NHTSA, said Slater had disclosed his representation of Takata, but the safety administration and Fiat Chrysler decided it wasn’t a problem….

Safety advocates say Slater’s representation of Takata is a clear conflict of interest.

“You can’t have someone overlooking their recalls that also represents a company that makes defective parts,” said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety. “You can’t have someone who has two masters, and Slater has two masters.”…

Joan Claybrook, who headed the traffic safety administration under President Jimmy Carter, said she strongly disagreed with NHTSA’s decision to appoint Slater.

“Chrysler has hired Slater because they want a yes man,” said Joan Claybrook, a safety advocate. “This completely undercuts the important work NHTSA has done in showing Chrysler has violated safety recall rules. There is a clear need for an independent monitor.”

Slater is a partner with Washington lobbying and law firm Squire Patton Boggs. Congressional lobbying disclosure reports show the firm has been paid more $1.3 million since December to represent TK Holdings Inc., Takata’s parent company. The reports list Slater as lobbying Congress and the Transportation Department on air bag issues.“   See: http://www.salon.com/2015/10/23/fiat_chrysler_independent_monitor_also_lobbies_for_takata/

Instead of a safety Vision Zero goal for preventing fatalities, DOT has a Vision for producing BIG Bucks $$$.

Lou

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____________________Lou Lombardowww.CareForCrashVictims.com

The Polluted Air We Are Forced To Breathe Vehicular Violence Decade After Decade

Dear Care For Crash Victims Community Members:

The NY Times reports:

“BERLIN — One diesel car tested by the German government emitted more than 12 times as much poisonous nitrogen oxide as allowed. Another was five times over the limit, and yet another six times over.

The cars were not produced by Volkswagen, the company at the center of a widespread emissions scandal. They were a Jeep, a General Motors sedan and a Mercedes-Benz.

A growing stack of recent government and private studies has made increasingly clear that Volkswagen was hardly the only company to flout pollution limits. While Volkswagen illegally manipulated test results, the other carmakers in Europe just took advantage of a loophole that allows them to throttle down emissions controls whenever there is risk of engine damage — which in some cases is nearly all the time.”  See

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/business/international/volkswagen-not-alone-in-flouting-pollution-limits.html

In a USA Today Op Ed, Advocates offer solutions:

“Government agencies must crack down on an industry with a history of cheating.

636002996910030455-gerstenzang01.JPG

(Photo: Kevin Hagen, AP)

Volkswagen’s cheating on diesel emissions tests isn’t the first pollution scandal to rock the auto industry. Here’s how the Obama administration can make it the last.

VW should be ordered to fix the diesels, or buy them back and scrap them, begin large-scale production of electric vehicles and face civil and criminal penalties, including a fine large enough that no automaker will even think about cheating on air pollution standards again.”  See

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/06/10/volkswagen-scandal-diesel-emissions-cheating-pollution-column/85165552/

Since 1970

When will Enough be Enough?

In the 1970’s I blew the whistle on auto industry cheating on emissions testing under the Nixon Administration.  I had to sue the National Academy of Sciences who denied me access to EPA documents and deliberations that would have revealed the problem.  Judges all the way to the Supreme Court ruled against us.  It took the Nixon tapes, later released, to show I was right. The EPA and the auto companies were wrongfully polluting us all.   See

https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/1970-PolutionControlEfforts.php

And see  https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/about-louis.php

Lou

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____________________Lou Lombardowww.CareForCrashVictims.com

EMS Your Money And Or Your Life

Dear Care For Crash Victims Community Members:
One of our subscribers wrote to me about an excellent article in the NY Times that investigated EMS and found Wall St.:

“A Tennessee woman slipped into a coma and died after an ambulance company took so long to assemble a crew that one worker had time for a cigarette break.

Paramedics in New York had to covertly swipe medical supplies from a hospital to restock their depleted ambulances after emergency runs.

A man in the suburban South watched a chimney fire burn his house to the ground as he waited for the fire department, which billed him anyway and then sued him for $15,000 when he did not pay.

In each of these cases, someone dialed 911 and Wall Street answered.

The business of driving ambulances and operating fire brigades represents just one facet of a profound shift on Wall Street and Main Street alike, a New York Times investigation has found. Since the 2008 financial crisis, private equity firms, the “corporate raiders” of an earlier era, have increasingly taken over a wide array of civic and financial services that are central to American life.”  See

NHTSA has had responsibilities for EMS since the 1960s.  Since 1991, I have worked to improve emergency care for crash victims.  See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/2005-urgency.pdf
DOT NHTSA, now captive by corporate power, has failed the American people to the point that in the U.S.A. today about 100 Americans die of their injuries on an average day.  Of these about 56 Americans are not transported to any facility for emergency medical care.   About 44 are transported – somewhere but often not a trauma center – for emergency medical care and die.  A decades long problem of Emergency Medical Care that is too little, too late, for too many Americans.  See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/urgency.php
In 2013, I petitioned NHTSA to “Recommend a National Goal for Timely and Optimal Treatment for Serious Crash Injuries Within a Decade – One Hour Med Evac to Definitive Care”  Seehttps://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/MR-Strickland-NEMSAC-FICEMS.pdf
I have long asked for NHTSA to do this in the next decade as we have already done in Afghanistan.  See  https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/blog/blog-goldenafgh/
By June 30, 2016, the public can comment on the Federal government plans for EMS.  See http://www.ems.gov/pdf/FICEMS_Strategic_Plan_Released_March2014.pdf Note: my petition was ignored as the NHTSA officials in charge at the time have left to work more directly for the auto industry.  The NHTSA EMS position is vacant.  See NHTSA Org chart attached.

Perhaps in this election year we may have some incremental forward movement toward Vision Zero Deaths rather than Vision Infinite Dollars.

All of us need it and many people want it.