Category: Blog

Great news from Cally Houck:WE WON!!! Thank you, everyone!

cally houck

Ojai, CA

Jun 1, 2016 — The Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act, named for my beautiful and talented daughters, is now the law of the land!! Thank you to everyone who pitched in to make this happen. We still have work to do, to close the car dealers’ loaner-car loophole. But meanwhile, this is a huge victory. To their credit, the rental car companies themselves worked with me and Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, and Dr. Rosekind, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, our champions in Congress, and other consumer groups to get the law enacted. Good to know that we the people can change the law to protect precious lives, when enough of us speak up.Cally Houck

The Detroit News reports:

Washington — Rental car companies are prohibited from distributing vehicles that have been recalled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under a new federal law that took effect Wednesday.

The new law requires rental companies with fleets of more than 35 vehicles to pull recalled cars from their rotations until they are repaired.

The prohibition was included in a $305 billion highway bill that was approved by Congress last year. It was originally introduced as a bill that was named after Raechel and Jacqueline Houck, sisters who were killed in a 2004 crash in California that involved a rental car that had been recalled. Their mother, Cally Houck, lobbied Congress for years to approve the change.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said he is happy to enforce the ban now that has Congress has codified the prohibition in federal law.

“When a family picks up a rental car on vacation, they should be able to expect it is free of any known safety defect,” Foxx said in a statement. “I thank Congress and the safety advocates who helped turn this common-sense idea into law.”

The ban on recalled cars does not apply to used car dealerships, despite a push from safety advocates to also apply the prohibition to them.

Backers of the ban on rental companies distributing recalled cars said it is a major victory that the ban is taking effect today, even as they vowed to continue pushing for a wider prohibitions including the sale of recalled used cars by dealers.

“I’m thrilled that the Safe Rental Car Act named for my beautiful, treasured daughters, Raechel and Jacqueline, is now the law of the land. But I’m worried about the loaner-car loophole for car dealers and remain committed to closing that dangerous safety gap,” Cally Houck said in a statement distributed on Wednesday by the Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety group.

“If this law was in existence when my cherished, beautiful daughter Jewel rented a car, she would still be alive today,” added Alexander Brangman, whose 26-year-old daughter Jewel died in a 2014 crash while she was driving a rented 2001 Honda Civic.

Lawmakers in Washington who pushed for the inclusion of the recalled rental ban in the massive highway funding law that was approved last year also touted the implementation of the prohibition on Wednesday.

“I am so proud that the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act takes effect today so that the public can be assured that when they rent a car, it cannot be under recall,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who introduced multiple bills contain the ban before it was added to the 2015 highway bill.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., added: “This law is going to save lives, period. Families heading out for vacation or businesspeople on travel should never have to wonder if their rental car is under recall when they drive it off the lot. Thanks to this bill, the millions of people who rent cars every year will have peace of mind that rental companies can’t rent or sell cars that they know are unsafe.”

NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind agreed, saying the recalled rental ban gives his agency “one more tool to protect the safety of U.S. motorists,” although he lamented the fact that there are currently more than 900 active auto recalls.

See http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2016/06/01/new-law-bans-rental-companies-using-recalled-cars/85246898/

For more on the history of this safety victory see the book Death by Rental Car available at

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Rental-Car-Houck-Changed/dp/0692559132?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Great safety advance!

Lou

I wonder if there are Americans still living that are “pissed off”.

Imagine if every State had such a site.

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.

“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

Lou

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:

(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