Category: Blog

Nader To Hold Conference on “Breaking Through Power”


Nader To Hold Conference on “Breaking Through Power”

April, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

To help us all be more effective citizens, Nader is holding a series of meetings in Washington, DC this May.

WASHINGTON, April 22, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Celebrating the 50th anniversary year of Ralph Nader’s book Unsafe at Any Speed, the Center for Study of Responsive Law announces four days of civic mobilization at Constitution Hall inWashington, D.C. on May 23, 24, 25 and 26, 2016. Unsafe at Any Speed unleashed fresh energies and sparked the creation of numerous advocacy organizations leading to major consumer, environmental and worker safety protections.

The theme of this citizen mobilization will be elaborating ways to break through power to secure long-overdue democratic solutions made possible by a new muscular civic nexus between local communities and Washington, D.C. On these four days, speakers will present innovative ideas and strategies designed to take existing civic groups to higher levels of effectiveness.

This “Civic Mobilization” will involve thousands of people at Constitution Hall and around the country and connect long-available knowledge to long-neglected action for the necessities and aspirations of people from all backgrounds. Many of the presentations will feature reforms and redirections for the common good enjoy Left/Right support. breakingthroughpower.org/

Breaking Through Power: How it’s Done—May 23, 2016 will feature presentations by seventeen citizen advocacy groups.

Breaking Through Power: The Media—May 24, 2016, brings together also for the first time a large gathering of authors, documentary filmmakers, reporters, columnists, musicians, poets and editorial cartoonists.

Breaking Through Power: War—May 25, 2016 is dedicated to enhancing the waging of peace over the waging of war. We will assemble leading scholars having military and national security backgrounds, veterans groups such as Veterans for Peace, and long-time peace advocacy associations, to explain how peace is more powerful than war.

Breaking Through Power: Congress—May 26, 2016 will unveil a new Civic Agenda to be advanced by engaged and enraged citizens in each Congressional district.

Conference ogranizers will create several new organizations. One such group will work to open up the commercial media, which use the public airwaves free of charge, to serious content. Another will facilitate action by retired military, national security and diplomatic officials who want to deter unconstitutional and unlawful plunges into wars that lead to calamitous and costly blowbacks.

SOURCE Center for Study of Responsive Law

See http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ralph-nader-presents-breaking-through-power-a-historic-civic-mobilization-300256147.html

Having watched, learned from, and been inspired by Nader for 50 years, I believe this will be an important initiative to help us all improve our government to build a Safer America.

As written in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Lou

PS  Tickets may be purchased online at Ticketmaster.  Look up Ralph Nader Presents Breaking Through Power.  There is a 4 day series package.  

 

Auto Dealers Lobbying Against Safety


Auto Dealers Lobbying Against Safety

April, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Safety Advocate Rosemary Shahan asks that we spread the word about lobbying campaign against safety recalls. At a time when everyone is focusing on improving safety recall compliance rates, the National Automobile Dealers Association has been downplaying the risks of safety defects / recalls. This is the latest public statement, from the President of the NADA —  someone in the business who may be regarded by the public as an expert, regarding how seriously to take safety recalls. This is incredibly dangerous and irresponsible.  Automotive News reports:

Incoming NADA Chairman Jeff Carlson vowed to keep up the group’s fight against government overreach and pledged to make the group more consumer-focused in 2016.

In a speech at the convention, the Colorado dealer who drove a beer truck to pay his way through college, said dealers nationwide need to be engaged in NADA’s policy and legislative advocacy mission.

“It’s no secret that the dealer franchise system has been under attack, unfairly and relentlessly,” Carlson said on Saturday. “But the best defense is a good offense.”

He urged support of a U.S. Senate bill, S. 2663, to unwind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s guidance on dealer-originated auto loans, which Carlson called an “overreach into our business model.”

Carlson said only dealers should be authorized to perform all recall repairs for all customers, though he cautioned against legislation to require dealers to fix all recalls on used cars prior to sale.

Such a move would ground millions of cars unnecessarily and diminish vehicle trade-in values, because only 6 percent of recalls are “hazardous,” he said, citing a 2014 analysis by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

Carlson said: “Washington must understand that all recalls are not the same.”  See 

http://www.autonews.com/article/20160402/RETAIL06/160409936/1379#disqus_thread

Lou

 

NHTSA Revolving Door Spins in DC for Self-Driving Cars


NHTSA Revolving Door Spins in DC for Self-Driving Cars

April, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

As I just read in the Introduction to the new book “Nation on the Take”:

“In 1974, around 3 percent of former members (of Congress) became lobbyists.  Now, half of them pass through Washington’s “Revolving Door” … As the NY Times’s Mark Leibovich observed: “In some sense [they are] living proof of the thing that most voters loathe about Washington: the notion that membership in its political class guarantees a win-for-life lottery ticket.”

Now we read a new lobby group has been formed with David Strickland, former NHTSA Administrator and former Senate Staffer as spokesman:Insurance Journal - Property Casualty Industry News

Google, Ridesharing Firms, Automakers Form Lobby Group for Self-Driving Cars

A group of companies including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Ford Motor Co. and Uber Technologies Inc., are forming a coalition to advocate for safety regulations for self-driving cars and to bring them to American roads.
The group, which also includes Volvo Cars and Lyft Inc., aims to work with lawmakers, regulators and the public to “realize the safety and societal benefits of self-driving vehicles,” according to a statement Tuesday.
Self-driving cars will make roads in the U.S. safer and less congested, according to the group, but “one clear set of federal standards” is needed to help facilitate bringing the cars to market. One of the group’s first tasks will be to work with civic organizations, municipalities and businesses to accomplish that goal, according to the statement.
“Fully autonomous vehicles will help people travel more safely and efficiently, as well as facilitate mobility for those currently unable to drive,” Ford said in a separate statement.
David Strickland, a former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, will serve as the coalition’s counsel and spokesman.”

See Strickland smiling in recent photo (seated far left) with other former NHTSA Administrators attached.

Lou

 

Breakthrough to Lifesaving Information on Auto Defects


Breakthrough to Lifesaving Information on Auto Defects

April, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

The Center for Auto Safety announced a legal breakthrough.  

The facts that it took a lawsuit and nearly 4 years to get NHTSA to do its job should raise questions in the American people’s minds including:  1.  Why?   2.  How many people were and will be needlessly injured and killed because of the delay.

3.  How do we get NHTSA to work for the people and not the auto companies?

See http://www.autosafety.org/how-to-find-technical-service-bulletins-and-other-manufacturer-communications-via-nhtsas-search-portal/

 

April 25, 2016202-328-7700

How to Find Technical Service Bulletins and Other Manufacturer Communicationsvia NHTSA’s Search Portal

On February 4, 2016, the Center for Auto Safety (CAS) filed a lawsuit against Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx seeking to enforce the Congressional mandate in in the “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act” (MAP-21) enacted on July 6, 2012.

MAP-21 provided that “the Secretary shall make available on a publicly accessible Internet website, a true or representative copy of each communication to the manufacturer’s dealers or to owners or purchasers of a motor vehicle or replacement equipment produced by the manufacturer about a defect or noncompliance with a motor vehicle safety standard prescribed under this chapter in a vehicle or equipment that is sold or serviced.”

To make the Bulletins searchable by consumers, MAP-21 required: “an index to each communication, which– (A) identifies the make, model, and model year of the affected vehicles; (B) includes a concise summary of the subject matter of the communication; and (C) shall be made available by the Secretary to the public on the Internet in a searchable format.”

On March 25, DOT finally announced its intent to start obeying the law by issuing a Federal Register notice stating it would post all Technical Service Bulletins and communications to dealers on defects in vehicles, regardless of whether the defects were safety related. DOT also required manufacturers of vehicles and equipment to prepare indexes to TSBs and dealer communications, as a guide to consumers looking for information on potential vehicle problems.

Soon after, NHTSA began posting TSBs only to its website through the safety portal used for recalls, complaints, and related information. Electronic communications to dealers should begin to be posted in the summer of 2016. You can locate these communications by following the three easy steps listed in the following pages.

Thanks to the Center for Auto Safety, Public Citizen, and their founder Ralph Nader for this breakthrough.
Lou Lombardo

 

Cancer Moonshot vs. No Crash Injuries Moonshot


Cancer Moonshot vs. No Crash Injuries Moonshot

April, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

What is the difference between President Obama creating a Cancer Moonshot – but not a Crash Injury Moonshot?  

1.  Cancer does not have a lobby against government action.

2.  Crash Injuries have a huge lobby against government action.  This despite the fact that an end to crash injuries is within sight – in a decade.

The “Strange Indifference to Highway Carnage” continues at the highest levels of the U.S. government.  Seehttp://www.fairwarning.org/2012/09/a-strange-indifference-to-highway-carnage/
Lou