May 5 Underride Roundtable at IIHS
April, 2016
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
Note: Webcast
Lou
Category: Blog
MD Consumer Safety Disclosure Law Passes
MD Consumer Safety Disclosure Law Passes
April, 2016
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
See Release below:
ANNAPOLIS, Md., April 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — On the final day of the legislative session, the General Assembly approved landmark legislation (HB 525) that will give Maryland one of the nation’s strongest and most consumer-friendly car safety disclosure laws. The law breaks new ground by forbidding carmakers from punishing dealers for sharing any communication from manufacturers that impacts “motor vehicle safety, durability, reliability, or performance” with anyone who purchases or services a car at the dealership.
The bill now goes to Gov. Larry Hogan for approval. Consumer Auto urges the governor to sign this important legislation as soon as possible. It is scheduled to take effect on Oct. 1.
The bill mandates that car manufacturers “may not prohibit a dealer from, or take any adverse against a dealer for” sharing safety and defect information from with their customers.
“MD’s new law will overturn the ‘gag rule’ carmakers impose on dealers and help MD drivers learn about safety problems manufacturers haven’t bothered to tell the public about,” Consumer Auto Executive Director Franz Schneiderman said. “It’s a real plus for safety and transparency for all Maryland drivers.”
Car manufacturers regularly share information with dealers about car safety and other defects in technical service bulletins and other communications. But many manufacturers use franchise rules to forbid dealers from sharing that information with customers unless they ask about the issue or in other narrow circumstances. Those rules often deprive drivers of information about serious, and sometimes deadly, defects until or unless the problem prompts a recall.
Several states have laws that allow dealers to share such communications with consumers who request it. Maryland’s law goes further by allowing dealers to share them anyone who purchases or services a car at the dealership.
Laura Christian, whose daughter Amber Marie Rose died in 2005 in Charles County, MD as a result of an ignition switch failure in her new Chevy Cobalt – a problem GM knew about but hadn’t disclosed to customers or safety regulators – worked hard for the legislation to honor her daughter’s legacy and protect other drivers. She sees the law as a real breakthrough, and a model for other states.
“My daughter died from a defect GM knew about, and more than 170 other sons and daughters died before GM finally recalled the cars and fully informed the public about the problem,” Ms. Christian comments. “This law gives dealers the ability to save lives by sharing that information with the public.”
“I believe the law can be a model that will inspire other states to act to get consumers better information about their vehicles, and I’m eager to work to bring it to other states,” she notes.
Critical support from Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh and from leading consumer advocates including the Center for Auto Safety, the Consumer Federation of America, and Public Citizen helped prompt the Senate to amend the bill to strengthen its safety disclosure language.
“Support from Attorney General Brian Frosh and leading consumer advocates, along with leadership from Sen. Susan Lee, Del.David Fraser-Hidalgo and other key legislators, was crucial in helping us pass a law that will make a real difference forMaryland drivers,” Schneiderman notes. “We’re very grateful for their work.”
Consumer Auto is a coalition of advocates, consumers and people in the auto industry working for consumer safety and greater fairness and transparency in car sales. You can learn more at www.consumerauto.org.
SOURCE Consumer Auto
Related Links
MD House Votes To Keep Consumers In the Dark and in Danger
MD House Votes To Keep Consumers In the Dark and in Danger
April, 2016
D Senate to strengthen the bill to better protect consumers.
“The bill would sharply limit our ability to share with our customers the information about defects the manufacturers share with us in service bulletins, warranty updates, and other communications,” notes Jack Fitzgerald, the president of Fitzgerald Auto Malls who has run a string of car dealerships in Maryland, Pennsylvania, andFlorida for 50 years.
“It’s absurd for Maryland law to prevent us from telling our customers about information that Congress and NHTSA say should be public. That’s a terrible disservice to the people who rely on us to sell and service their cars,” Mr. Fitzgerald argues.
On March 26, NHTSA published new rules in the Federal Register to enforce the MAP-21 law Congress passed in 2012. The rules insist that all communications from car manufacturers to dealers about safety and defect issues must be shared with federal safety regulators and made available to the public on NHTSA’s website. The bill the Maryland House passed would, in most cases, prevent dealers from disclosing that same information to their customers.
You can read the full regulation here:https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-03-25/pdf/2016-06759.pdf
House Bill 525 would allow dealers to share such information only if a customer comes in for service and asks about a problem mentioned in a service bulletin or if the dealer confirms that a car in its service shop has that problem.
“Under these rules, if you go to Jiffy Lube to get your car serviced instead of the dealer, you probably won’t find out about important safety information your dealer has,” Consumer Auto Executive Director Franz Schneiderman notes. “Or if you take your car to the dealer but don’t ask the right question or the dealer doesn’t happen to notice the problem, you probably won’t find out – unless you happen to search for it on the little-known NHTSA site.”
“That leaves too many drivers exposed to dangerous and sometimes deadly defects and deprives consumers of information about problems that could become very expensive repairs years later,” says Schneiderman.
Few people understand more vividly how dangerous unknown defects can be than Laura Christian, the birth-mother of a 16-year old girl named Amber Marie Rose who died in a 2005 accident caused an ignition switch failure in her new Chevy Cobalt. Her daughter was one of at least 124 people who died due to a defect that GM told dealers about in a technical service bulletin in Dec. 2005, but didn’t fully disclose to the public until it began recalling more than 2 million dangerous vehicles in Feb. 2014.
Ms. Christian, who has worked for the last decade to win justice for Amber and other victims of the GM defect and testified before the MD Assembly calling for much stronger safety disclosures, believes the Assembly needs to do much better for defect victims and other Maryland drivers.
“Drivers need someone to make an effort to let them know about defects,” Christian says. “The House bill preserves way too many restrictions on the safety information dealers can share, and will leave too many Marylanders in the dark and in danger from defects the manufacturers haven’t made public.”
Consumer Auto and other consumer advocates are working with the MD Senate to amend the House bill to enable dealers to disclose all the safety and defect information they get from car manufacturers to all their sales and service customers.
“There’s just no justification for keeping that information from the customers who need it most,” states Mr. Fitzgerald. “Dealers need to be able to stand up for the safety of their customers, and we won’t stop working until Maryland’s law allows us to do that.”
Consumer Auto is a coalition of advocates, consumers and people in the auto industry working for consumer safety and greater fairness and transparency in car sales. You can learn more atwww.consumerauto.org.”
More evidence that it is the corruption, stupid – widespread. See
Lou
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
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.
New Driverless Car Lobby
New Driverless Car Lobby
April, 2016
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/new-special-interest-group-aims-to-steer-self-driving-regulations-towards-complete-autonomy-042616.html
Lou
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:
View this article online: http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2016/04/26/406447.htm
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
