March, 2016
See Consumer Affairs article on Google and lobbyist David Strickland. https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/google-wants-congress-to-put-self-driving-cars-in-the-fast-lane-031516.html
Lou
March, 2016
FYI January 27, 2014 National Automobile Dealers Association New Orleans, LA $325,500.00 Full list at http://citizenuprising.com/hillary-clintons-speaking-fees-2013-2015/
March, 2016
Cally Houck, mother who became a Safety Leader after losing two daughters in a tragic unfixed defective rental car, has allowed publication of her views. She has written a strong letter to the DNC.“I am solid Bernie. Here’s why:
March, 2016
Why does the Obama Administration fail to protect Americans from crash injuries and adopt a Vision Zero Goal for the nation?
It is becoming clearer to more Americans that it is the corruption. Read article “It’s the corruption, stupid…”
“If you doubt it, consider Barack Obama. In 2008, America was almost as angry at its government as it is today. Then as now, the media and political consultants to both parties were blind to the issue. But Obama and strategist David Axelrod sort of got it. Axelrod wasn’t much for specificity. He preached the “politics of biography” (sell the person, not the policy). So Obama spoke of transforming “Washington’s culture.” It was powerful stuff, but not quite powerful enough.
Voters knew the problem wasn’t “partisan gridlock” but a hammerlock of special interests. They could abide politicians’ incivility but not their corruption. Obama added some policy meat to the metaphorical bone of his message. He called whistle-blowers heroes and vowed to strengthen freedom of information, to let C-SPAN cameras film healthcare negotiations, end no-bid contracts, close revolving doors and never hire lobbyists to handle matters of special concern to their ex-clients. By late fall, nearly every speech he gave ended in a rousing call for reform.
Breaking those vows was the original sin of the Obama administration. No C-SPAN cameras ever filmed a meeting. He didn’t treat whistle-blowers as heroes; he broke records prosecuting them. He didn’t end no-bid contracts; he increased them. He didn’t ban lobbyists; he recruited them. (Healthcare industry consultants drove that team; he even hired a defense lobbyist to oversee Pentagon procurement policy.) Revolving doors kept swinging; every ex-Obama staffer you ever heard of now sits on some comfy corporate perch. Republicans didn’t kill the reforms. Obama had the power to implement each one by executive order, but chose not to.
In 2008, Obama raised more money from big business than any candidate in either party’s history and in 2009 he hired the most conservative economic team of any Democratic president since Grover Cleveland. He then sided with insurers against a public option, with banks against rescuing homeowners and with business against raising the minimum wage. If you’re highly educated and care more about cultural than economic issues, you may not have noticed. If you’re financially pressed, you may be torn between Sanders and Trump, or have given up on politics altogether.” See
Crash victims demand safety
1. Media educates the public. Watch videohttp://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-investigation-of-seat-back-failures-sparks-action-by-congress/
2. Progressive legislators provides pressure. See letters
http://www.markey.senate.gov/letters-to-automakers-on-seatback-safety
3. Reporters investigate.
4. Auto Safety Advocates Build the Case >
It is now up to citizens to voice their views as voters and consumers.
The tragedies will continue until the pressure builds to ends these senseless deaths and injuries.
March, 2016
More evidence of the rigged system where money matters more than lives.
Lives Matter Citizens petitioned NHTSA in January, 2016 to save nearly 100 lives per year based on NHTSA research on automatic emergency braking technologies. See
Statement of Joan Claybrook, Former NHTSA Administrator, on Automatic Emergency Brakes
With today’s announcement on Automatic Emergency Brakes (AEB), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has failed the public by cutting a secret deal with auto makers for a voluntary unenforceable standard. In recent years, the agency also failed the public with secret meetings with auto companies about deadly defects it took years to recall. Enough is enough. Let the public in.
In 1966 Congress created NHTSA, authorizing issuance of mandatory vehicle safety standards, saying this was necessary because voluntary industry standards don’t work.
Fifty years later, in 2016, NHTSA has abrogated its responsibility to the public by excluding suppliers and the public and secretly supporting auto company voluntary installation of AEB. The agency/industry deal allows six to nine years for installation even though about half of the most popular 2016 models already offer AEB. This deal could slow down rather than speed up additional installation. NHTSA itself says its mandatory vehicle standards have saved over 600,000 lives.
Further, the performance requirements agreed to by NHTSA and auto companies are still secret and thus the public cannot comment on or evaluate them. A voluntary standard is not enforceable and it is insane to trust auto companies given the string of cover-ups and defect failures in recent years. Auto companies can impose excessive prices on optional AEB systems, linking their availability to other expensive add-ons like heated steering wheels, thus excluding lower-bracket buyers.
Reverting to voluntary standards undermines NHTSA’s credibility, thwarts innovation that mandatory regulation encourages, discourages new NHTSA research and receipt of Congressional funding, and allows the auto companies to secretly set the terms of the standard to accommodate their production and financial investments in new vehicles.
NHTSA should do its job and propose a mandatory AEB safety standard in response to the petition filed in January 2016 by consumer groups.
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February
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
Here they go again! Fatalities are rising so hit drivers and hit the road (safety summits to find “new initiatives”) to deflect the responsibility from government officialdom.
For years, traffic deaths have been declining steadily as cars become more crashworthy and enforcement of drunken driving laws have been ramped up. But that all came to a screeching halt last year, with traffic deaths showing a steep 9.3% increase in the first nine months of 2015.
NHTSA estimates that more than 26,000 people died in traffic crashes in the first nine months of 2015, compared to the 23,796 fatalities in the first nine months of 2014. U.S. regions nationwide showed increases ranging from 2% to 20%, and federal safety regulators blame driver behavior.
“It’s time to drive behavioral changes in traffic safety and that means taking on new initiatives and addressing persistent issues like drunk driving and failure to wear seat belts,” said Dr. Mark Rosekind, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)….
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx says he recognizes the unexpected spike in 2015 deaths is a signal that more needs to be done. His department is holding a series of “safety summits” beginning today in Sacramento, hoping the summits will “provide us with new approaches to add to the tried-and-true tactics that we know save lives.”
Foxx says it’s clear that “unsafe behaviors and human choices … contribute to increasing traffic deaths on a national scale.” He quotes the NHTSA research as showing that human factors contribute to 94% of crashes.
“We’re seeing red flags across the U.S. and we’re not waiting for the situation to develop further,” said Dr. Mark Rosekind, NHTSA Administrator. “It’s time to drive behavioral changes in traffic safety and that means taking on new initiatives and addressing persistent issues like drunk driving and failure to wear seat belts.”
Rosekind notes the estimated 2015 increase in highway deaths follows years of steady, gradual declines. Traffic deaths declined 1.2% in 2014 and more than 22% from 2000 to 2014.
The safety summits will address drunk, drugged, distracted, and drowsy driving; speeding; failure to use safety features such as seat belts and child seats; and new initiatives to protect vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists, NHTSA said.” Seehttp://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/traffic-deaths-up-nearly-10-driver-behavior-blamed-020816.html
What’s wrong with this? For many decades, we have known that people are human and make mistakes – lots of them – every day, everywhere. We have also known since Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed published in1965, that laws and vehicle design changes were needed to prevent the deaths and injuries.
Marianne Karth just posted an article that gives one example of the government/industry failures to protect people from deaths and serious injuries over the past many decades. See http://annaleahmary.com/2016/02/underride-rulemaking-will-we-get-it-right-this-time/
Today we have more technologies to prevent crashes and deaths and serious injuries than ever before in the history of humankind – regardless of driver errors. As Nader often has said:
“This country has far more problems than it deserves and far more solutions than it applies.” See American Blessings, www.runningpress.com
NHTSA political leaders have often blamed humans for crashes by citing reports on causes of accidents – but not on what political leaders did not do to prevent the crashes, injuries, and deaths that resulted from human errors.
One story I witnessed is that when former Administrator Diane Steed, having gone through the Revolving Door and at that time funded by GM, came back to NHTSA looking for such a report from the NHTSA librarian. Ms. Steed became angry when the librarian could not produce the report she was looking for because Ms. Steed was mistakenly referring to the Tri-level study as the “Three Cities” study. See the report
Enough is enough!
Lou
