Blog Archives - Page 53 of 115 - Care For Crash Victims

NHTSA Fails Audit – Again

February, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

The NY Times reports: “Five years after an internal audit revealed serious shortcomings at the nation’s top auto safety regulator, the agency has failed to follow through on some overhauls, according to a new audit by the Transportation Department’s inspector general.” See

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/business/reforms-remain-to-be-made-at-auto-safety-agency.html

Anyone who has been reading Care For Crash Victims reports will not be surprised, but will continue to be tragically disappointed in this record. Seehttps://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/CFCV-MonthlyReport-March2014.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/opinion/weak-oversight-deadly-cars.html

NHTSA is still a captive agency.

NHTSA is infected with the deadly PITCH virus – Political Indifference To Crash Harm. Manifestations of the PITCH disease are: * Former GM officials in high level NHTSA positions, * Revolving Door, * Deadly cars unfixed as far into the future as far as the eye can see, * No vision zero goal to end crash deaths in new vehicles in the next decade, * Rigged Justice, etc., etc.

See http://www.warren.senate.gov/files/documents/Rigged_Justice_2016.pdf

The history of continuing and growing toll of vehicular deaths are at https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/MonthlyReportforJanuary2016-Corrected.pdf

Jail Time for Corporate Crime

February, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

In an excellent article by Corporate Crime Reporter, Clarence Ditlow makes the case for jail time for major crime.

See http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/clarence-ditlow-wants-vw-takata-and-gm-execs-jailed-for-corporate-crime/

When people suffer and die as a result of corporate crime again and again, why do corporate executives not go to jail in America?

VW cheats and pollutes our lungs deliberately for years. GM covers up deaths and injuries for a decade.

Takata chooses to cover up exploding airbags that kill for many years.

When executives are not jailed for crimes year after year it becomes clear that our system is rigged against us all.

Lou

NHTSA & Google & Auto Companies Working On Rules For Driverless Cars

February, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Reuters reports:”Exclusive: In boost to self-driving cars, U.S. tells Google computers can qualify as drivers

“U.S. vehicle safety regulators have said the artificial intelligence system piloting a self-driving Google car could be considered the driver under federal law, a major step toward ultimately winning approval for autonomous vehicles on the roads.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), of its decision in a previously unreported Feb. 4 letter to the company posted on the agency’s website this week.

Google’s self-driving car unit on Nov. 12 submitted a proposed design for a self-driving car that has “no need for a human driver,” the letter to Google from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Chief Counsel Paul Hemmersbaugh said.

“NHTSA will interpret ‘driver’ in the context of Google’s described motor vehicle design as referring to the (self-driving system), and not to any of the vehicle occupants,” NHTSA’s letter said.

“We agree with Google its (self-driving car) will not have a ‘driver’ in the traditional sense that vehicles have had drivers during the last more than one hundred years.”

Major automakers and technology companies such as Google are racing to develop and sell vehicles that can drive themselves at least part of the time.

All participants in the autonomous driving race complain that state and federal safety rules are impeding testing and eventual deployment of such vehicles. California has proposed draft rules requiring steering wheels and a licensed driver in all self-driving cars.”

See http://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-autos-selfdriving-exclusive-idUSKCN0VJ00H

Vehicle drivers are still needed to keep the eyes of the vehicle open. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDpdorEOeUc&feature=em-subs_digest

Citizens are needed to keep their eyes on these private government/industry policy makers. Watch the DOT Revolving Door.

See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/blog-nhtsacorpservants.php

Lou

A Former Clinton White House Counselor’s Views on 2016 Election: “It’s the corruption, stupid”

February, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Salon article by Bill Curry is worth reading if you want to know why safety came last in recent decades:

“I’d rate Citizens United the second most corrupt decision in Supreme Court history after Bush v. Gore. Blind partisanship drove Bush v. Gore. Right-wing ideology informs both decisions. But Citizens United’s key findings, that our politics isn’t really corrupt and we don’t care anyway, is neither partisan nor extreme. It is in fact the bipartisan consensus of Washington’s soul-sick, brain-dead establishment.

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

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/23/its_the_corruption_stupid_hillarys_too_compromised_to_see_what_donald_trump_understands/

Lou

NHTSA and Auto Industry Favor Voluntary Safety Slow Down On Automatic Braking

February, 2016

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Dealing to delay, eviscerate, accommodate, & deny protection of peoples lives

The AP reports in an excellent article by Joan Lowy:

“WASHINGTON — Federal regulators and the auto industry are taking a more lenient approach than safety advocates like when it comes to phasing in automatic braking systems for passenger cars, according to records of their private negotiations.

The technology automatically applies brakes to prevent or mitigate collisions, rather than waiting for the driver to act. It’s the most important safety technology available today that’s not already required in cars.

Such systems should be standard in all new cars, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But instead of mandating it, the government is trying to work out a voluntary agreement with automakers in hopes of getting it in cars more quickly.

But safety advocates say voluntary agreements aren’t enforceable and are likely to contain weaker standards and longer timelines than if the government had issued rules.

“Consumers are going to come up the losers in this process,” said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety.

Meeting minutes obtained by The Associated Press of four of the meetings that NHTSA has held with automakers since October show the government is considering significant concessions.

Records of a meeting on Nov. 12, show that automatic braking systems would be allowed that slow vehicles by as little as 5 mph before a collision. Manufacturers would be allowed to exempt 5 percent of their vehicles from the standard. Some automakers had said it would take longer to ready manual transmission vehicles for the technology. The discussion included an additional exemption for models that manufacturers intend to phase out or redesign.

The minutes from the fourth session, on Dec. 9, indicate that some automakers say they won’t be ready to include the technology in 95 percent of their vehicles until model year that begins in September 2025. NHTSA and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety objected, saying such a long timeline “was too late for this effort to be seen as a serious effort.” Automakers are now being polled to see if they can equip 95 percent of their vehicles by the model year beginning in September 2022.” See

http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/business/safety-groups-want-braking-mandate/article_7f8bec6e-4a56-5aa1-86d8-d1ac4df3c005.html

More evidence of a system rigged against the people. Enough!

Lou