February, 2016
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members: Delay and Confusion:http://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/Latest-Airbag-Advice-Confuses-Drivers-369043331.html
February, 2016
Important additional NSC Data by States and methodology are at http://www.nsc.org/NewsDocuments/2016/mv-fatality-report-1215.pdf
February, 2016
Please see release and documents below:
February 5, 2016202-328-7700
CAS Sues Transportation Secretary Foxx For Violating Safety Act Mandate to Post Dealer Technical Service Bulletins & Index on DOT Website
For over three years DOT has violated the Congressional mandate in the “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act” (MAP-21) enacted on July 6, 2012 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 findable 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.”
DOT has failed to do either legal mandate – publish the actual bulletins or an index to them.
According CAS Executive Director Clarence Ditlow: “DOT failure to implement the law costs consumers money for repairs that covered by Service Bulletins and endangers their lives by witholding Service Bulletins that disclosures defects that can cause crashes, deaths and injuries. Today the Center for Auto Safety filed suit against DOT Secretary Foxx to force the Secretary to do what the law so clearly requires. This is yet another example of where voluntary and cooperative action by the auto industry so praised by Secretary Foxx fails.”
# # #
The Center is represented by Adina Rosenbaum of the Public Citizen Litigation Group in Washington DC.
Related Documents
CAS v. Foxx Complaint – 2/4/16
Examples of Technical Service Bulletins – Ford Toyota General Motors
No wonder most Americans think that government policies are on the wrong track.
February, 2016
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
February, 2016
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.
February, 2016
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.”
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
February, 2016
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
Lou
