November, 2015
An excellent article on this subject has been published by the NY Times.
Please see http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/your-money/navigating-the-takata-airbag-recall.html
Lou
November, 2015
Will Paul Ryan speak for crash victims?
Over the period 2004 – 2013, in the Congressional District he currently represents, the number of crash deaths amounted to 729 people. That record averaged more than one crash death per week over a decade in just the District he has “represented” all those years. His record of crash deaths and that of crash deaths in every representative’s district are publicly available free to all at https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/CrashDeathMappingTools.php
The NY Times Editorial Board wrote about the legislation at the Speaker’s current attention. The editorial is titled “The Bill That Would Make Roads Less Safe”. Seehttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/opinion/the-bill-that-would-make-roads-less-safe.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
November, 2015
2. Polls Show Support FOR Safety:
NEW POLL FINDS AMERICANS ACROSS ALL SOCIO-ECONOMIC INDICATORS AND POLITICAL PARTIES SUPPORT SAFETY POSITIONS ON ISSUES NOW BEFORE CONGRESS
>> Support Criminal Penalties for Corporate Auto and Equipment Executives who Cover Up Dangerous Safety Defects
>> Support Car Dealers Being Required to Repair Recalled Used and Loaner Cars Before Consumers Drive Away
>> Oppose Teen Truck and Bus Drivers in Interstate Traffic and
>> Oppose Oversized Double Trailer Trucks on Our Nation’s Roads and Highways
Washington, D.C. (November 17, 2015) – Right now, Members of the House and Senate are racing to finish negotiations on a multi-billion dollar six-year surface transportation bill, known as the DRIVE Act (H.R. 22) and the annual spending bill for the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)(H.R. 3488). These critically important bills not only will set transportation policies and funding levels for the construction and repair of highways, bridges and transit systems but they will also have a deadly impact on safety if changes are not made. Decisions about how safe or how dangerous our roads and highways will be are being made this week. Even though the bills will be paid for by taxpayers, anti-safety special interests aided by their friends in Congress have succeeded in carving corporate earmarks, industry giveaways and special exemptions from safety rules, all at the expense of public safety.
Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (Advocates) commissioned a public opinion poll to gauge public support and opposition for a few of the critical motor vehicle and motor carrier safety issues at stake in the DRIVE Act and transportation appropriations bill. The poll was taken this past weekend and shows very strong levels of public support for safety positions across all categories including age, gender, religion, race, income, education and political party affiliation. Below is a summary of the poll findings. The complete findings of the poll are available at www.saferoads.org.
3. Some Officials Work AGAINST Safety
“WASHINGTON — Buried deep within a massive transportation bill that passed the House of Representatives is a little-noticed provision that won’t have much effect on highway projects, but is of great interest to automobile dealers.
The provision, an amendment offered just before midnight on Nov. 11, would allow dealers to rent or loan out vehicles even if they are subject to safety recalls. Rental car companies, meanwhile, don’t get the same treatment under the proposed law.
In essence, the amendment would allow an auto dealer to loan you a vehicle under active recall while you are getting your own fixed for the same defect.
The man who offered the amendment is no stranger to car dealerships. In fact, that’s his business. U.S. Rep.Roger Williams, R-Austin, sponsored the amendment. In introducing it on the floor of the House, he noted, “I am a second-generation auto dealer. I have been in the industry most of my life. I know it well.”
The possibility that his action might be considered a conflict of interest was apparently not on his mind, though it certainly occurred to others.”
November, 2015
Ralph Nader describes three purposes of Tort Law:“the three purposes of tort law. One is to compensate people for their injuries; the second is to disclose facts so the press picks up and publicizes the story alerting people about what to avoid, how to shop, and what their rights are; and the third is deterrence so other companies or other providers or vendors get the idea that maybe it’s better—and cheaper—to be safe than unsafe with your customers.” Seehttp://parade.com/439904/m-b-roberts/ralph-nader-on-lawsuits-you-never-have-enough-cases/
An Insurance Journal article describes a ruling by Judge Furman as follows:
“General Motors Co. and its law firm need not turn over privileged documents to drivers hoping to show that the automaker intended to commit a crime or fraud by concealing defective ignition switches in their vehicles, a Manhattan federal judge ruled on Nov. 25.
Despite finding “probable cause” to believe GM committed a crime or fraud by hiding the defect from regulators and the public, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman found no showing that the automaker and King & Spalding produced the documents with an intent to further such misconduct.
Most of the documents related to the law firm’s advice from 2010 to 2013 on three crashes involving Chevrolet Cobalts. Vehicle owners said the deception justified a waiver of attorney-client privilege.
“Put simply, plaintiffs do not provide a factual basis for a good faith belief that the communications and work product they seek – let alone any particular communications or work product they seek – were made with the intent to further a crime or fraud,” Furman wrote.” Seehttp://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2015/11/30/390286.htm
You be the judge. Did Judge Furman meet the three tests? Compensation? Disclosure? Deterrence?
Who is Judge Furman?
“Furman’s brother Jason Furman serves as an economic adviser to President Barack Obama.[5]”
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_M._Furman
Should Judge Furman have ruled differently for crash victims past, present, and future? Will there be more victims? Less compensation? Less deterrence?
You be the Jury in the Court of Public Opinion.
October, 2015
An excellent article and comments produced to give us all important information on politics of truck safety has been published by Fair Warning. See http://www.fairwarning.org/2015/10/trucks/ This is a fine article. It shows the tragic consequences of crashes and campaign finances corrupting government to endanger all Americans here, now, and long into the future.
People can find the shocking number of crash fatalities for each congressional district over the past decade.
The number of lives destroyed in each district each year may help generate some empathy — at least among voters.
See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/CrashDeathMappingTools.php
October, 2015
Here’s a way to get some health safety from harmful air pollutants and some justice for past injurious pollutants we are being forced to breathe.
October 19, 2015
Center for Auto Safety Sues Volkswagen & Audi Over Emission Violations Using Defeat Devices
The Center for Auto Safety (CAS) sued Volkswagen AG, Audi AG, et al in US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Unlike the numerous private class actions filed across the country that seek consumer damages over VW’s use of sophisticated computer software to cheat on emission tests run by the US EPA and CARB, CAS’ lawsuit seeks injunctive relief:
CAS Executive Director Clarence Ditlow said:
CAS has sued VW and Audi because they committed an unprecedented corporate crime and fraud on the public that requires injunctive relief to remedy the harm caused by their violations of state and federal environmental and consumer protection laws. Class actions and government enforcement actions result in headlines, penalties and settlements that do nothing to change underlying corporate behavior or remediate the underlying damage caused by illegal behavior. The independent monitors and auditors sanctioned by the Justice Department and federal agencies are nothing more than corporate law firms and employees who all too willing to sign off on the behavior of their employers in documents filled with withheld redactions. When so-called independent funds are set up as was done in the Toyota Unintended Acceleration class action, they go to auto company designed programs that benefit the auto maker, not the consumer.
CAS will use its integrity and skills acquired through 45 years of battling the auto industry to ensure that this litigation will reform VW and Audi once and for all and set a precedent for all other auto companies in the future.
# # #
CAS has a long history in working on motor vehicle fuel economy and emissions dating back to the early 1970’s. The Safe Climate Campaign headed by Dan Becker is a program of CAS. CAS is represented by Hausfeld LLP, 1700 K Street NW Ste 650, Washington DC 20006, 202.540.7200. Hausfeld is a leading global law firm with offices in Washington, DC; Philadelphia; San Francisco; Brussels; and London. The firm has a broad range of complex litigation expertise, particularly in consumer, antitrust/competition, financial services, sports and entertainment, environmental, mass torts, and human rights matters. For more information about the firm, please visit: www.hausfeld.com.
Center for Auto Safety v. Volkswagen – Complaint
Volkswagen Emissions Defeat Devices Violate EPA Emissions Rules
Clarence Ditlow
Executive Director
Center for Auto Safety
1825 Connecticut Ave NW #330
Washington DC 20009
October, 2015
“Cheating” is too weak a word to describe poisoning people for more than 4 decades by big auto and government policies.
The NY Times reports:
LONDON — Despite the cloud cast by the Volkswagen scandal, automakers are proposing that they be allowed a 70 percent increase in the nitrogen oxides their cars emit, unreleased documents show, as part of new European pollution tests.
Under the new plan, cars in Europe would for the first time be tested on the road, using portable monitoring equipment, in addition to laboratory testing.
The automakers, which include Volkswagen, General Motors, Daimler, BMW, Toyota, Renault, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Ford and Hyundai, are essentially conceding what outside groups have said for some time — that the industry cannot meet pollution regulations when cars are taken out of testing laboratories. The move is occurring as Volkswagen, the world’s largest automaker, grapples with fallout from the discovery that 11 million of its vehicles were equipped with software meant to cheat emissions tests.
Tests of car emissions required in the United States and Europe take place in laboratories, where vehicles are run through drills on a dynamometer, which is the automotive equivalent of a treadmill. Automakers have found ways to cheat the tests since emissions were first regulated in the early 1970s. Seehttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/business/automakers-ask-europe-for-leniency-in-emissions-testing.html?emc=edit_tnt_20151002&nlid=37926955&tntemail0=y&_r=0
Disclosure:
In the 1971 I blew the whistle on EPA changes in the emission test procedures to favor auto makers. I was fired and sued the National Academy of Sciences for access to information supporting my arguments. Judge Sirica and judges up to the Supreme Court ruled against me denying me access to the documents. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/EPA-Whistle-Blow.pdf
Decades later the Nixon Tapes revealed what I did not know at the time. In April 1971, Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca met with Nixon in the White House and pressed for relief on emission standards and had already met with EPA Administrator Ruckelshaus to change emission test procedures. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/Nixon-Transcriptions.pdf
For more on history of emissions by companies and government failures to protect people, see the Center for Auto Safety statement:“The only way to change auto company behavior is to put the responsible executives in jail. After a flagrant pattern across the auto industry of violating US health and safety laws, the Center for Auto Safety calls on the Justice Department to move to put the responsible VW executives behind bars as it just did with peanut butter manufacturers.” Seehttp://www.autosafety.org/volkswagen-emissions-defeat-devices-violate-epa-emissions-rules
I am sorry to say that history teaches that we also have to hold government officials in all agencies and branches of government to the same standards of accountability.
Lou
