Blog Archives - Page 67 of 115 - Care For Crash Victims

DOT Revolving Door Continues – Corruption at NHTSA Continues – And Deaths Will Continue

October, 2015

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

The NY Times carries AP report that former Clinton Administration DOT Secretary Rodney Slater has been appointed by NHTSA to “monitor” Fiat Chrysler.

DETROIT — A former transportation secretary turned lobbyist selected by the government to monitor the recall of millions of Fiat Chrysler vehicles also represents an air bag maker responsible for millions of recalled vehicles.

Rodney Slater, who ran the Transportation Department for four years under President Bill Clinton, has been lobbying the department and Congress on behalf of Takata Corp. of Japan regarding air bag issues, lobbying records reviewed by The Associated Press show.

Takata’s air bag inflators can explode too forcefully, firing shrapnel into the passenger compartment. They’re linked to eight deaths and have led to the recall of tens of millions of vehicles, including 4 million made by Fiat Chrysler.

Fiat Chrysler, also known as FCA, is under an order from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to hire an independent monitor to oversee the company’s recalls in response to misbehavior involving 23 recalls. The safety administration selected Slater from a list of three candidates supplied by Fiat Chrysler. The decision was announced by the automaker on Friday.

Gordon Trowbridge, a spokesman for NHTSA, said Slater had disclosed his representation of Takata. “The company and NHTSA both examined that and determined that for the purpose of monitoring Fiat Chrysler’s compliance with the consent order that it was not a conflict of interest,” Trowbridge said….

Safety advocates say Slater’s representation of Takata is a clear conflict of interest.

“You can’t have someone overlooking their recalls that also represents a company that makes defective parts,” said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety. “You can’t have someone who has two masters, and Slater has two masters.”

Joan Claybrook, who headed the traffic safety administration under President Jimmy Carter, said she strongly disagreed with NHTSA’s decision to appoint Slater.

“Chrysler has hired Slater because they want a yes man,” said Joan Claybrook, a safety advocate. “This completely undercuts the important work NHTSA has done in showing Chrysler has violated safety recall rules. There is a clear need for an independent monitor.”

See https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/23/business/uaw-fiat-chrysler-union-contract-workers.html

In December 2014, I reported about Takata hiring 3 former Secretaries of DOT and warned:

“So these former Secretaries of Transportation who often said “Safety” is their number 1 priority will now be paid how much, for what, and why?

America we have a safety problem in more ways than one!” See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/blog-takatahiresdot.php

The deaths and injuries and pain and suffering will continue until the corruption is stopped – at the highest levels of government and corporations.

Lou

Crash Victims Organize For A Safer America

September, 2015

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Out of a tragic crash comes hope for a safer America.

Citizens have organized a project for the world to contribute to research on improving safety. Seehttp://annaleahmary.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Underride-Guard-Research-Brochure.pdf

The first focus of the Karth family is on Truck Underride Guards a subject I had a short involvement with in the late 1970s at NHTSA under Administrator Joan Claybrook. I, and others, tried to get a strong underride guard rule promulgated. See http://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=214652

and see Byron Bloch http://www.autosafetyexpert.com/Assets/Docs/article-underride.pdf

It was a short lived effort because in 1980 Ronald Reagan became President. He replaced Administrator Joan Claybrook with a coal industry lobbyist Raymond A. Peck, Jr. with devastating consequences for the safety of Americans that still continue.

The Republican Reagan Administration quickly ripped up the airbag rules, reduced the NHTSA work force from 900 people to 600 people (a level that persists to this date), and stopped efforts for a strong underride guard. Corporate interests continue to subvert safety policies to this day – including truck safety. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/blog-predictable.php

People can contribute to this new citizen safety effort athttps://www.fortrucksafety.com/

Lou

Voices for Crash Victims Will Be Heard Today on DemocracyNow on GM Settlement

September, 2015

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Laura Gipe Christian, Ralph Nader and Rena Steinzor are scheduled today,Sept. 18, 2015 at 8-9:00am EST, to discuss the travesty of the GM Settlement with the U.S. Justice Department.

Laura Gipe Christian is the mother of a daughter killed in a GM ignition switch crash and founder of Facebook site GM Recall Survivors at https://www.facebook.com/gmrecall.survivors

Lou

Safety, Health, and Happiness – VW Cheats to Pollute More

September, 2015

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Another example of why jail time is needed to protect Americans from injuries to our safety, health and happiness is highlighted in an excellent editorial in USA Today. See

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/09/21/volkswagen-clean-diesel-epa-emissions-editorials-debates/72594004/

IIHS Resource on Buying Safer Vehicles – And White Cars Are Safer

September, 2015

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Good resource from IIHS is now at

For information on insurance losses by make and model see http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/insurance-loss-information

And Car Color Safety Tip

One tip for vehicle purchasers that can improve their safety by about 10% free is by wisely choosing a white vehicle. See report attached.

Car color is especially timely as we approach the end of daylight savings time. See my previous article on car color and safety at https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/blog-daylaightsavings.php

Be Safe,

Lou

Consequences of Defects Include Jail Time – For Drivers Not Corporations

September, 2015

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Having worked on auto safety since 1978, and tried to understand the tragic consequences of crash deaths and injuries on individuals, families and society, I never envisioned wrongful criminal convictions.

Now Corporate Crime Reporter publishes an important article on this little known aspect of crash consequences.

“By Editor Filed in News September 4th, 2015 @ 8:13 am

Last month, a judge in Pennsylvania reversed the involuntary manslaughter conviction of LaKisha Ward-Green.

The judge found that a faulty General Motors ignition switch contributed to her crashing into a school bus, killing her boyfriend who was sitting in the passenger seat of the vehicle she was driving.

In a similar case last year, a judge cleared Candice Anderson in the death of her boyfriend, Gene Mikale Erickson.

Anderson pled guilty to criminally negligent homicide in the case in 2007.

It turned out that the GM ignition switch was involved in the deadly crash.

In 2007, Kuoa Fong Lee was convicted of vehicular homicide and sentenced to eight years in prison for a 2006 crash that killed three people. But Fong Lee was was released from prison in 2010. Lee’s lawyers argued that the 1996 Toyota Camry Lee was driving suddenly accelerated and Lee couldn’t stop it.

“Opponents of white collar criminal prosecutions argue that corporate managers should not be charged criminally for regulatory violations because health, safety, and environmental rules are too complex to understand and violations of such arcane requirements do not cause real harm,” says Rena Steinzor, author of Why Not Jail? Industrial Catastrophes, Corporate Malfeasance, and Government Inaction. “Both arguments are revealed as hypocritical by the criminal prosecutions of three drivers who had fatal accidents as a result of a defect that the manufacturers’ executives covered up. All of these accidents caused fatalities and the drivers were charged with versions of vehicular manslaughter or reckless driving. Only after suffering through great hardship and, in one case, two years in prison, were they exonerated by belated disclosure of corporate malfeasance. The cases are just the latest example of the double standard that prevails between street and white collar crime.”

See

http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/vehicular-homicide-and-manslaughter-convictions-being-reversed-as-drivers-blame-corporations-for-auto-defects/

FCA Failed To Report More Fatalities

September, 2015

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Automotive News reports:

Ryan Beene September 29, 2015 – 2:45 pm ET

WASHINGTON — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has found “significant” under-reporting of deaths and injuries possibly linked to safety defects in its vehicles, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said today.

FCA informed NHTSA in late July that an internal investigation revealed that the company had under-reported claims and notices of deaths and injuries to the agency as required by U.S. law, NHTSA said.

FCA began the probe after NHTSA notified the automaker of an “apparent discrepancy” in the Early Warning Reporting data that all automakers submit to the agency on a quarterly basis.

“This represents a significant failure to meet a manufacturer’s safety responsibilities,” NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind said in a statement. “NHTSA will take appropriate action after gathering additional information on the scope and causes of this failure.”…

But an audit of NHTSA in June found big deficiencies in the system, including inconsistencies in reporting standards among automakers and haphazard reviews of data by agency investigators. Rosekind has pledged to improve the system.

Earlier this year, American Honda was fined $70 million and agreed to stricter additional oversight after admitting in November 2014 that it failed to report to NHTSA more than 1,700 deaths and injuries that may have been linked to potential defects in its cars. See

http://www.autonews.com/article/20150929/OEM11/150929794/fiat-chrysler-says-it-under-reported-death-injury-claims?cciid=email-autonews-blast