Category: Blog

History of Auto Safety: Progress & Pressing Needs


History of Auto Safety: Progress & Pressing Needs

May, 2015

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Keith Crain, Editor in Chief of Automotive News, notes 50 years of auto safety progress since publication of “Unsafe At Any Speed” by Ralph Nader.

“This industry can take pride in its accomplishments over the years. Despite that, it still needs outsiders to push for higher safety standards and greater compliance with existing rules.

Until there are no auto-related deaths or injuries, one could say that the work is not done.”  See 

Michael R. Lemov, author of Car Safety Wars, in a Baltimore Sun Op-Ed,  offers “a page of history about suffering and death on America’s highways and one big reason why it is still happening today.”  Seehttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-car-safety-20150430-story.html
Auto safety history continues to be of life or death or disability importance to all Americans.   On an average day Americans suffer nearly 100 crash deaths, 400 serious crash injuries, and estimated losses of $2 Billion. 
Automotive News reports that nearly 50% of all vehicles on the roads are not covered by existing safety regulations.  Seehttp://www.autonews.com/article/20150430/OEM11/150439993/almost-half-of-u-s-vehicles-arent-covered-under-existing-safety
We can, and must, do better protecting Americans from crash injuries.
Let’s push Presidential candidates to set a Vision Zero goal of zero deaths and serious crash injuries in a decade.  Seehttps://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/MonthlyReportforFebruary2015.pdf
Lou

 

What You Can Do When Your Car is Recalled


What You Can Do When Your Car is Recalled

May, 2015

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Good advice from a fellow retired NHTSA Official is in a Huffington Post article:“Ask for a loaner vehicle. You may get one — and it might just save your life.…

Allan Kam, a former senior enforcement attorney at NHTSA, told The Huffington Post that the planned hearing speaks to the severity of the problem. Kam, who served at NHTSA from 1975 to 2000, said that in the past, recalls were completed much more rapidly.

“It typically did not take months,” Kam said. Recalls that long were “the exception, rather than the rule.”  See

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/21/auto-recall-takata-airbags_n_7379654.html?1432255418

 

Insights Into NHTSA’s New Activity on Recalls


Insights Into NHTSA’s New Activity on Recalls

May, 2015

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members: “The U.S. auto safety watchdog, long criticized as toothless and slow, is showing both bark and bite under its new boss – a testimony to his credentials as a safety expert and a hardening of the administration’s policy after a wave of deadly defects.”http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/24/us-autos-takata-nhtsa-insight-idUSKBN0O90F220150524

 

Law Professors on GM Recalls and Government Failures


Law Professors on GM Recalls and Government Failures

May, 2015

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Please see this excellent article – that many Americans should read – by two leading Law Professors that concludes:“GM’s success in working the system must be offset by criminal culpability, on both the corporate and individual level, for leaving consumers to drive in ticking time bombs for so many years.”

See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rena-steinzor/gm-and-its-no-good-very-bad_b_7191124.html

Lou

 

NHTSA Administrator Rosekind and Jeep Gas Tank Defect Recall


NHTSA Administrator Rosekind and Jeep Gas Tank Defect Recall

May, 2015

Dear care for Crash Victims Community Members:

On July 2, 2015 NHTSA will hold a public hearing on the Jeep Recall.

Automotive News in an informative report notes NHTSA improvement:

“Five months into his tenure, Rosekind is delivering on that pledge. In a rapid-fire series of actions last week, his agency:

• Summoned Fiat Chrysler’s U.S. arm to a July 2 public hearing to review a “pattern” of alleged problems with executing 20 recalls since 2013.

• Exacted an acknowledgment from Takata Corp. of an airbag defect in some 34 million vehicles.

• Extended its extraordinary oversight of General Motors’ safety operations for at least another year.

The whirlwind week was the clearest sign yet of Rosekind’s growing imprint on the agency, which has come under heavy criticism in recent years that it’s too timid, too slow and too cozy with the industry it polices. With the latest actions, he is invoking extraordinary powers and tools to clear up logjams on recalls, pressure automakers and get unsafe cars off the road.

Said Joan Claybrook, who ran the agency under President Jimmy Carter and has been a frequent critic of it since: “I think we have a new sheriff in town.”  

See

http://www.autonews.com/article/20150524/OEM11/305259967/nhtsas-rosekind-lays-down-the-law-and-the-industry-is-rattled

Representatives of crash victims are calling for criminal investigations of Fiat Chrysler for crash deaths.  See 

What is sadly foreseeable is that there will be more tragedies before effective remedies will be in place to prevent them.
Lou

 

Takata Airbags Changed in 2008


Takata Airbags Changed in 2008

May, 2015

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:“TOKYO (Bloomberg) — Troubled airbag supplier Takata Corp. began changing the safety devices in 2008 to reduce the risk that humidity would cause them to deploy abnormally, three people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.”

See Automotive News article and Related Stories at http://www.autonews.com/article/20150520/OEM11/150529994/1509

Also see Timeline by Reuters at http://www.autonews.com/article/20150520/OEM10/150529992/1509/timeline-of-takata-airbag-recalls