February, 2015
USA Today has an excellent Op-Ed on NHTSA’s Revolving Door.
It calls for closing the NHTSA Revolving Door.
Lou
February, 2015
Attached is the January 2015 Monthly Report.
Automotive News reports chances for Auto Safety legislation are fading. See http://www.autonews.com/article/20150216/OEM11/302169998/safety-crisis-fades-off-congress-radar
And sadly President Obama failed again in the State of the Union to issue a Vision Zero Goal for the nation to achieve zero deaths and serious injuries in, or by, a new vehicle in a decade. Seehttps://www.careforcrashvictims.com/blog-state15goal.php
Thankfully, the Car Book 2015 has now been published that empowers consumers to better protect themselves – physically and financially.
We need to, and can, do better protecting ourselves.
February, 2015
Nader asks large foundations to rethink priorities. Nader notes the Center for Auto Safety:“One aviation safety group of long-proven merit, the Aviation Consumer Action Project, had to close down, while another, the Center for Auto Safety, has worked wonders but on a tiny budget.” Seehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-nader/large-foundations-rethink_b_6648102.html
As usual, Nader is right on a subject of life or death importance.
Foundations have “sequestered” billions of dollars made, and tax sheltered, in America. Yet here in America we are still struggling to get out of the Great Recession while foundations spend huge amounts of money elsewhere. Just one example, in an interview in 2010, Melinda Gates was interviewed:Q. “Why don’t you direct more of your philanthropy toward the United States, where your foundation could create jobs for the unemployed, or try to solve the health care crisis? A. “As a foundation, first of all, you have to focus. But we absolutely do focus on the United States. We have three large programs: global health, global development and U.S. programs. About 20 percent goes to U.S. programs.” See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/magazine/24fob-q4-t.html
PS Since I wrote this earlier, I realized I had underestimated the number of crash deaths since October 2010 and a reader sent me the following article by another colossal foundation spending big money made in America and tax sheltered in America but spent elsewhere rather than on Americans here in the U.S.A.
Former mayor of NYC Bloomberg who did not have a Vision Zero Goal of crash deaths in NY city for years has “decided” to give $125 million over 5 years to improve road safety elsewhere around the world. Seehttp://www.bloomberg.org/press/releases/bloomberg-philanthropies-global-road-safety-program-inviting-select-cities-countries-compete-funding-support/ And the Bloomberg programs sound like the programs President Coolidge and Secretary Herbert Hoover advocated in the 1920s. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/24P11.pdf It is as though fellow American Bloomberg never read Nader’s “Unsafe at Any Speed” that pointed out the need for auto safety technologies to be developed and applied. Auto safety technologies, required by law, spurred by Nader’s work in the 1960s have now been estimated to have saved more than 600,000 American lives. See http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812069.pdf
Hopefully, these fellow Americans will act more patriotically in the future and help build a safer America before spending more elsewhere all over the world.
The American people deserve better than they are getting.
Lou
February, 2015
“The auto industry recalled almost 64 million vehicles for safety problems last year, a record, according to figures released on Thursday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The number of recalled vehicles exceeded the total for the previous three years combined.
The agency and automakers faced intense scrutiny in 2014 and sometimes scorching criticism from Congress about whether safety defects were being investigated properly and vehicles recalled promptly….”
“An investigation last year by The New York Times of the N.H.T.S.A. found that the agency had frequently been slow to identify problems, tentative to act and reluctant to employ its full legal powers against companies….” “In a departure from its practice in previous years, N.H.T.S.A. did not release the number of recalls by manufacturer. But General Motors accounted for almost 27 million of the recalled vehicles, the automaker said.” See
AP reporter Tom Krisher writes an excellent in depth article on a tragic Jeep crash.“As Kayla White slowed her SUV behind two other cars to exit a suburban Detroit freeway on Veterans Day, it was rammed from behind by a Cadillac STS. Her red 2003 Jeep Liberty bounced off a Nissan in front of it, rolled onto its side and exploded in flames.
Other drivers ran to help but were forced back by the heat. Firefighters arrived in just three minutes but were too late. White, a 23-year-old restaurant hostess who was eight months pregnant, died of burns and smoke inhalation….
“Heath had no alcohol in his system and wasn’t texting or distracted by his cellphone, says Cooper, the prosecutor. He faces up to a year in jail. Cooper says White’s “horribly tragic” death was the result of Heath’s careless driving.
But Douglas Hampton, Heath’s attorney, isn’t so sure. He has more investigating to do but will probably argue that White’s death was caused by the vulnerable fuel tank and that Heath shouldn’t be charged with causing her death.
“If it wasn’t for the gas tank, that would be an appropriate charge,” Hampton says.”
See http://www.pddnet.com/news/2015/02/fire-deaths-continue-after-fuel-tank-recall
February, 2015
Please see:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Eben Burnham-Snyder (Markey) 202-224-2742
Markey Report Reveals Automobile Security and Privacy Vulnerabilities
Wireless technologies leave vehicles exposed to hackers; Information collected on driver locations, habits
WASHINGTON (February 9, 2014) – New standards are needed to plug security and privacy gaps in our cars and trucks, according to a report released today by Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.). The report, called Tracking & Hacking: Security & Privacy Gaps Put American Drivers at Risk and first reported on by CBS News’ 60 Minutes, reveals how sixteen major automobile manufacturers responded to questions from Senator Markey in 2014 about how vehicles may be vulnerable to hackers, and how driver information is collected and protected.
The responses from the automobile manufacturers show a vehicle fleet that has fully adopted wireless technologies like Bluetooth and even wireless Internet access, but has not addressed the real possibilities of hacker infiltration into vehicle systems. The report also details the widespread collection of driver and vehicle information, without privacy protections for how that information is shared and used.
“Drivers have come to rely on these new technologies, but unfortunately the automakers haven’t done their part to protect us from cyber-attacks or privacy invasions. Even as we are more connected than ever in our cars and trucks, our technology systems and data security remain largely unprotected,” said Senator Markey, a member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. “We need to work with the industry and cyber-security experts to establish clear rules of the road to ensure the safety and privacy of 21st-century American drivers.”
Senator Markey posed his questions after studies showed how hackers can get into the controls of some popular vehicles, causing them to suddenly accelerate, turn, kill the brakes, activate the horn, control the headlights, and modify the speedometer and gas gauge readings. Additional concerns came from the rise of navigation and other features that record and send location or driving history information. Senator Markey wanted to know what automobile manufacturers are doing to address these issues and protect drivers.
The full report is available HERE.
The first part of the report addresses security, or how modern technologies open doors to hackers.
When Senator Markey asked the automakers about the different technologies and the ways they safeguard the technologies from infiltration, he found four trends:
–Nearly 100 percent of vehicles on the market include wireless technologies that could pose vulnerabilities to hacking or privacy intrusions.
–Most automobile manufacturers were unaware of or unable to report on past hacking incidents.
–Security measures to prevent remote access to vehicle electronics are inconsistent and haphazard across the different manufacturers.
–Only two automobile manufacturers were able to describe any capabilities to diagnose or meaningfully respond to an infiltration in real-time, and most said they rely on technologies that cannot be used for this purpose at all.
The second part of the report deals with privacy. Features like navigation are quietly recording and sending out our personal and driving history. The Markey report reveals four key findings on privacy:
–Automobile manufacturers collect large amounts of data on driving history and vehicle performance.
–A majority of automakers offer technologies that collect and wirelessly transmit driving history information to data centers, including third-party data centers, and most did not describe effective means to secure the information.
–Manufacturers use personal vehicle data in various ways, often vaguely to “improve the customer experience” and usually involving third parties, and retention policies – how long they store information about drivers – vary considerably among manufacturers.
–Customers are often not explicitly made aware of data collection and, when they are, they often cannot opt out without disabling valuable features, such as navigation.
In November 2014, the automobile manufacturers agreed to a voluntary set of privacy principles in an attempt to address some of these privacy concerns. In a statement, Senator Markey stated that the principles are an important first step, but they fall short in a number of key areas by not offering explicit assurances of choice and transparency.
The findings are based on responses from BMW, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar Land Rover, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Porsche, Subaru, Toyota, Volkswagen (with Audi), and Volvo. Letters were also sent to Aston Martin, Lamborghini, and Tesla, which did not respond.
February, 2015
Please note if you have not done so, please subscribe now for 2015. My accountant says to remind you all to subscribe at https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/subscribe.php
Lou
February, 2015
On Monday February 23, 2015, USA Today published an excellent Investigative Report on the failures of America’s 911 “system” to save us. It begins with:
“As water filled her sinking SUV, Shanell Anderson did what anyone would do. She tried the doors. They wouldn’t budge. She dialed 911 on her cellphone, telling the operator exactly where she was.
Anderson, 31, was delivering newspapers near Atlanta around 4 a.m.that day in late December, so she knew the cross streets, even the ZIP code. She repeated her location over and over, but it didn’t help. Because Anderson’s call was routed through the nearest cellphone tower to a neighboring county’s 911 system, the dispatcher couldn’t find the streets on her maps. Worse yet, the system couldn’t get a fix on the cellphone’s location before the call ended.
In the agonizing final seconds of the call, Anderson’s words are muffled by the sounds of pond water. The dispatcher asks for the address again, then utters, “I lost her.”
It took 20 minutes for rescuers to get to Anderson and pull the 31-year old suburban Atlanta woman from her car, barely alive. She died a week and a half later in the hospital. Her 911 call is one of millions that fail to give police, fire and ambulance dispatchers a quick fix on location, a technology shortfall that can leave callers like Anderson in grave danger….”
“Your chance of 911 getting a quick fix on location ranges from as low as 10% to as high as 95%, according to hundreds of pages of local, state and federal documents obtained and reviewed by USA TODAY and more than 40 Gannett newspapers and television stations across the country….”
“The quest to make cellphone calls to 911 more useful to emergency crews began in the mid-1990s. The FCC set a deadline: Two-thirds of cellphone calls would transmit location to 911 by 2002. That rule was written when cellphone calls were mostly made outdoors, and the industry says it can meet the goal when applied only to outdoor calls. The deadline got pushed back several times since then….”
“An estimated 10,000 people each year would be saved with accurate location standards from indoor cellphone calls,” Molitor wrote, citing an FCC estimate for the number of lives that could be saved by a one-minute reduction in emergency response times. “Whatever hang-ups they have cannot be more important than 10,000 lives.”
See http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/02/22/cellphone-911-lack-location-data/23570499/
The 911 Timeline of Hope
March 27, 1997 Briefing to NHTSA Administrator Dr. Ricardo Martinez, Emergency Physician. See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/MartinezBriefing3-27-97.pdf
1999 Based in part on that research, the Wireless Communicationsand Public Safety Act of 1999, became law and specified 9-1-1 as the “universal emergency telephone number.” As we wrote in our NHTSA published paper:
“The Act, based in part on the research findings reported herein, states that “emerging technologies can be a critical component…to reduce emergency response times and provide appropriate care”.
