Category: Blog

Airbag Tragic Mess, NHTSA Tragic Mess


Airbag Tragic Mess, NHTSA Tragic Mess

November, 2014

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

The Automotive News published an excellent article (and related articles) on these two tragic messes.

“For the second time this year, a long-standing defect linked to deaths and injuries has triggered a mushrooming auto-safety crisis, lending more fuel to criticism that federal regulators haven’t done enough to protect consumers from such dangers.

Ten automakers have issued recalls for millions of airbags that, rather than save drivers and passengers in a crash, can explode with a lethal spray of jagged metal.

The flaw is connected to two deaths in what were otherwise fender benders, and two others may be related; just this month, a Florida woman died with such unexpectedly severe gashes in her neck after a crash that police reportedly suspected homicide — until a recall notice for the vehicle arrived the following week.

Perhaps most unnerving to consumers, the problem doesn’t yet appear to be contained. On Wednesday, Oct. 22, two automakers told Automotive News that they couldn’t say for sure whether all of the bad airbags had been identified….After watching the agency she ran in the 1970s stagger last week, former NHTSA Administrator Joan Claybrook put it bluntly: “I think they’re having a meltdown.”…. “I am flummoxed by this,” Claybrook said, dismissing the regional tack as a cost-saving maneuver. “This is not a regulatory agency; it’s an auto industry booster agency.””

See http://www.autonews.com/article/20141026/OEM11/310279955/nhtsa-back-in-cross-hairs-as-airbag-crisis-escalates

The tragic truth continues to emerge.   The Obama Administration’s feckless failures to protect Americans continues to produce tragedies.  Shameful, willful, repeated inaction and actions putting and keeping corporate servants in positions of power and influence over people’s lives.  Not what the American people voted for but what corporate lobbyists pay for.  Picture the $4 billion to influence just this year’s election.  

Lou

 

Treasury’s Halloween Trick on GM Crash Victims


Treasury’s Halloween Trick on GM Crash Victims

November, 2014

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

How high up does the corporate captivity of the Federal Government go?

“The U.S. Treasury says confidential information it got in the bailout of General Motors Co. (GM)should stay secret, otherwise at-risk companies needing government help in the future might not be willing to share data.

The Center for Auto Safety, now researching GM’s ignition-switch defects, sued in 2011 for information the government obtained before investing $49.5 billion in the automaker. It got more than 50,000 documents and wants additional records on the U.S. role in a judge’s ban on lawsuits over older GM cars. The Treasury asked a judge to throw out the lawsuit…. 

Still, highlighting the risks, the Treasury’s bailout fund lost $11.2 billion on its investment by December when it sold its remaining shares in the new GM, according to a May government report.

Clarence Ditlow, president of the Washington-based auto safety center, said GM came to the U.S. “hat in hand” and was forced as a condition of getting money to produce the information that he is now seeking. Others will do the same, he said yesterday in an e-mail.

“Disclosure of information will not deter corporations begging for billions in taxpayer dollars from seeking bailout funds in the future,” he said.”

Seehttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-30/treasury-seeks-gm-suit-dismissal-as-danger-to-future.html#disqus_thread

Treasury to America:  No you cannot see what the Federal government knew and when it knew it when we gave billions of your dollars to GM.  

The bailout was necessary, but making the details public is also necessary.

Lou

 

GM Crash Victims Payout Plan as of Halloween 2014


GM Crash Victims Payout Plan as of Halloween 2014

November, 2014

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Only 2 months left for GM crash victims to make claims to GM Ignition Compensation Program.   Their “deadline” (their word, not mine) is December 31, 2014.  See http://www.gmignitioncompensation.com/index

As of Halloween, GM Administrator Feinberg’s website shows Latest Overall Program Statistics as of October 24, 2014 to be at http://www.gmignitioncompensation.com/docs/program_Statistics.pdf

Claims received “to date” *  192 for deaths, but so far only 30 “determined eligible”

*  102 for “Category One” injuries such as Quadriplegia, but so far only 4 “determined eligible” 
*  1286 for “Category Two” injuries, but so far only 27 “determined eligible”
Note:  “Remaining claims are either under review, deficient awaiting further documentation or deemed ineligible.”  No statistical breakout of these categories is  currently publicly available.  See http://www.gmignitioncompensation.com/docs/program_Statistics.pdf

 

DOT Secretary “Heck of a job” Anthony Foxx – “Incredible Track Record”


DOT Secretary “Heck of a job” Anthony Foxx – “Incredible Track Record”

November, 2014

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

The Detroit News reports: 

“Last week, a senior administration official told reporters NHTSA’s handling of the recall was “suboptimal.”

Foxx told The Detroit News on Friday that NHTSA’s handling of the recall “wasn’t flawless in the sense” that there were mistakes in press releases — some wrong cars and the wrong number of vehicles were listed in releases on successive days last week. And the website at which car owners could check to see if the vehicles were recalled wasn’t working for much of the week.

“That’s what was suboptimal,” Foxx said. He praised NHTSA’s “incredible track record” over the last decade.”  See 

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/foreign/2014/10/31/nissan-air-bag-recall/18234493/

So what was this praiseworthy “incredible track record” of NHTSA over the past decade of Bush/Obama?

Way back in August 2014, (about 9,000 crash deaths ago) NHTSA reported that over the past decade nearly 350,000 Americans died of crash injuries.  See attached NHTSA report also available at http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812055.pdf

In fairness to Secretary Foxx, he may not have added the annual figures, or added an estimate for 2014, or recognized the effects of the Great Recession 2006 – 2010 in the decline in crash deaths.  But then, he has little knowledge of auto safety.  Neither does the current deservedly much criticized NHTSA Deputy Administrator David Friedman know much about auto safety.   See Secretary Foxx’s bio at
Consider that the 350,000 crash deaths is just part of the tragic statistical picture.  One has to add about 1.4 million serious crash injuries.  And using the NHTSA figures on 2010 annual societal costs of $871 Billion, one can estimate this “incredible track record” at nearly $8 Trillion.  See NHTSA Report at http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812013.pdf
The 350,000 crash deaths over the past decade amounts to more than 3 times the 101,442 deaths in the Korean, Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars combined.  
Incredible track record, indeed!  Just what Americans voted for, but corporations delivered.
The revolving door will turn again and these “public” officials will go for their rewards for this “incredible track record”.
Lou

 

Justice and Safety for Crash Victims


Justice and Safety for Crash Victims

November, 2014

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Justice for Crash Victims

It is a rare day when crash victims receive justice.  Justice for crash victims is too often, too little, too late, for too many people.
The NY Times has just reported on a rare Justice “Success Story” for crash victims:

“Candice Anderson received the bittersweet news Monday in a Texas courtroom, fighting back tears, and her arm around the mother of the boyfriend she had felt responsible for killing in a car crash 10 years ago.

The judge cleared Ms. Anderson in the death of the boyfriend, Gene Mikale Erickson, even though she had pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide in the case years ago.

Ms. Anderson, 21 at the time of the crash, was driving her car when she inexplicably lost control and crashed into a tree. Mr. Erickson, her passenger, died at the scene, and Ms. Anderson has been racked with guilt ever since.

In getting her record cleared, Ms. Anderson benefited from an extraordinary — and long delayed — admission by General Motors, which on Monday for the first time publicly linked Mr. Erickson’s death to an ignition switch defect in millions of its small cars….”  

“Ms. Anderson’s Saturn Ion was among the cars equipped by G.M. with the defective switch, which can cause a loss of power, disabling power brakes, power steering and airbags. At least 35 deaths have been linked to the defect, which went unreported by G.M. for more than a decade.

In May 2007, five months before Ms. Anderson entered her guilty plea, G.M. had conducted an internal review of the crash and quietly ruled its car was to blame, but never let Ms. Anderson or local law enforcement officials know.

After the crash on Nov. 15, 2004, Ms. Anderson’s parents liquidated their 401(k) to retain a lawyer to defend her. While a deal with prosecutors spared her jail time, she was on probation for five years and paid more than $10,000 in fines and restitution.”  See 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/business/woman-cleared-in-death-caused-by-gms-faulty-ignition-switch.html?emc=edit_tnt_20141124&nlid=37926955&tntemail0=y

This article illustrates the importance of media attention to the plight of crash victims. Thanks to trial lawyers, engineers, consumer advocates, congressional pressure, government agencies and officials, and citizens doing their parts, some justice can be achieved for some crash victims.
Safety for Crash Victims
But as we are all crash victims in so many ways, we need to achieve both justice and safety to prevent injuries to all future crash victims.  Both “success” stories and “suffering” stories of crash victims help move us as a society to achieve greater safety.  With about 100 crash deaths per day, plus 400 serious crash injuries per day, and costs of about $2 Billion per day occurring in the U.S.A. today — we have a great need for crash victim justice and safety.  See
NHTSA Report on Economic and Societal Costs at http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812013.pdf
Lou