Category: Blog

Finally!  After 6 years in Office, the Obama Administration will conduct a review of NHTSA.  This is after nearly 200,000 crash deaths, about 800,000 serious crash injuries, and $5 Trillion in losses in the U.S.A. under the Obama Administration.   For data sources see http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812013.pdf  and http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812055.pdf

But it remains to be seen whether or not we now get the hope and change we were promised and voted for in 2008 and 2012? Lou

Sean Kane has published additional important information.“Among the damning evidence in the trial were five test videos showing the re-designed ET-Plus end terminal catastrophically failing and a November 9, 2004 email authored by a retired Trinity vice-president, Steven Brown.  He proposed changing the guide channel from five inches to four to make the terminal eight pounds lighter and save $2 a unit, without telling the FHWA, as it is required to do: “If [the Texas Transportation Institute] agrees, I’m feeling that we could make the change with no announcement.” TTI, an arm of Texas A & M University, invented the ET-2000 and the ET-Plus, and was responsible for conducting the testing that would be submitted to the federal government in support of its application for approval. TTI agreed to the change without telling the government, and drafted a test report that failed to reference the change to the guide channel and other changes to the original design, first approved in 1999….

William Boynton, a spokesman for the New Hampshire DOT, noted that “at this time, the NHDOT has no direct evidence that the terminal is ‘flawed.’”  

On June 8, an Ohio couple was southbound on I-93 in Ashland New Hampshire, when the sedan left the roadway and struck an ET-Plus guardrail, which penetrated the Subaru Impreza at the passenger side wheel well, slicing the driver and her companion in the legs and knees. Both sustained serious injuries, requiring long hospitalizations and have undergone multiple surgeries to repair the damage.

Boynton said the NHDOT was aware of that crash.”

The NY Times has identified and mapped the 13 States that have banned dangerous guardrails.  Current status: 9 Blue States: MA, CT, NH, OR, CO, NV, VA, VT, HI

Lou

An excellent article by Rachel Cohen addresses the larger “recalled but not repaired” problem of vehicles endangering us all – and known about by NHTSA and auto companies for years.“In the United States, about one in every six cars on the road, or 37 million vehicles, has an unfixed safety recall. These are not minor problems; in safety recalls, the manufacturer or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has determined that a car or piece  of motor vehicle equipment poses an unreasonable risk to safety or fails to meet minimum safety standards. When a recall is in effect, manufacturers are legally obligated to do the repairs for free. Consumers, however, are not required to fix their car, regardless of the defect’s severity. In 2011, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found the annual recall compliance rate in the United States averages 65 percent.”

Vehicle paint colors can be made iridescent too to be more visible at night.  In fact, the 1973 airbag  vehicles made for the government by GM were painted in iridescent green.  Auto safety expert Byron Bloch sent me the following note and attached picture:

His coming appointments will provide perhaps his last chance to remedy his current record.  In his eight years, the nation is on track to woefully record 250,000 crash deaths – more than twice the number of Americans who died in the Afghanistan, Iraq, Viet Nam and Korean Wars combined.  See https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/MonthlyReportforAugust2014.pdf