Can Condolences Turn Tragedy Into Safety?

Can Condolences Turn Tragedy Into Safety?

November 13, 2013

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Please see the November Monthly Report attached.

It deals with a recent tragic crash and a request that we consider creative ways to prevent future tragedies.

As always your comments are welcome.

Associated documents:

November 2013 monthly report – Can Condolences Turn Tragedy Into Safety?

Heath Insurance & Lower Crash Fatality Rates by State

Heath Insurance & Lower Crash Fatality Rates by State

October, 2013

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

 

Please see the October 2013 Report and the Ranking of States by Crash Fatality Rates and Health Insurance Rates.

As always, your comments are welcome.

 

Hoping this helps us build a Safer America.

 

October 2013 Monthly Report.

1 – 2011- Crash Fatalities By State Rank + Uninsured + Medicaid Sheet

2 – October 2013 Monthly Report – Health Insurance & Lower State Crash Fatality Rates

 

 

 

Researchers in Germany Find 25% Reduction in Mortality Risk Using Helicopter EMS

Researchers in Germany Find 25% Reduction in Mortality Risk Using Helicopter EMS

July 9, 2013

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Colleagues in Germany have performed excellent and important research on care for injured people with helicopter based EMS.

See the attached paper in Critical Care Journal — Line 343 -34:

“According to our results helicopter transport was associated with a significantly reduced mortality risk of 25%.”

 

Their findings support previous work that led us to estimate similar reductions in mortality of crash victims was possible.

 

By the year 2000, we estimated that about a 20% reduction in mortality of crash victims with ACN, URGENCY software, and air medical rescue was possible. See Report Section 6.4 that was published by NHTSA — available at www.careforcrashvictims.com under ACN Evaluation.

 

“An ACN system should reduce the length of time between traumas and needed restorative medical care. Extrapolating from the findings of air transport fatality reduction studies (References 30 and 31), the ACN system could offer an approximate 20% reduction in fatalities from motor vehicle collisions. This estimate assumes that adequate medical facilities would be available. Unfortunately, no studies have been found to assess the time dependence of injury severity caused by motor vehicle trauma. Thus, any estimate of the affect of ACN on reducing injury severity would be little more than a guess. This area requires further study. However, an NHTSA-sponsored multidisciplinary research team has produced a computer program (References 2, 4, and 5) which attempts to produce an easily understood probability of serious injury estimate making use of data which would be available from an ACN system.”

 

In the 1990s I was privileged to work with Prof. Guenter Lob (Munich). Dr, Lob helped us develop the Atlas and Database of Air Medical Services (ADAMS) for the U.S.

 

The ADAMS 10th Edition Atlas with national and state maps showing air medical coverage in each state is now available on the Public Access portion at www.ADAMSairmed.org.

 

Papers on URGENCY software, ACN, and ADAMS are available at www.careforcrashvictims.com under URGENCY.

Imagine if we had our EMS helicopters being dispatched more intelligently using ACN, URGENCY software, and ADAMS GIS locations of helicopter and hospital resources relative to the crash site.

 

Since 1997, when we developed version 1 of URGENCY software at NHTSA, nearly 600,000 Americans have died of crash injuries. How many more must die before enough political will is developed to get NHTSA to adopt goals to provide Americans with timely, optimal emergency medical care using helicopters, ACN, and URGENCY software?

 

See petition to NHTSA Administrator David Strickland at www.careforcrashvictims.com under Blog dated May 18, 2012.

In the meantime, we need to sincerely thank our colleagues in Germany for their fine work that hopefully will bring us closer to saving more lives using these technologies sooner — in time to save more lives.

 

Click here to download attached document.

 

 

Chrysler Gambling on Jeep Recall Refusal

Chrysler Gambling on Jeep Recall Refusal

June 8, 2013

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

CNN article and accompanying videos do an excellent job of alerting the public to the life or death problem of Chrysler Jeep fires. See

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/07/opinion/ditlow-chrysler-recall/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

 

More than 100,000 people so far have signed petition for recall. See

hhttp://www.change.org/dangerousjeeps

https://www.change.org/petitions/dot-and-nhtsa-save-innocent-families-from-burning-to-death-in-jeeps

 

Center for Auto Safety Letters to Chrysler and Fiat. See

CAS Asks Fiat/Chrysler Chairmen Elkann & Marchionne to Recall Jeeps that Burn Children to Death in Rear Impacts

 

Businessweek article quotes sales executive. See

A Rare Recall Standoff as Chrysler Questions Safety Issue

So Chrysler is employing the playbook of Deny and Delay. The gamble is that every day of delay decreases the amount of money it will have to pay out to its Jeep owners. And every day of delay without another crash fatality is money in their pockets. Chrysler and Fiat are gambling that paying lawyers, lobbyists, engineers, statisticians, and scientists to obfuscate will be cheaper than recalling and repairing or replacing existing vehicles with defects.

 

But who will win? Who will lose? Chrysler and Fiat stand to lose some money and reputation. Jeep owners stand to lose lives and livelihoods.

 

How many more fatal crashes will it take for Chrysler and Fiat to stop their gambling with corporate money (much lent by American taxpayers) and the American people’s lives?

 

Gandhi’s seven deadly sins or blunders include:

Commerce without Morality.

and

Science without Humanity.

 

So how do these businessmen and engineers sleep at night knowing that it is a matter of time before the next Jeep rolling fire bomb explodes? How many more tragedies will it take before Chrysler realizes it will cost more in sales and reputation than the cost of recalling and replacing these vehicles?

 

When will Chrysler and Fiat realize that recall would be the humane, enlightened, and worthwhile investment in their reputation and customer base? Recall would be a wiser, fairer, and morally sound investment than say another billion dollars in advertising (which is close to their annual marketing budget).

 

Or will we soon be asking: What did they know and when did they know it? When Jeep launched the first 1993 Jeep with gas tanks with the dangerously defective design of behind the rear axle it was decades after the Pinto rear gas tank disaster.

 

Who would benefit if NHTSA and Congress held public hearings and summon not just the Chairmen of Chrysler and Fiat, but also their

 

Board Members to testify under oath?

In the contest between morality and mortality let’s save lives now, please.

Back to blog home