Category Archives: AnnaLeah and Mary

Numbers are funny: 1 (crash story) is a tragedy; 1 million (crash stories) is a statistic

October 21, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck SafetyDOT, FMCSA, NHTSA, Vision Zero, Vision Zero PetitionMarianne

What a Vision Zero policy means to me: Towards Zero. While at a Sorrow to Strength Conference sponsored by the Truck Safety Coalition this weekend in Washington, DC, I experienced support and understanding by being with other truck crash victim families. But at the same time, I felt the frustration of the same scenario playing out year after year on the roads of our nation while there continues to be a tug of war over truck safety measures.

Even though many have shared their tragic stories on The Hill and at DOT countless times over the years, still the battle continues unabated. One participant quoted Joseph Stalin in order to describe the attitude that seems to prevail, “A Single Death is a Tragedy; a Million Deaths is a Statistic.”

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t naively believe that something could be done to result in never ever any crash deaths. What I believe is that a Vision Zero policy–with a vision statement of Zero Crash Deaths & Zero Serious Crash Injuries–would impact decision-making to the extent that, when options were identified, choices would be made and strategies would be followed which would lead ever closer to that vision of zero.

The opposite attitude always ends up compromising human life and health. It gives power to the lure of the almighty dollar and the promise of efficiency and an improved economy. It means that too many people like my daughters, AnnaLeah (17) and Mary (13), are unnecessarily cheated of the opportunity to naturally live out their lives because their lives were deemed too costly to spare.

Yesterday, I was at Panera Bread in Arlington, Virginia, having some breakfast before going to The Hill with other Truck Safety Coalition volunteers to talk with my U.S. Representative and Senator about safety concerns. I saw a poster about Panera’s clean food vision statement/strategy and quickly memorized it:

“No Compromises.

“By the end of 2016, we ‘re removing all artificial preservatives, colors, sweeteners, and flavors from our food. Learn about our clean food journey and our No No List.” https://www.panerabread.com/en-us/company/food-policy-no-no-list.html

Are we, as a nation, really more concerned about healthy foods than about the safety of our roads? What will happen with our Truck Safety Legislative No No List?

I shared those thoughts with my Democrat congressman’s office staff and it was well-received along with this video:

There was not quite as much openness to the Vision Zero idea from my Republican senator’s staff. Hmmm . . . wonder what’s up with that?

I thought that we generally had a productive visit to my nation’s capital but came home yesterday with too many frustrations. And after going out for breakfast with my husband this morning to update him on what he had missed (because he had left DC before I did), I drove home and wept and yelled as I passed by the entrance to I-95 where we had started our fateful journey on the morning of May 4, 2013–wishing desperately that that day had never unfolded and taken my girls from me.

I also wished that somebody had let me cast a vote for Vision Zero when it might have meant the difference between life and death for Mary and AnnaLeah.

Please sign & share our Vision Zero Petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/

Rear-ending a truck should be a survivable crash. Why isn’t it?

October 19, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetyunderride crash, underride guards, underride research, Vision Zero, Vision Zero PetitionMarianne

I survived a truck underride crash. My daughters did not. Why not? Because we were sent backward into the back of the truck and AnnaLeah and Mary were in the backseat. The weak and ineffective underride guard gave way and the back of the truck broke their bodies.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has shown through crash testing that the current federal standards for underride guards are not strong enough to withstand most crashes but that it is possible to make stronger ones. http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr4907.pdf

We are promoting underride research https://www.fortrucksafety.com/ and organizing a national Underride Roundtable ALMFTS Underride Guard Research Brochure.

We have also launched a Vision Zero Petition online because we believe that, unless rulemaking policy changes, when the rubber meets the road Saving Lives will not be the criteria used for making highway safety regulations as effective as humanly possible.Unnecessary compromise will occur and preventable deaths will be the result. Profit will win out over the best possible protection.

We know that rear-ending a truck should be a survivable crash and we are devoting our lives to making it a reality.

Sign & share our Vision Zero Petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/

Why are we devoting our lives to pushing for a DOT Vision Zero policy?

October 12, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetyunderride guards, Vision Zero, Vision Zero PetitionMarianne

Why are we pushing so hard to get people to sign a Vision Zero petition? What difference would it make anyway? The reason we are devoting our lives to pounding on this door and asking for change is that our daughters may have lost their lives due to the lack of a Vision Zero policy.

A decision which concluded that recommended changes would not be cost effective — in other words, that it would supposedly cost more to implement safety measures than the lives saved would be worth — may have led to lax* underride guard standards. If the best possible protection had been pursued when the regulations were last updated (1996), the trucks on the road today (including the one on the road May 4, 2013) might be much safer to be driving around.

Mary and AnnaLeah might even still be around.

Now what would you want for you and your family and your friends? That’s what I would like to know.

*lax = not sufficiently strict, severe, or careful. synonyms: slack, slipshod, negligent, remiss, careless, heedless, unmindul, slapdash, offhand, casual http://tinyurl.com/qbodwjc

Sign & Share our Vision Zero Petitions:

About This Petition

Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death—about 40,000 people die in crashes each year. The Department of Transportation makes highway safety rules based upon how much safety measures will cost. We are hoping to change that and move toward a Vision Zero safety strategy model with goals of: Zero Deaths, Zero Serious Injuries, Zero Fear of Traffic.

“Towards Zero – There’s no one someone won’t miss.” https://youtu.be/bsyvrkEjoXI

Read more about Vision Zero: https://annaleahmary.com/tag/vision-zero/

Learn more about Underride Research: https://www.fortrucksafety.com/

Establishing a White House Task Force to Achieve a Vision Zero Goal of Crash Death Reduction

“Advocates Garnering Signatures” . . . almost 11,000 in 11 days!

October 11, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetycrash avoidance, underride guards, underride research, Vision Zero, Vision Zero PetitionMarianne

“The latest efforts by a Rocky Mount family to improve trucking safety have garnered more than 9,000 signatures from around the world in just 10 days.

“’We want to get as many signatures as we can,’ said Marianne Karth, whose daughters AnnaLeah and Mary were killed in 2013 when the car Marianne Karth was driving was pushed underneath a tractor trailer. ‘We’d like to see it surpass the 11,000 signatures we got on our first petition and I think that is possible because this has a broader focus than just truck safety. It can positively impact all motor vehicle regulations.’”

Read about it here: https://www.rockymounttelegram.com/news/advocates-garnering-signatures-3009111

“Advocates Garnering Signatures” front page story in Rocky Mount Telegram. Almost 11,000 signatures!

October 11, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetycrash avoidance, underride guards, Vision ZeroMarianne

The Rocky Mount Telegram published an article on our Vision Zero Petition & Underride Research efforts. We are just short of 11,000 signatures (we got 11,545 on our first petition)! https://www.rockymounttelegram.com/news/advocates-garnering-signatures-3009111

Please share this story with your local media. I have given you everything you need here to do so. https://annaleahmary.com/2015/10/tools-for-getting-your-local-media-on-board-with-vision-zero-underride-research/

Please note: The article is on today’s front page. However, there was difficulty with non-subscriber access to the online article, so I am printing it here as well:

Advocates garnering signatures

By Brie Handgraaf

Staff Writer

Saturday, October 10, 2015

The latest efforts by a Rocky Mount family to improve trucking safety has garnered more than 9,000 signatures from around the world in just 10 days.

“We want to get as many signatures as we can,” said Marianne Karth, whose daughters AnnaLeah and Mary were killed in 2013 when the car she was driving was pushed underneath a tractor trailer. “We’d like to see it surpass the 11,000 signatures we got on our first petition and I think that is possible because this has a broader focus than just truck safety. It can positively impact all motor vehicle regulations.”

The online petition through The Petition Site has three points: to change U.S. Department of Transportation regulations from being decided by cost-based analysis and factor in the cost of human lives as well as apply that Vision Zero safety strategy model by requiring underride guards based on crash test performance rather than force-based designs and initiate rulemaking to require collision avoidance and mitigation braking systems on all new large trucks and buses.

“We’re advocating for a paradigm shift,” said Jerry Karth, the father of AnnaLeah and Mary. “When Kennedy gave us the vision of going to the moon, he challenged a change as a nation and we met that challenge. This is the same in that it is challenging the status quo because we never want anyone to become a statistic yet that is what our present system does.”

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the U.S. secretary of transportation said in 1974 that deaths in cars that underride trucks would have to quadruple before underride protection would be considered cost beneficial. The Karths said that is unacceptable and in addition to gathering petition signatures to submit to the U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, they also have launched a new Website at https://www.fortrucksafety.com/ that is full of information about trucking safety and enables people to donate to the nonprofit organization, AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety, they started to help fund underride research.

“If everyone would just give $1 or $5 and shared it with others, we could support research into underride prevention systems and improved underride guards,” Marianne Karth said.

In addition to a group of engineering students at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, they are working with University of Alabama-Birmingham Engineer Dean Sicking, who created a system that helps save lives in Nascar and is developing similar barriers to prevent underride collisions. The funds raised also will help crash test the improved underride guards and submit those results to regulators and trucking companies for implementation.

“The problem is these accidents are costing lives and they are preventable,” Jerry Karth said. “This is a solvable problem and it will cost money, but the loss of human lives also has a cost.”

The Karths also are in contact with the Transport Accident Commission in Australia and their campaign, Towards Zero. In a one-minute video posted on YouTube, the TAC eloquently shows that no traffic deaths are acceptable and every effort should be made toward preventing all traffic fatalities.

“On average, 40,000 people die each year in crashes on our roads,” according to the petition to Foxx. “Our families cannot continue to sustain this unacceptably high number of losses and injuries. We urge you to take immediate action so that more lives will not be lost and to assure us that safety is your number one priority.”

Since the tragic deaths of the Karth sisters, the family has joined with other truck safety advocates to push through improved regulations. The Karths also are organizing an Underride Roundtable in the spring with engineers, government officials and other safety advocates to discuss ways to further truck safety.

“We knew this was going to be a long journey and each effort we pursue is one step in a long process,” Jerry Karth said. “We know what our goals are that we want to achieve, though, and until we get there, we’ll continue fighting for change.”

Marianne Karth said she balances her advocacy efforts with bittersweet memories of her beloved daughters through the Website: https://annaleahmary.com/. The couple’s other children also share in the fight for change, never forgetting the quiet and creative girls full of potential.

“It always gets back to those girls we lost that’ll never come back to us,” she said. “That loss is why we can pour ourselves into it and keep fighting for change, even when the going gets rough.

“With the petition, we can get others to be a part of making changes that will ultimately save people’s lives.”

Sign & Share our Vision Zero Petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/

Support Underride Research: https://www.fortrucksafety.com/

“Towards Zero – There’s no one someone won’t miss.” https://youtu.be/bsyvrkEjoXI

“Advocates garnering signatures” Rocky Mount Reporter Tells Our Story

October 11, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetyunderride guards, Vision ZeroMarianne

A local reporter from the Rocky Mount Telegram, Brie Handgraaf, has followed our story ever since shortly after our truck crash in May 2013. We had been living in Rocky Mount for less than a year after moving here from West Texas. She has skillfully told the story of our girls, our crash, and our efforts to bring about change in highway safety.

Shortly after we launched our Vision Zero Petition, she interviewed Jerry and I again to find out the details of our second online petition–after having closely followed our first petition in 2014–as well as our efforts to promote improved underride guards through underride research.

Her article was just published online and, as usual, she did an excellent job of telling our story in a way that enlightens the reader: https://www.rockymounttelegram.com/news/advocates-garnering-signatures-3009111

The newspaper is still working to make the article accessible online. Until then, you can read the article here: https://annaleahmary.com/2015/10/advocates-garnering-signatures-front-page-story-in-rocky-mount-telegram-almost-11000-signatures/

I want to clarify a few points so that there is no misunderstanding.

First of all, while the Secretary of Transportation in 1974 indicated that underride deaths would have to quadruple before underride protection would be considered cost-beneficial, the federal standards have been improved since that time. However, the problem is that it has been shown that the current standards, required as of 1998, are known to be weak and ineffective–resulting in many preventable underride deaths each year. Our concern is that the new rulemaking being considered now for the purpose of improving underride guards might likewise be judged to not be cost effective–as is hinted at in NHTSA’s preliminary Cost-Benefit Analysis in this document on Single Unit Trucks: “While not directly comparable, the preliminary estimates for rear impact guards on SUTs (minimum of $106.7 million per equivalent lives saved) is a strong indicator that these systems will not be cost effective (current VSL $9.2 million).” https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/07/23/2015-17973/rear-impact-protection-lamps-reflective-devices-and-associated-equipment-single-unit-trucks

Secondly, although we have received a research proposal from Dean Sicking for the design and testing of an underride protection system, at this time he does not have the funding to do the research. So, unless we are able to raise the money for his underride research project, it will not be carried out and we will not be able to find out if his ideas could be more effective than the current underride guard standards and save lives.
Finally, we have been in contact with some people from Australia–although not specifically from the Transport Accident Commission which produced the “Toward Zero” Youtube video: https://youtu.be/bsyvrkEjoXI The people we have talked with are two research engineers from Australia, George Rechnitzer and Raphael Grzebieta, of the Transport and Road Safety (TARS) Research unit at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). They have researched and tested designs for improved underride guards and we are hopeful that they will be able to share their findings in the U.S. at our Underride Roundtable.

It is our hope that the research and commitment of many individuals and organizations around the globe, together with a call for a more compassionate Vision Zero approach to regulating highway safety will make an impact. We hope that many will come to understand these issues and join us in calling for change.

AnnaLeah & Mary on a walk in Battle Park in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where they lived for less than a year before the crash on May 4, 2013 ended their lives.

Sign & Share our Vision Zero Petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/

Support Underride Research: https://www.fortrucksafety.com/

Act now to save someone’s life in the future.

October 8, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetyunderride guards, underride research, Vision ZeroMarianne

I look forward to my peaceful, healing walks through the wood on the Rocky Mount Disc Golf Course (https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=11&v=ErAOZ31KpNg ).

Just one thing wrong with them though–I long for Mary and AnnaLeah to be able to enjoy them as well.

https://annaleahmary.com/2015/09/i-discovered-a-new-pastime-frisbeedisc-golf-course/

If I could be a Time Traveler, could I go back — say ten years or so — and push for Vision Zero policies, principles, and projects, and then maybe AnnaLeah and Mary would still be with us today?

Sign & Share the Vision Zero Petition to make a difference. Who knows, you could be saving someone’s life ten years from now: http://tinyurl.com/nhb88cq .

Also, see how we are applying Vision Zero principles to stop unnecessary truck underride deaths: http://tinyurl.com/ofbe5kg .

Automated vehicles: A Vision Zero Policy would make sure that SAFETY is the priority in new technology

October 6, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetyautomated vehicles, collision avoidance, collision avoidance technology, crash avoidance, safer roads, Vision ZeroMarianne

We need to make sure that all new technologies in the motor vehicle arena are carefully researched. Note the concerns raised here:

“While automated vehicles can reduce traditional road crashes, we need to be prepared for new categories of collision that they will also bring, particularly in the early stages of adoption. One example is incidents caused by drivers’ confusion when changing between different modes of automated operation. This type of error has led to aircraft crashes such as Air France Flight 447 and Eastern Air Lines Flight 401. In each case, pilots misunderstood the status of operation of the autopilot systems and failed to correct the aircraft trajectory before it was too late. Vehicle manufacturers will need to design the control interface carefully to ensure the driver has a clear understanding of the status of the vehicle automation systems and the extent to which they have control over vehicle behaviour.

“There will also be situations where an unavoidable collision occurs, such as a pedestrian running into the road at the last minute. Of course this could also happen with a fully alert and experienced driver at the controls, but the fact that automated systems were in charge of the vehicle will make the issue highly contentious. The advantage will be that determining liability should be easier as data collected by vehicle sensors will provide an accurate, comprehensive audit trail of the scenario.”

http://www.brake.org.uk/blog/entry/automatedvehicles

Many factors can lead to and affect the outcome of crashes. For example, see this post on our crash: https://annaleahmary.com/2014/07/our-crash-was-not-an-accident/

Let’s get a Vision Zero Policy in place at DOT to ensure that protection of human life & health is always the priority plumbline in new technology decisions.

Sign & Share our Vision Zero Petition now: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/

Time devours all things.

October 4, 2015AnnaLeah and Maryfamily history, memoriesMarianne

Earlier today, I was looking at a family history book my uncle wrote about my family and noticed a chapter about my grandpa and grandma’s 50th Anniversary Celebration on the Fourth of July in 1968. It just so happened that we were also celebrating my mom and dad’s 25th Anniversary on the same day. My uncle was recalling that day and how the younger generation frolicked about “unaware of the historic nature of the occasion.” How true.

The celebration was at my aunt and uncle’s farm which used to be the farm where my grandma had grown up. “Countless family gatherings had taken place [there for] over nearly 70 years”: marriages; births; deaths; and funerals. And when the expressway came through not too many years later, it would all disappear.

And yet, my uncle reflected, “when you look back on the long history of our forebears you see that it was just such thrusts of events that moved us to where we are today. . . There is only one certainty: Tempus edax rerum. ‘Time devours all things.'”

And that reminded me of the poem which AnnaLeah wrote when she was 12. I wondered whether she had read her Great Uncle Dan Waldron’s book and been inspired by it to write her poem, Time.

Tools For Getting Your Local Media On Board With Vision Zero & Underride Research

October 3, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetyhow you can help, underride crash, underride guards, underride research, Vision Zero, Vision Zero PetitionMarianne

In the aftermath of our crash, we have found ourselves walking a path we had not anticipated–safety advocacy. We have discovered the importance of raising awareness and gaining support in order to bring about life-saving changes.

After all, we had no idea about what truck underride guards were before May 4, 2013. How could we expect anyone else to know about them and understand what we were talking about unless we found every way imaginable to inform and motivate them to care about this issue–thankfully, never as much as we do.

So what I would like to talk about here is what you can do about it once you (the reader) better understand the ideas and importance behind our quest for Vision Zero, underride guards, and crash avoidance technology.

Specifically, what you can do is:

Become informed about what we are talking about so incessantly.
Read our Vision Zero Petition. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/
Read even more about Vision Zero:
For more information on Vision Zero: https://annaleahmary.com/tag/vision-zero//

“Towards Zero – There’s no one someone won’t miss.” https://youtu.be/bsyvrkEjoXI
Sign our Vision Zero Petition. (Never doubt the power of 1.)
Share our Vision Zero Petition through talking to people about it, emailing, using whatever social media with which you are comfortable. (There are Sharing icons on The Petition Site.)
Read our new website, AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety, which is dedicated to informing about underride guards and raising money for underride research and an Underride Roundtable to bring about the best underride protection by bringing together engineers, industry representatives, government officials, safety advocates, insurance companies, victims & their families, and the media. https://www.fortrucksafety.com/ and https://annaleahmary.com/underride-guards/
Donate to the research. (Every $1 counts.)
Share the website with others.
Share both of these projects with your local media.

When possible, look up your local media and make direct contact with them through a phone call, email, or through an online Contact Form.
This site has a lot of tools for reaching local media, including a map of the U.S. which allows you to click on your state and then your city and find local media. http://sparkaction.org/act/media
Click on COMPOSE MESSAGE on that site.
Once you locate who you can contact in your community, I have written a couple of press releases for you to share with them: Press Release from ALMFTS Vision Zero and Underride Research and Press Release for the Underride Research Fundraising Campaign . These can be copied and pasted into the form provided online on that site.
Be sure to let them know how important this is to you and your community as well.
Consider making a follow-up phone call.
For whatever you are able to do, thank you! And I’d love to hear about it.

We have made numerous contacts with the media as our story has been shared. But we cannot be in your community. Next week there will be an article in our local Rocky Mount newspaper. I will share the link for that with you and you can pass that along to your local media as well. We are asking you to be an extension of our national plea for the best possible protection.

Note–The news story has now been published online: https://www.rockymounttelegram.com/news/advocates-garnering-signatures-3009111

This is not just some freak problem that will never affect you or someone you love. In fact, a Vision Zero policy in DOT rulemaking could make a big impact in not just truck safety but auto safety as well. Decisions about safety should not be led by profit. Cost/benefit analysis can never adequately measure the value of human life and health.

And, once we establish that our Vision is to reduce crash deaths one life at a time, then we can better hold corporate and government officials accountable. No longer will they be able to sweep unpleasant information about the results of defects and flaws under the rug. No longer can they justify decisions and actions which lead to unnecessary tragedy and/or deny that human life was the cost that was paid.

“No Compromises.

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