Category Archives: Safety Advocacy

“Public Health’s Contribution to Motor Vehicle Injury Prevention”

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

Just read a great article, Public Health’s Contribution to Motor Vehicle Injury Prevention, and sent an email off to the author, Dr. Patricia F. Waller — only to find that she died in 2003. Wish I could have met her and strategized with her.

Some excerpts:

  • The evidence on occupant restraints began accumulating
    almost as soon as safety belts were first available
    in passenger vehicles. As other nations enacted legislation
    and belt usage rose, the data clearly showed the
    life-saving effects. Even so, in this country little was
    done to translate findings into legislation and enforcement.
    Legislators were presented with what we in the
    academic community considered convincing evidence,
    and were told, “Is that all you have? I could never get
    this out of committee!” It was easy to become
    discouraged.
  • It was citizen action groups that provided the impetus
    for major changes in public policy governing drinking
    and driving. Their activities generated public support
    for enforcement of existing laws and enactment of new
    ones. Research findings were translated into laws and
    programs.
  • Data alone were not sufficient to bring about major
    changes in policies affecting individual behavior. Success
    is attributable to a wide range of participants,
    including legislative, enforcement, judicial, public
    health, medical, and public organizations and advocates.
    The individual and community actions that resulted were fostered by education, stimulated by social norms, and encouraged through public policy, and are
    examples of the value of taking a health promotion
    approach to motor vehicle injury prevention.
  • The CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and
    Control is playing the major role in developing and
    sustaining researchers in injury prevention—a role that
    must clearly continue. The benefits to society from
    the public investment in research and training in this
    field are enormous in both human and monetary
    terms. With over 41,000 deaths annually, motor vehicle
    crashes remain a major preventable public health problem.
    Implementation of the recommendations in this
    supplement holds the promise of further reducing what
    remains an unacceptable toll.

Advocating for Transportation Safety: Solving a Major Public Health Problem Is a ‘Winnable Battle’

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , ,

The theme of the 2018 National Public Health Week’s final day was, Advocating for Everyone’s Right to a Healthy Life. The School of Public Health at the University of Michigan chose that day to publish the article,  Advocating for Transportation Safety: Solving a Major Public Health Problem Is a ‘Winnable Battle’.*

Who will protect the public from vulnerability to vehicle violence?

*CDC: Winnable Battle

Want to help stop senseless underride tragedies? Add your voice to the STOP Underrides! Petition.

Safety Advocacy

Sign the STOP Underrides! Petition here:   Congress, Act Now To End Deadly Truck Underride!

Underride Safety Hazard Notice in Accordance With Commonsense Safety Recommendations

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , ,

When I saw a NHTSA Safety Recall Notice, which Lois Durso had received for a car she owns, I immediately thought, “We should make one of those for trucks!” A month or so later, we did.

This is not an official notice. But there are people who need this information.
Because it’s true.

Traffic Deaths STILL Public Health Crisis:”Researcher Says Auto Safety Measures Prevented Millions of Deaths”

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , ,

Traffic safety measures ranging from seat belt and drunk driving enforcement to design standards for cars and trucks “averted a public health disaster” by preventing about 5.8 million deaths in the U.S. from 1968 through 2015, according to a new study.

The analysis found that without federal and state policies, traffic deaths annually would “likely have been in the hundreds of thousands rather than tens of thousands” in recent years. The report, published in the Journal of Public Health Policy, was by Leon Robertson, an injury epidemiology expert who taught at Yale and Harvard and has written more than 150 research papers and books, many on automotive safety. . .

Read more here: Researcher Says Auto Safety Measures Prevented Millions of Deaths, FairWarning, Christopher Jensen, March 12, 2018

I am thankful for every life saved from the fate of a motor vehicle fatality. However, there are still thousands of lives lost every year to preventable traffic deaths. And this most certainly includes the hundreds (and maybe thousands) of lives lost to Death By Truck Underride, which has been woefully neglected for decades by those who could have done something about it and which negates the safety features of modern cars.

In my book, this is still a major public health problem. And we need to start acting like it is!

Last night, Pres. Obama referred in the past tense to crash fatalities as a public health problem.

Podcast of Ask the Trucker BlogTalkRadio: Underride Protection Act of 2017- Truck RearGuards & SideGuards

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , ,

You can listen here to the podcast of the talk show on March 3, 2018, hosted by trucker Allen Smith and his wife Donna — advocates for truckers for over 10 years:

Sat 3-3-18 6 PM ET  

On 12-12-17 U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) & Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced the Stop Underrides Act, S. 2219 legislation. Then U.S. Representatives Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) introduced the companion bill in the House, H.R. 4622

An ‘underride crash’ is when a car slides under the body of a large truck, such as a semi-trailer, during an accident. When these accidents happen, a car’s safety features are not able to protect passengers because most of the car slides under the trailer, and the truck crashes straight through the windows and into the passengers. 

The bill was originally drafted by our guests tonight, Marianne Karth and Lois Durso. Both Marianne and Lois have lost children due to underride crashes. Marianne & husband Jerry lost their 2 daughters, AnnaLeah and Mary in 2013, and Lois lost her daughter Roya in 2004. The bill was originally called the Roya, AnnaLeah and Mary Comprehensive Underride Protection Act of 2017 or the  RAMCUP Act of 2017—now known as STOP Underrides Act.

We’ll discuss solutions which can prevent underride crashes accounting for at least 300+ deaths per year. Show will include discussions regarding rear & sideguards. Few people realize that the 1969 Federal Register recorded that the Department of Transportation intended, after further study, to extend underride protection to the sides of large trucks.

Discussion includes: Costs, added weight, decreased Insurance costs, Loading docks, Axle/Tandems, distracted driving.
For more info stopunderrides@gmail.com  www.StopUnderRides.org

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/truthabouttrucking/2018/03/03/underride-protection-act-of-2017–truck-rearguards-sideguards

“Unknown facts about underride crashes and prevention” featured on Ask The Trucker Radio Talk Show

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety,

March 3, 2018, on BlogTalkRadio, Ask The Trucker Talk Show hosts, Allen & Donna Smith, talk with Lois Durso, Jerry and Marianne Karth about truck underride and the bill: Underride Protection Act of 2017- Truck RearGuards & SideGuards

and write about it in their blog post: Unknown facts about underride crashes and prevention

Harvard Law Record: Preventing Death By Underride

Safety Advocacy,

Harvard Law Record, digital copy posted on November 14, 2017 in “Opinion”
Preventing Death by Underride

I met Ralph Nader in September 2016 at his Breaking Through Power Conference in DC. In June 2017, he asked me to write an Op-Ed on our efforts to bring about improved regulations for underride prevention.

Such exciting news! Wabash Trailers has taken initiative to save lives with prototype side guard!

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety,

I just heard the news tonight: Wabash has taken the initiative to develop a prototype side guard. They revealed it this week at the North American Commercial Vehicle Show.

I sure wish I had gone to that show. Or maybe not. If I had and had come upon that exhibit, they would have heard me all around the trade show hall. I probably would have run around, jumping up and down in excitement!

Developed in-house, the combination side impact guard and skirt prototype passed tests for a 90-degree centerline vehicle impact at 35 miles per hour, according to Mark D. Ehrlich, Wabash National product development manager. The system uses a braided cable and is 40% to 50% lighter than other designs.

Wabash prototype: Side underride guard with aero skirt, Trailer Body Builders, Charles Wilson, September 29, 2017

Thank you, Wabash Trailers, for taking this important step to make trucks safer for all of us to be around.

Lois Durso, Dick Giromini (CEO of Wabash), & Marianne Karth at the ATA TMC Conference in Nashville, February 2017

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory. . . Ephesians 3:20-21

The Naming of an Underride Bill; Out of the Mouths of Babes

AnnaLeah and Mary, Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

Ever since we began sharing about our crash so that we could help to make trucks safer, people have been touched by the story of AnnaLeah and Mary. They tell us how they can’t drive down the highway and see trucks without thinking about them. It clearly touches their heads & hearts. They get what rear underride is.

The same is true when Lois Durso shares the story of her daughter Roya’s crash. People suddenly understand what a side underride crash is and why we are working to prevent these kinds of tragedies. Tears come to their eyes.

So that is why — when we saw that no one was doing anything to mandate side guards, front guards, and stronger rear guards on new trucks, including single unit [box] trucks, as well as retrofit existing trucks with the same life-saving protection and making sure that they were properly maintained — we decided to draft comprehensive underride protection legislation ourselves.

And, when we were figuring out what to call the bill, we naturally named it for what was so very precious to us — our beloved daughters, who were no more. We wrote it in memory of the countless loved ones whose lives had been forever changed — each of whom are very precious to the loved ones they left behind.

It has become our calling card: the Roya, AnnaLeah & Mary Comprehensive Underride Protection Act of 2017 (RAMCUP). And we are concerned that we are being asked to take the girls’ names off of the bill title (so that other underride victims will not feel left out) — not because we think that they are more important than anyone else, but rather because we believe that their stories have been what have helped to bring national attention to this issue and better understanding of the problem, along with a willingness to do whatever it takes to end it. We would like to keep that momentum going until this bill gets passed.

In fact, it would never be possible to include a list of names in a bill which would honor all the victims of underride. There are thousands of them and, furthermore, because it is a hidden problem, many people might not even realize that underride was involved in their loved one’s death.

But it is our hope that we will be able to plan significant ways to honor those who have been injured or lost their lives through an underride crash, such as a Remembrance Ceremony in D.C. or an underride personal crash story interactive map and a webpage on the DOT website — giving family members a positive way to be involved in the effort to get effective underride protection on all trucks and to remember their loved ones in a special way. Hey, they could even get a shirt printed with their loved one’s picture and name on it!

December 13, 2017, UPDATE: We now have an Interactive Underride Crash Story Map. We have only just begun to add links to the countless underride tragedy stories. If you have information on an underride crash, or would like to add more details about the people touched by these tragedies, email us at underridemap@gmail.com. Here is the map.

Just recently, Lois texted me with this encouragement:

The Lord is speaking to my heart — do not worry, all is well. He is my praise, hope, and strength.

Then she shared this story which made my heart hurt:

Today, my daughter-in-law was wearing her RAMCUP shirt. My 20 month-old granddaughter, Miriam Roya, pointed to and said the names of Roya, AnnaLeah and Mary. . . Even a baby can remember our beautiful daughters.

Miriam Roya, who will never know her Aunt Roya

Miriam’s daddy, Cyrus, with his sister Roya

We’re with you, Miriam. . . we will always remember this very important bill as the Roya, AnnaLeah & Mary Comprehensive Underride Protection Act of 2017 — because it is our great love for those three girls, and our sense of urgency that no one else should undergo this kind of preventable loss, which has fueled our efforts to make sure that this major public health problem gets properly taken care of.