AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Department of Transportation.
ACTION: Notice of receipt of petition and decision granting partial relief.
SUMMARY: On May 16, 2016, TK Holdings Inc. (Takata) filed a defect information report (DIR), in which it determined that a defect existed in certain passenger-side air bag inflators that it manufactured, including passenger inflators that it supplied to General Motors, LLC (GM) for use in certain GMT900 vehicles. GM has petitioned the Agency for a decision that, because of differences in inflator design and vehicle integration, the equipment defect determined to exist by Takata is inconsequential as it relates to motor vehicle safety in the GMT900 vehicles, and that GM should therefore be relieved of its notification and remedy obligations.
DATES: The closing date for comments is September 14, 2017.
I just saw the schedule for the 2016 Protection of Children in Cars conference held in Munich every year. It sounds like an important event.
I wonder if they ever talk about the need to protect children from truck underride injuries and deaths. If they did, maybe improving underride prevention strategies would become a higher priority. Maybe it would tip the cost/benefit analysis scale a bit more decisively in favor of saving lives.
I just did my morning reading as I ate my breakfast and ran across the word expropriation. I decided to look it up and found its meaning peculiarly and disturbingly relevant to my passion for traffic safety.
Expropriation: (from Wikipedia) The process of expropriation “occurs when a public agency (for example, the provincial government and its agencies, regional districts, municipalities, school boards, post-secondary institutions and utilities) takes private property for a purpose deemed to be in the public interest“.
Is that what happens when a cost/benefit analysis is interpreted in favor of the economic interest of society/industry over the value of saving human lives: Our government (on behalf of We the People) sacrifices human lives for a purpose deemed to be in the public interest?
Equal Justice For All, Legal Reader, artist Neal Angeles
‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Enough, you princes of Israel; put away violence and destruction, and practice justice and righteousness. Stop your expropriations from My people,” declares the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 45:9
I follow the dad of a distracted driving victim on Twitter. And on December 15, at the Road to Zero Coalition meeting in Arlington, VA, I met someone from North Carolina who has been working with Vijay Dixit to reach some of his goals — like making distracted driving taboo. Over and over, he shared with me how he has been inspired by Vijay.
After losing his daughter, Shreya, due to distracted driving, Vijay has been actively working toward that goal and now has a book in print to make that point: One Split Second.
“Building Distraction-free Driving Communities, One Driver at a Time”
I would echo that mission statement and add the other traffic safety issues as well –including driver behaviors, vehicle safety, crash avoidance technologies, and safer infrastructure — which could all contribute to preventing tragic loss of life.
“‘He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy;
Then it was well.
Is not that what it means to know Me?’ declares the LORD.
“For he will deliver the needy when he cries for help,
The afflicted also, & him who has no helper.
He will have compassion on the poor & needy,
And the lives of the needy he will save.
He will rescue their life from oppression & violence;
And their blood will be precious in his sight.”
Jeremiah 22:16 and Psalm 72:12-14
Lou Lombardo relates the story of his important work on airbags which showed that “tragic political deregulatory decisions – sometimes – can be overturned to restore life saving regulations.”
Lombardo begins by talking about how,
The safety and happiness of the people is now suffering violence on many fronts: inequality, injustice, medical and social insecurity, failing schools, terrorism, war, homelessness, hunger, unemployment, vehicle violence, unsafe products and services, unsafe air, unsafe water, unsafe working conditions, failing infrastructure, corporatized media, policy makers and scientists for sale, insecure elections etc. Our planet is in human existential danger. . .
The American people remember President Reagan for saying in Berlin: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” I remember President Reagan’s policy to tear up the airbag regulations in Washington, DC thereby condemning many thousands of Americans to suffer preventable tragic deaths and injuries – and their terrible consequences – that will haunt us forevermore right here in the U.S.A.
In Lombardo’s recent email to the Care for Crash Victims Community Members, he makes these observations:
Presidential Power Failure
The record of Presidential failures to protect people dictates that we the people have to step up and use our power.
The Power of People was written as Americans approach the end of 8 years of one Administration with a tragically disappointing auto safety record with a NHTSA estimated 251,647 deaths due to vehicle violence under President Obama from 2009 through the first six months of 2016.
NHTSA data shows that the number of motor vehicle related deaths is accelerating and estimated to increase an additional 10% approaching an Obama legacy of 270,000 vehicle deaths. See https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.g ov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/ 812332 Nader and Ditlow told us so. See https://www.nytimes.com/2014/ 10/29/opinion/weak-oversight- deadly-cars.html
President Obama failed year after year to adopt a Vision Zero Goal despite petitions of the American people. The Swedish Parliament adopted Vision Zero in 1997. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero
Powers of People – Needed Now More Than Ever
Daily losses due to vehicle violence in the U.S.A. today:
* 100 deaths
* 400 serious injuries
* $2 Billion
This is at a time when we have more technologies available to achieve an end to vehicle violence in or by new vehicles in a decade than ever before in human history.
Now as we face an incoming Administration that is talking more about the problems of regulations on business than about the problems of deaths and injuries to people, we need to begin anew conversations about what people can do to protect people.
People like Lou Lombardo have been able to make a difference and save untold lives in years past. Will the Power of People to Protect People prevail in the coming months and years? That is what I would like to know.
Equal Justice For All, Legal Reader, artist Neal Angeles
Note: Lou Lombardo says of the Lady Justice Graphic – “Lady Justice, while blind folded for fairness, can still smell the stench of money and hear the pleas of millions of injured people – past, present, and future.”
Let’s face it: despite numerous laws and regulations designed to protect our safety on the road, many of them too often are not enforced. How often is a lack of priority to address the safety issues and/or inadequate resources to enforce the rules the problem? Or maybe there are simply more of us non-law enforcement drivers who are able to observe those who defy the laws.
How about if we, as citizens, identify, acknowledge, and address deadly traffic safety problems by taking matters into our own hands when possible? For example, we could deputize citizens to issue citations for texting while driving or for large trucks with underride guards which are in need of maintenance (it’s the law!).
. . . like pretty much everyone, Hillesland is fed up with the rampant texting and driving out there. A few weeks ago, as he entered a tricky Y-intersection near Southeast Portland’s Mount Tabor, a pickup blew through its red light. The woman behind the wheel was thumbing away on her cellphone, obviously lost in Xanadu.
After noting all of the information required by ORS 153.058 – driver and vehicle details, plate number, location – Hillesland went home and called the city’s non-emergency number to say he wanted to file a citizen citation.
The NYC’s Taxi & Limousine Commission proposed rules regarding taxi driver fatigue focus primarily on controlling the hours of service for taxi drivers — much like the trucking HOS. That is all well and good, but I hope to organize a Tired Trucker Roundtable which will take a more comprehensive look at solving the widespread and deadly problem of driver fatigue.
Now this is an innovative way to protect cyclists. . .
Volvo Cars presents LifePaint. Road safety shouldn’t be for the few. It should be for everyone. The ones not driving our cars, and the ones who prefer two wheels to four.
LifePaint is a unique water based reflective safety spray. Invisible by daylight, it glows brightly in direct glare of car headlights. Making the invisible, visible. LifePaint washes off, and will not damage the colour or the surface of your chosen material, lasting more than a week of normal usage. Volvo Life Paint
Crash reconstructionist/forensic engineer Aaron Kiefer continues to develop his ideas for an innovative side/rear underride guard to protect all vulnerable victims from deadly truck underride.
Aaron has identified new materials to make his design stronger, more effective at preventing underride, and user-friendly for the truck drivers. The only thing is that he is doing this work on his own time aside from his regular job of reconstructing crash scenes. He turned to us to ask if we could help him raise some money for his upcoming side guard crash test so that he can prove that his invention will save lives.
You can help Aaron purchase the necessary materials for his next crash test. Our current goal is to raise$3,000* by early next year.
Donate at the ALMFTS website here which our family set up for traffic safety research through our 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety.
$500 would buy the necessary polyester webbing (12,000 lb/in), which gives Aaron’s invention unusual strength.
$500 more would buy the car to crash — a Malibu
$500 more would buy the rear reinforcement aluminum plate and water jet cutting
$500 more would allow Aaron to purchase the aluminum extrusion for reinforcement/rear guard connector
$500 additional would pay for the FRP panel (2 x 190 ft rolls). Just today, Aaron had a sample of this plastic panel successfully sewn together with the polyester webbing — a good sign that this design, with these materials, could provide a strong innovative option for side underride protection on large trucks for pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and passenger vehicles.
$3,000TOTALwould allow Aaron to purchase the entire CRASH TEST SET: Panel/webbing/aluminum/assembly/labor (industrial sewing)
Please share this post so others can join in this vital effort to make affordable and effective side guards available to the trucking industry. Thank you!
