SAE just posted our request for engineering students and professionals to take on the pursuit of solving the deadly underride problem. Last year at this time, similar efforts led to connecting with Aaron Kiefer, crash reconstructionist/inventor, and Jared Bryson with his Virginia Tech Senior Underride Design Dream Team.
I have been reading and sending emails this week to the group which met at IIHS on June 24 to discuss recommendations to NHTSA on the underride rulemaking. It has been encouraging to see that the process is proving more helpful than anything that has been accomplished in the past to gain cooperation through collaborative communication. But it has also been discouraging to see evidence that compromise is being considered.
Then, I opened my email and saw that I had received a letter from NHTSA today — letting me know that they regretted not being able to accept our invitation to attend our Underride Roundtable follow-up meeting at IIHS on June 24, 2016.
They also said that they look forward to our recommendations and encourage our continued submissions to the public dockets for NHTSA’s rulemakings on truck underride safety.
They thanked us for our leadership and for partnering with them to improve roadway safety.
Letter from NHTSA July 6, 2016
Keep truckin’ — one step at a time.
SIGN & SHARE the TRAFFIC SAFETY OMBUDSMAN Petition: https://wh.gov/i6kUj
PLEASE NOTE: If you sign the petition, be sure to go to your email. We the People will send you an email which you have to reply to in order to confirm your signature is valid.
I was struggling yesterday with the sense that I am not adequately getting across the need for a Traffic Safety Ombudsman to facilitate a strategy to move our country more quickly toward zero crash deaths and serious injuries. And unless we embrace such a vision, too many lives will be lost when their deaths might have been prevented.
Why am I so convinced that we need a Traffic Safety Ombudsman? Because of the lives which I see shattered every day by preventable crash fatalities. And the 3.5 million traffic fatalities since the first one in 1898.
People like Mary and AnnaLeah. People like two of my facebook friends who lost loved ones (or have family members with life-altering injuries) due to truck crashes and were struggling yesterday with their frustration and anger and ongoing grief.
See the posts by these two families who shared their heartbreak, frustration, & anger about the devastation caused in their lives by preventable crashes:
https://www.facebook.com/vickie.w.johnson/posts/10204978833429271
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=639363682880602&id=100004209287945
How many broken hearts does that represent? How many more are yet to come?
And what do we get from those who could do something to stem the tide of Death by Motor Vehicle? Resistance. Opposition. And too often it leads to Compromise–settling for solutions that are ineffective and too often delayed. Basically, saving people from preventable crash deaths is not a national priority. And someday, it might impact you.
Take for example truck underride protection/prevention. The trucking industry has long resisted doing anything voluntarily above and beyond any shabby, inadequate regulations which might be imposed upon them. In fact, their opposition is quite probably the reason those regulations are so weak.
And they continue to resist an all-out, comprehensive technologically-possible solution to prevent DEATH BY UNDERRIDE. What is their biggest reason? Cost, of course. When the importance of crash testing a manufacturer’s underride guard with an actual crash test to prove its effectiveness is brought up, a concern is raised about whether small manufacturing companies can afford to do that kind of testing.
Well, I certainly know that crash testing is expensive and we have not been able to raise enough money through our non-profit, AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety, to support underride research crash testing. And in our efforts to find money for such an endeavor, I don’t see it as being made much of a priority. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate how we have seen some of the trailer manufacturers step up to the plate after receiving our letters asking for voluntary improvement. But is it really enough?
As far as I am concerned, if crash testing is what it takes to ensure that their product is safe enough to protect my family and they can’t afford it, well then, I’m sorry, but I would prefer that they shut down than endanger the people whom I love (and countless others as well)!
Now, I am not convinced that a solution couldn’t be worked out to help those smaller companies get their crash testing done. In fact, it was mentioned at our follow-up underride meeting on June 24 that larger companies could perhaps do some testing for smaller companies. Well, will they? Is there enough of a cooperative spirit to prove to me that Safety is not just a buzz word–that there is some actual concern about saving lives whatever it takes?
I’d like to put a challenge to the trucking industry which Senator Bobby Kennedy put to the automotive industry back in July 1965 — 50 years ago. I read about it in Michael Lemov’s informative book, Car Safety Wars. [By the way, I just have to say how cool it is to be able to Google the quote which I am looking for and be able to include it as a link to take you right to that quote in that very book. So, go look at it! And here is a link to a report on the hearing itself!]
Kennedy: What was the profit of General Motors last year?
Roche [President of GM]: I don’t think that has anything to do. . .
Kennedy: I would like to have that answer if I may.
Donner [Chairman of GM]: The one aspect we are talking about is safety.
Kennedy: What was the profit of General Motors last year?
Donner: I’ll have to ask one of my associates.
Kennedy: Could you please?
Roche: (Pause)–$1,700,000,000 ($1.7 billion).
Kennedy: What. . .?
Donner: About a billion and a half.
Kennedy: About a billion and a half?
Donner: Yes.
Kennedy: And you spent about one million dollars on this [safety research]?
Donner: In this particular facet we are talking about. . .
Kennedy: If you gave just one percent of your profits [to safety research] that is $170 million.
This rare challenge to the car manufacturers was reported by the press. General Motors promptly released a “corrected” statement saying that it had actually spent $193 million on “safety programs.” The figure was immediately challenged, since it appeared to include many activities that were unrelated to automobile safety. But, even if true, the figure was a small percentage of GM’s $1.7 billion annual net profit. Car Safety Wars, Michael Lemov, Google Books
So my question is to the trailer manufacturing industry specifically (and the trucking industry in general): What was your profit last year?
Second question: How much did you spend on safety research? And, more specifically, how much did you spend on underride research?
I’d really like to know the answers — not just for 2015 but for many years before as well. Because I’m not willing to compromise. There are too many shattered families, broken hearts, and lives ended far too soon.
SIGN & SHARE the TRAFFIC SAFETY OMBUDSMAN Petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/384/321/600/end-preventable-crash-fatalities-appoint-a-national-traffic-safety-ombudsman/
From the Care for Crash Victims email notification files:
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
Let’s help the Karth family. Only when enough of us do our part will we be able to end vehicle violence.
Where are the reporters, editors, producers that will help spread her story – one that will help us all?
Write about her story of struggle. See and encourage others to sign her petition to do simple doable actions by the President at:
Let us emulate her citizenship and support her efforts.
Lou
August 3 UPDATE: The petition on the White House site is expired. Please sign our new Traffic Safety Ombudsman Petition at Care2; http://www.thepetitionsite.com/384/321/600/end-preventable-crash-fatalities-appoint-a-national-traffic-safety-ombudsman/
Too many shattered worlds. Too many broken hearts.
Why on earth am I asking for another government-funded worker — a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman? And whatever would that person do anyway?
It would be a lot easier for you to understand if you were in my shoes. But I don’t want you to be in my shoes — continuing to grapple with the grief of losing a loved one in a preventable traffic crash. So I will try to describe, as briefly and clearly as I can, what I have in mind with this Traffic Safety Ombudsman Petition.
Basically, in the aftermath of losing two daughters, AnnaLeah (17) and Mary (13), due to a truck underride crash on May 4, 2013, we have discovered that millions have died in traffic crashes since the first one in 1898, that there are many reasons for that, and that trying to do something about those reasons is very difficult, time-consuming, and resisted. Meanwhile, while solutions are being delayed, people continue to die — often needlessly, because something could have been done to prevent their death, but was not.
There is often a political tug-of-war over these issues. An Office of National Traffic Safety Ombudsman (TSO) would be established to function outside of the political realm — untainted by the pressures of powerful lobbyists. Instead, the TSO would work with the existing government agencies, industry representatives, researchers, and safety advocates — listening to traffic safety concerns and speaking forth on behalf of matters of importance to traffic safety.
Currently, Traffic Safety is not even listed on whitehouse.gov as an Issue. This has got to change. It needs to become a national priority and we need an Advocate to listen to traffic safety concerns which are raised (in fact, actively seeking to make sure that they come to the surface) and then identify solutions and inform those who can do something about them.
Now I can do many things as an individual to raise national awareness about traffic safety issues. But my ability to motivate and facilitate change is way too limited. I don’t truly have the ear of leaders essential to the process. In fact, although my family and I have taken two petitions to Washington — with the agreement of thousands of people, they can too easily brush me away like a pesky fly. We need someone with the authority to demand an audience with the powers that be.
I have not heard one word from Washington, D.C., about our 20,000 Vision Zero Petition signatures. That’s a problem. Either they think they are already doing what that Petition requests (with which I would disagree) OR they don’t think that it is important enough to do anything about. That is something which we should all rise up about.
In fact, how I envision it is that the Traffic Safety Ombudsman would be the person to implement the requests of the Vision Zero Petition. Small businesses have a National Ombudsman. Why not do the same for the victims of tragic, preventable traffic crashes?
What are we waiting for?! This would be the perfect complement to our Vision Zero Petition requests for a National Vision Zero Goal, a White House Vision Zero Task Force, and a Vision Zero Executive Order. In fact, the Traffic Safety Ombuds(man) (Advocate) would fit in extremely well with this plan and, now that I think about it, is actually probably the missing piece of the puzzle for making Vision Zero a viable goal:
Makes sense to me. Because, really, who would be given the responsibility and authority to oversee these things otherwise?!
When I was reading my Bible this morning, I read a verse about Jesus ascending to sit at the right hand of the Father. What is He doing there? Advocating on our behalf, interceding for us, speaking to His Father and ours about our needs. Hmmmm, kind of like I would expect a Traffic Safety Ombudsman would do — only not in heavenly places (or not only) but getting the ear of those who can move heaven & earth to make our roads safer!
I don’t think that you need to worry about this costing the taxpayers a lot of money or creating an enormous new agency. Look at what our family has already done voluntarily and with the help of other concerned parties with our petitions and the Underride Roundtable, which we helped to organize, and the Tired Trucker Roundtable, which I have proposed. We have pulled together in communication and actual sit-down-together meetings diverse groups, such as government regulators, law enforcement, trucking industry, safety advocates, researchers, media, and victims. Organizations like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Truck Safety Coalition (with their non-governmental funds), along with citizen contributions, have helped to finance such events — without emptying the pockets of taxpayers.
The Traffic Safety Ombudsman would not be replacing the safety functions of the government or watchdog efforts of safety advocacy organizations. Rather, the TSO would be working with them and getting them to work together — with the goal of SAVING LIVES as their primary and, in fact, sole responsibility. And there would still be the need to raise national awareness and involve citizens in advocacy efforts through social media and my recommended national network of Vision Zero/Traffic Safety Community Action Groups.
With a relatively-small budget for travel, office rental, equipment & supplies, and salary & benefits, even a one-person Office of National Traffic Safety Ombudsman — with endless possibilities for internships — could accomplish a lot. A lot more than I would be able to do here in my home in Rocky Mount, North Carolina — a retired home school mom, truck crash survivor, and broken-hearted mother.
Note: And I am not the only one who thinks so! Among others. . .
Victims of underride crash urge Vision Zero & Road Safety Ombudsman @MaryandAnnaLeah @NTSB @POTUS @NHTSAgov @MSNBC https://t.co/GxlyFSmI6x
— Bill Bronrott 🗽 (@bronrott) July 6, 2016
Sign this petition like I did for a first-ever US traffic safety Ombudsman, https://t.co/4lyvSvwxbu, @MaryandAnnaLeah
— Neil Arason (he/him) (@neilarason) July 5, 2016
SIGN & SHARE the TRAFFIC SAFETY OMBUDSMAN Petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/384/321/600/end-preventable-crash-fatalities-appoint-a-national-traffic-safety-ombudsman/.
Too many shattered worlds. Too many broken hearts.
August 3 UPDATE: The petition on the White House site is expired. Please sign our new Traffic Safety Ombudsman Petition at Care2; http://www.thepetitionsite.com/384/321/600/end-preventable-crash-fatalities-appoint-a-national-traffic-safety-ombudsman/
We are asking for 100,000 Americans to sign our new Traffic Safety Ombudsman petition on WhiteHouse petition site. Once we get 150 signatures, it will become searchable on their website.
If we are able to get 100,000 signatures in 30 days — by July 31, then the White House has promised that they will respond to our new petition, which calls on President Obama to appoint a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman, who will be an Advocate for Safer Roads.
Why on earth am I asking for another government-funded worker — a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman? And whatever would that person do anyway? Read more here: Traffic Safety Ombudsman Petition calls for a Visible, Vigilant Voice for Vulnerable Road Users (Us)
SIGN & SHARE the TRAFFIC SAFETY OMBUDSMAN Petition: https://wh.gov/i6kUj
PLEASE NOTE: If you sign the petition, be sure to go to your email. We the People will send you an email which you have to reply to in order to confirm your signature is valid.
Their email will say this in the subject line:
“Almost done! Verify your Petitions.WhiteHouse.gov account”
This is what the email will say:
You’re only one step away from creating your Petitions.WhiteHouse.gov account. Just click on the link below or cut and paste it into your web browser to confirm this is a working email address:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/user/reset. . . (DO NOT CLICK ON IT IN THIS POST–JUST IN YOUR EMAIL)
IMPORTANT: If you created your account in the process of signing a petition on We the People, you still need to click on the “Sign this Petition” button on the petition’s webpage.
Here is your WhiteHouse.gov account information:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/user
e-mail: ____________________
password:__________________
Once you’ve verified your email address, click on [THE LINK THEY GIVE YOU] or copy and paste it into your web browser to update your profile or change your password.
Then, FINALLY, once you click on it a Pop-Up will appear saying that your signature has been counted.
What the Traffic Safety Ombudsman Petition says:
Every average day in the U.S., 100 of our loved ones die in crashes and 400 more suffer serious crash injuries–along with $2 Billion in crash losses.
We propose that the President establish an independent Office of National Traffic Safety Ombudsman to be an advocate to eliminate preventable crash deaths and serious injuries.
We need someone who has a mandate to advocate on behalf of the victims, someone who is not compromised by competing interests. We call on the President to take this action to protect our families and loved ones from one of the leading causes of preventable death.
Traffic Safety has not been a national priority. Without this Presidential action, too many lives will continue to be lost to vehicle violence.
Please SIGN the Petition: https://wh.gov/i6kUj. Then, SHARE this post. We have to get 100,000 in 30 days! July 31 is the target date. (Check your email for a verification email from We the People. See instructions above.)
Last night I found a very lengthy email from a stranger who was writing to me and to an editor at treehugger.com. He was reaching out to me–asking me to take on a traffic safety issue after I finished with underride guards.
He wanted me to raise awareness of Left Foot Braking which went out of vogue when automatic transmissions were introduced into our cars. I grew up driving a stickshift and have recently observed that perhaps people pay less attention to their driving because they don’t have to be more engaged with shifting. But I had never heard of this idea that Right Foot Braking has led to thousands of deaths.
Is There a Right Foot Braking Lobby and Why Should We Care
Now I am not even going to begin to go into the details of this issue. But I want to point out what I quickly realized after clicking on a link in his email. This man had found my name and learned about my safety advocacy efforts from an article just published on treehugger.com. He was appealing to me to help him get the traffic safety issued, which he is most concerned about, resolved.
This man, Trevor Frith, was acting like I am a traffic safety advocate who could help address this problem which he truly believes is unnecessarily causing traffic fatalities. He thinks that I could help to do something to change things so that these kinds of deaths are prevented in the future. He was hoping that I would act like a Traffic Safety Ombudsman!
Well that just goes to show you: A U. S. Traffic Safety Ombudsman is definitely needed!
I mean, I can do a lot, as a “retired” home school mom — sitting here at my computer in North Carolina and shouting out my frustration over the travesty of traffic “safety” here in our country. The availability of information on the internet and the social media tools have greatly enhanced the abilities of an individual to make an impact since the days when I was a nursing home patient advocate in 1977.
But to really make headway in this crusade for safer roads, we need a recognized position of Traffic Safety Ombudsman, who has the ear of those in authority who can do something about these issues. And I don’t mean that this has to be someone who would apply political pressure but who would have good connections to communicate the needs and facilitate timely resolutions and raise national awareness and support and change.
And he/she would need the resources of any person working a full-time job of national life & death importance–not the volunteer 60 year-old mom of nine (two of them in heaven) and grandma of three working out of her bedroom “office” and pouring her heart into the battle.
So, thank you, Lloyd Alter, for publishing your article about our Traffic Safety Ombudsman Petition. I hope that it gets noticed by many people in this country and helps to get the attention of the White House and President Obama.
And thank you, Trevor W. Frith, B.S.M.E., for illustrating so aptly why a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman is needed. People’s lives are depending on it. And they don’t even realize it.
SIGN & SHARE the TRAFFIC SAFETY OMBUDSMAN Petition: https://wh.gov/i6kUj
August 3 UPDATE: The petition on the White House site is expired. Please sign our new Traffic Safety Ombudsman Petition at Care2; http://www.thepetitionsite.com/384/321/600/end-preventable-crash-fatalities-appoint-a-national-traffic-safety-ombudsman/
Footnote to the Braking Issue: I just got a reply from a person whom I follow on Twitter. He posts a lot about different driving techniques and safety tips. So I asked him what he knew about Left/Right Foot Braking. This is what he said:
I wrote this about it. https://t.co/ywOOp36OzH
— Scott Marshall (@SafeDriver) July 5, 2016
So, you see, after less than 24 hours of learning about this issue, I am not going to claim to be an expert. But it confirms my conclusion that someone — like a Traffic Safety Ombudsman — is needed to sort out and address traffic safety issues–to get to the bottom of it and find out the truth of the matter in every case. To raise awareness and help us do what is best for travelers on our roads.
Less than a week ago, I woke up thinking, “I need to start a petition on the White House website asking President Obama to appoint a Traffic Safety Ombudsman.” The idea of such a position/role had come to me a month earlier, but nobody was responding to my request to appoint one.
Now it seemed like I needed to take action. Since the petition site indicated that if we got 100,000 signatures in 30 days, then they would respond to it, it seemed like good timing to start July 1–with July 31 as the target date.
The first step was getting the ball rolling and it has been torturous watching the number of signatures slowly creep up. Once it reaches 150, then the petition will become searchable on their website. Meanwhile. . .
Maybe we’ll get a boost from an article published today on treehugger.com by managing editor, Lloyd Alter. I had commented on his article last weekend on the Tesla crash and Tweeted a message to him.
Could Tesla crash fatality have been prevented if trucks were required to have #sideguards? https://t.co/Vcmba7wBO8 https://t.co/EUFphqnCzR
— Marianne Karth (@MaryandAnnaLeah) July 2, 2016
Today he published an article about our crash story, our advocacy efforts, and our Traffic Safety Ombudsman Petition and Vision Zero goals. Perhaps this will give us a good jumpstart on the way to our 100,000 goal–and ultimately our goal of SAVING LIVES.
Victims of underride collision demand Vision Zero and an independent Traffic Safety Ombudsman
SIGN & SHARE the TRAFFIC SAFETY OMBUDSMAN Petition:
August 3 UPDATE: The petition on the White House site is expired. Please sign our new Traffic Safety Ombudsman Petition at Care2; http://www.thepetitionsite.com/384/321/600/end-preventable-crash-fatalities-appoint-a-national-traffic-safety-ombudsman/
Sign this petition like I did for a first-ever US traffic safety Ombudsman, https://t.co/4lyvSvwxbu, @MaryandAnnaLeah
— Neil Arason (he/him) (@neilarason) July 5, 2016
Very cool Youtube of Aaron Kiefer’s innovative side guard with crash test video.
Stand up and be heard. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people: Tesla crash fatality could have been stopped by side guards. Tell NHTSA to require them on trucks.
The U.S. has been talking about the tragedies of side underride and the possibility of using side guards on trucks since 1969.
The recent Tesla S underride crash fatality could quite likely have been prevented if there had been a side guard on the tractor-trailer it collided with.
So why is NHTSA still not requiring side guards on trucks? Why is the trailer manufacturing industry still opposing them? Why have so many years gone by with needless, preventable deaths continuing to occur?
Let’s change that, people. Make use of the federal rulemaking process which provides a way for the public to make comments on issues of national importance. Right now, the federal government is working on a rule to upgrade the regulation of truck underride guards; it addresses the rear guards for tractor-trailers–but not side guards.
YOU CAN HELP GET THE RULES CHANGED: Go to the Federal Register and hit the Comment Now button to tell them that you want trucks to be required to have side guards to prevent people from dying. It will then ask you to choose a CATEGORY; choose PUBLIC COMMENT.
Note: It will say that the Public Comment Period is closed as of February 16, 2016. Don’t worry; they will continue to look at Public Comments submitted after that date because the Final Rule is not yet issued.
Stand up and be heard. Government of the People. By the People. For the People.
Now tell other people that they can do it, too! Thank you.
Note: See a Youtube video from Aaron Kiefer, a North Carolina crash reconstructionist, who has recently designed an innovative side/rear underride guard:
