Category Archives: Safety Advocacy

Drunk Busters Impairment Goggles give drivers ed. students understanding of impaired driving effects.

Safety Advocacy,

Drunk Busters Impairment Goggles give drivers ed. students understanding of impaired driving effects.

Curt’s experiences have taken him many places, but one important place was developing goggles to represent what it would be like if someone was impaired by alcohol or drugs. The problem exists when someone is impaired, their thoughts and judgement are also impaired. They can’t realize what they’re doing is wrong when they get behind the wheel of a vehicle if they are already impaired by alcohol or drugs. That’s where these goggles come into play. They send a strong message about the dangers of drinking and driving.

It’s time to listen to those who care

Drunk Busters of America

Sounds like a good way to impact driving behavior choices before they get made.

What kind of underride protection would be the result of Vision Zero Rulemaking?

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

What kind of underride protection would be the result of a Vision Zero Rulemaking Policy? I would like the chance to find out!

Do it, President Obama, for We the People of this United States of America! #VisionZero

Underride kills

Regulators, manufacturers, & advocates need to read this engineer’s comment on truck underride.

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

Take note of a recent public comment on NHTSA’s truck underride rulemaking:

Comment_from_Seven_Hills_Engineering,_LLC

Perry Ponder Public Comment Underride Rulemaking April 2016 1Perry Ponder Public Comment Underride Rulemaking April 2016 2Perry Ponder Public Comment Underride Rulemaking April 2016 3

Perry Ponder from Seven Hills Engineering makes some timely observations. Anyone concerned about preventing deadly underride crashes will want to make sure that regulators and manufacturers are listening.

Here is the 1969 DOT document to which Perry refers–in which they indicate their intent to extend underride protection to the sides of large vehicles: 1969 NPRM, Docket No. 1-11; Notice 2 1969 NPRM, Docket No. 1-11; Notice 2 p.2

Looking forward to a lively Underride Roundtable on May 5, 2016.

2

What kind of underride protection would be the result of a Vision Zero Rulemaking Policy?

 

My grandson–all on his own–has figured out some things that might have saved his aunts.

AnnaLeah and Mary, Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , ,

On the way home today, there was an electronic sign on I-540 letting us know that there was a crash near the exit we would be taking and that we should take an earlier exit, Actually, there were two signs–one a few miles before the alternate route to avoid the traffic back-up and then another one right before the detour.

After we got back home and were talking about it at supper, in the midst of grown-up voices, my 9 year-old grandson said that one of those signs might have helped. I said, “When?” He said, “At the crash with Mary and AnnaLeah.” I said, “Yes, it could have.”

If only there had been a sign on May 4, 2013 on I-20 in Georgia warning traffic about a crash ahead, then a certain truck driver might have been alerted enough to pay attention and notice the traffic back-up in time to slow down and not hit our car. Or we might have been diverted off that route and never been in  that situation. In both scenarios, AnnaLeah and Mary would likely still be with us today.

I’m hoping that people in this country, who can do something about it, will figure out what my grandson has — that things can be done to protect us better. And that they’ll do their part to make it happen. Less preventable deaths & serious injuries. Less grief to bear.

Trip North May 2015 030 smaller

“Our grandma wants to make the roads safer.” Remembering 2 girls in the aftermath of a truck crash

 

Small-overlap crash tests on pickup trucks; some don’t pass even tho’ they meet federal standards.

Safety Advocacy,

Ford F-150 Only Pickup Truck to Earn Top IIHS Safety Rating

Today from Care for Crash Victims:

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

An excellent article, showing a video of an IIHS crash test, conveys the importance of truck safety to workers and companies.

“Both consumers and businesses should pay attention to the IIHS tests, safety experts said.

“These ratings are terribly important,” said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety. “If I was a fleet manager, I would make sure I had my workers in the safest one. It also will save companies money over the long run.”

Beyond preventing injury, using safer vehicles reduces lost work time, workers’ compensation insurance claims and liability risk, Ditlow said.”  See

https://www.trucks.com/2016/04/12/ford-f-150-pickup-truck-earns-top-safety-rating/

The National Safety Council’s 2015 Injury Facts reports that at work about 1,500 motor vehicle deaths and 100,000 injuries occur each year.  The NSC estimates the economic costs to be nearly $24 billion in 2013.

That is about 4 motor vehicle deaths at work per day in the U.S.A. today.

The silence on this tragically preventable problem of American workers from President Obama, presidential candidates, and the media is deafening.

When will enough be enough?

 

Lou

Cover of Car Safety Wars by Michael Lemov
Cover of Car Safety Wars by Michael Lemov

Somebody has to take personal responsibility & be accountable for the danger of the trucking industry.

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , , , , ,

“At some point, somebody has to take personal responsibility & be accountable for the danger of this industry. More truck drivers are killed on the job than any other occupation. More than 500 truck drivers are killed every year in truck crashes. . . I don’t know any other industry where that’s allowed .  .  . and people are looking the other way.

“We need to have this prosecuted at the industry or company level, because that’s where the problem lies. . . The industry drives them harder and longer than they should. The result is catastrophic death and injury all across the country

“If we could get a change in some of the laws. . . to the point where company executives are criminally responsible for the violations of their drivers’ Hours of Service, you would see a lot of things change in the industry. You might see some changes that are long overdue,”  says Jeff Burns, Truck Litigation Attorney.

Jeff Burns, National Transportation Counsel for the Truck Safety Coaltion, discusses the issue of truck crash prosecutions and the challenges facing victims of truck crashes. Prosecutors across the country are choosing not to prosecute those responsible for deadly truck crashes. Furthermore, drivers and companies are facing only minimal fines, much less than a speeding motorist, for reckless driving that results in an accident and/or death. Visit www.trucksafety.org for more information on how you can help in the fight to make our highways safer for everyone. June 14, 2011

Some previous posts which I have written on the issues of justice related to truck crashes:

Responsibility

 

National Vision Zero Goal: Unifying Force in Development of Automated Vehicles

Safety Advocacy, , , , ,

Vision Zero Petition Book 010Mom Continues to Fight for Truck Safety After Daughters’ Tragic Death

“NHTSA: Driverless, Directionless in DC”; A National Vision Zero Goal can move us in the right direction.

AnnaLeah and Mary, Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , ,

Tonight I just happened to find a great article written by Roger Lanctot on the topic of driverless vehicles and crash avoidance and other good things like that. He said it with much more technical expertise than I ever could. Read it here: NHTSA: Driverless, Directionless in DC

Voices clash at first public hearing on self-driving cars

Thank you, Roger, for clarifying the issues and throwing out a challenge. Let’s hope that we as a nation can take up that challenge in a wise and timely fashion.

Here we have the opportunity to pull together the creative intelligence and technological resources of our country. Will we be able to look back, in years to come, with gratitude for being able to plan ahead in a non-competitive way to develop a workforce which creates useful products–all the while protecting health and life?

Here’s my idea–in keeping with Roger’s suggestion of a Vision Zero objective related to this technological challenge. Let’s say that a Vision Zero objective would mean that the guiding light/the plumbline would be a continual focus on safety–always asking the question at each step along the way, “How will this impact safety?”

And how would this be accomplished? By President Obama setting a National Vision Zero Goal–because who else would do it? It is an issue much broader than the Department of Transportation–and should include Labor, Commerce, Public Health, among others.

And then President Obama needs to establish a White House Vision Zero Task Force with Committees made up of resourceful people to take up challenges such as Roger Lanctot has suggested: “the development and adoption of technology that could start reducing the alarmingly high rate of crash-related injuries and fatalities in the U.S. and abroad – while also stimulating the economy and ultimately reducing the cost of vehicle ownership – or possibly eliminating vehicle ownership.”

Finally, President Obama needs to sign a Vision Zero Executive Order which will pave the way for rulemaking to actually make safety The Priority and other priorities would then fall in place subsequent to saving lives.

Can you imagine how effective and efficient such a process could be? Working together toward a common goal for the common good. Making good use of our resources and skills to meet needs.

Towards Zero Crash Deaths & Serious Injuries. A vision worth pursuing, a guiding light to keep us on track. Let’s do it, people.

What will it take to make a significant reduction in the number of people who die on our roads?

Andy Young, Marianne Karth, Jerry Karth, John Lannen
Andy Young, Marianne Karth, Jerry Karth, John Lannen in front of the DOT, March 5, 2016, delivering the 20,000 Vision Zero Petition Signatures

Save Lives Not Dollars: Urge DOT to Adopt a Vision Zero Policy

Adopt a Vision Zero goal and sign an Executive Order to Save Lives Not Dollars

We need the “Leverage” team to fight corporate & governmental injustices of preventable crash deaths.

AnnaLeah and Mary, Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , ,

My kids introduced me to Leverage a few weeks ago. So, lately, my husband and I have been watching episodes of the program nightly with them.

This is a description of the television series: Leverage is an American television drama series, which aired on TNT from December 7, 2008, to December 25, 2012.[2] The series was produced by Electric Entertainment, a production company of executive producer and director Dean Devlin. Leverage follows a five-person team: a thief, a grifter, a hacker, and a retrieval specialist, led by former insurance investigator Nathan Ford, who uses their skills to fight corporate and governmental injustices inflicted on ordinary citizens.

Last night, after watching a couple of episodes, I was thinking about our nation’s careless negligence of, and seeming indifference to, the senseless, preventable crash deaths which occur every day. It made me wish that the Leverage team could join us in taking on the hard-to-pin-down conglomeration of traffic safety factors*–many of which could be overcome or prevented and which result in the devastation of individual and family lives. Changed forever. No coming back.

*Underride crashes are a prime example of a problem which can be solved, but for which no one has truly been held responsible/liable/accountable for decades.

Mary (13) wrote a letter to herself a few weeks before the crash that took her life. She intended to read her letter 10 years later in 2023. One of the things she wrote was that she hoped to be famous someday; she didn’t know how, she just did.
 
A Leverage movie drawing attention to the widespread problem of traffic safety deaths (especially due to manufacturing defects) could highlight Mary’s and her sister AnnaLeah’s untimely end to their lives. And she would get her wish.

@DeanDevlin

Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, Beth Riesgraf, and Aldis Hodge

Dear Leverage team,

I am asking you to champion a National Vision Zero Goal and Strategy to reduce crash deaths and serious injuries. Traffic safety is of great interest to me following the deaths of my two youngest daughters, AnnaLeah (17) and Mary (13), due to a truck underride crash on May 4, 2013.

My kids introduced me to Leverage a few weeks ago. So my husband and I have been watching it nightly with them. Last night, when I was getting ready for bed, I was thinking as usual about the frustrations of corporate negligence and indifference to the senseless, preventable crash deaths which occur every day. It made me wish that your Leverage team could join us in taking on the Goliath which ignores the problem and perpetuates the devastating impact on individual and family lives.

Since our horrific crash, my family and I have become vocal advocates for highway safety improvement, including a petition signed by 11,000+ people which we took to DC on May 5, 2014. Following that meeting with NHTSA and FMCSA, a rulemaking was initiated in July 2014 to study the need to improve rear underride protection on tractor-trailers, as well as additional proposed rulemaking in July 2015 for underride protection on Single Unit Trucks.

We are not stopping at that but are collaborating with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Truck Safety Coalition to plan an Underride Roundtable to be held at the IIHS’s crash testing facility in Ruckersville, Virginia, on May 5, 2016. We hope that by bringing together the trucking industry, regulatory officials, law enforcement, attorneys, truckers, engineers, and safety advocates, we can bring about more effective underride protection. https://annaleahmary.com/2015/10/underride-roundtable-save-the-date-may-5-2016/

In addition, we believe that it is not enough to seek improvement through rulemaking but that there needs to be an overhaul of how rulemaking is handled. In light of that, we have launched a Vision Zero Petition online to request that DOT/OIRA approach highway safety rulemaking with a Vision Zero policy. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/

Furthermore, we think that the regulatory approach to highway safety rules should not be strangled by cost/benefit restraints that hold up human life and health dollar for dollar against corporate profit and economic stability. That is why we are asking you to back our petition to President Obama for a Vision Zero Executive Order which would modify President Clinton’s Executive Order 12866 and pave the way for stronger safety measures to be established in a more timely manner.

Please let me know at your earliest convenience if this is a cause which you can champion.

In memory of AnnaLeah & Mary–who occupy our thoughts daily,

Marianne Karth

https://annaleahmary.com/

Rebekah photo of crash

Contact me at: marianne@annaleahmary.com

Safety is not a priority 002Who are no more with photo

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not looking for vengeance or ruin. I’m looking for justice  — for accountability in matters of personal and corporate actions which can make the difference between life and death for someone and can ravage someone else’s life. . . forever.

Nothing will ever, ever bring AnnaLeah and Mary back in this life. No way, can’t happen. Not in this life, but only in the life to come. (Hang in there.) And that hurts so freakin’ bad. Every single day.

But I know that more, much more, can be done to ensure that other people don’t go through the same (and thankfully they will never really realize it). And there are forces that are working against our attempts to  truly make saving lives matter more than saving money. Hard to believe, right?

Whereas I feel powerless right now to bring about lasting, far-reaching change, I know that it does not depend on me. And so I am hoping that all the right pieces will fall in place at the right time to open eyes to the truth and a better way to protect ourselves and our families.

DC in 1938:Raised “death flag” for traffic deaths. Give honor to victims/visibility to problem. #VisionZero

Safety Advocacy,

So, apparently, in 1938, Washington DC used two flags to announce the city’s progress in traffic safety: a white one was put up on Deathless Days and a black skull & cross bones when a traffic death was reported.

What might it do to help promote a safety culture if we give honor to victims and visibility to progress (or the lack thereof) in moving Towards Zero Crash Deaths & Serious Injuries.

Also, see this article: When D.C. Flew the Skull and Crossbones For Every Traffic Death

And, today, Traffic Safety/Deaths is not even an issue on whitehouse.gov. See for yourself.

Do it, President Obama, for We the People of this United States of America! #VisionZero

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