Category Archives: Truck Safety

Lifelong Republican questions party support of industry profit vs bipartisan solutions to save lives

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety,

As a lifelong Republican and mom of two who were the innocent victims of Vehicle Safety Wars, I have observed the “Republican” support of Industry Profit rather than Preservation of Human Life.

Republicans generally oppose government involvement and regulation. The problem I have with that is the reality which I have painfully discovered that “safety is not an accident” — it doesn’t just happen by itself. Without rules and regulations and enforcement and justice and requirements, chaos and injury and death are more likely to occur.

I have previously written posts on this topic. . .

Face-to-face with our congressman, George Holding, to discuss truck safety concerns :

I shared with Congressman Holding that I had grown up as a Republican and was quite surprised after our crash to find out that, in general, the Republican party line related to truck safety legislation consistently appeared to be pro-trucking industry and anti-safety. I am puzzled why there cannot be bipartisan solutions to these issues.

https://annaleahmary.com/2014/07/truck-safety-needs-bipartisan-support-protecting-its-citizens-is-one-of-the-basic-purposes-of-government/ [I would have to say that I prefer smaller government. But I do think that protecting its citizens is one of the basic purposes of government. “Truck safety” is, for the most part, about protecting travelers on the road. It is a public health problem and should get bipartisan support. http://www.laissez-fairerepublic.com/benson.htm]

His response — a typical one — was that Republicans generally oppose government involvement and regulation. The problem I have with that is the reality which I have painfully discovered that “safety is not an accident” — it doesn’t just happen by itself. Without rules and regulations and enforcement and justice and requirements, chaos and injury and death are more likely to occur.

At least I have not seen a better alternative. Have you? . . 

Delivery of a Vision Zero Petition to Washington; What I have learned in our battle for safer roads:

Due to the complexity of the issue, no one is currently held accountable, responsible, or liable for preventing these deaths which occur upon collision of a passenger vehicle with a larger commercial motor vehicle. Remember, we are not talking here about who was to blame for the collision occurring in the first place.

Can we possibly find our way to work together in our great nation through the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of our government–in a cooperative, concerted effort with private industry, research engineers, safety advocates, and the insurance industry– to bring about the best possible protection for We the People?

Can we agree to share the costs of what the solution will require so that the burden of the problem is shifted from the victims, who experience life needlessly cut short or devastatingly changed by horrific injuries, and their families who are faced with unexpected, traumatic, too-often-bitter, and unending grief?

Right this minute, I must admit, I am discouraged right along with the many others who have tried to bring about change for decades. Nonetheless, I choose to remain hopeful that this is not insurmountable and that we are well on our way to victory as we continue to shed light on traffic safety problems and call for truth, justice, and mercy to prevail. . .

1a85etUnsafe Trucks

How I came to be a presenter on underride research at the TRB 1st Int’l Roadside Safety Conference

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety

How is it that I came to be a presenter at the Transportation Research Board’s First International Roadside Safety Conference, June 12-15, 2017, in San Francisco?

  1. Well, of course, first off I was in a horrific truck underride crash that took the lives of my two daughters, AnnaLeah (17) and Mary (13) on May 4, 2013.
  2. IMG_4465Car Safety Wars
  3. Then, I learned that underride guards are terribly ineffective and all sorts of other unbelievable information about the state of safety on our roads.
  4. I also came in contact with many other people who are trying like me to improve underride protection in order to prevent other people from dying like my girls did.
  5. Then, my family and I gathered thousands of petition signatures calling for improvement and worked with other organizations to plan an Underride Roundtable on May 5, 2016, at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
  6. So, then, in June 2016, after preparing an Underride Consensus document to present to DOT, I serendipitously found out about an upcoming roadside safety conference.
  7. I was copied (by mistake) on an email sent to some PhD students, reminding them of a deadline to submit an abstract to be considered for possible presentation at this conference.
  8. So, after checking with the email sender to see if underride was appropriate for this conference, I prepared an abstract and submitted it on June 28, 2016.
  9. I then got busy doing many other things including preparing a Comprehensive Underride Consensus Petition and forgot about the conference.
  10. Lo, and behold, I received another email on September 2, 2016,                                   Dear Marianne, Congratulations!The Planning Group for TRB’s First International Roadside Safety Conference appreciates your submission of the abstract entitled Promising Research for Improved Heavy Vehicle Underride Prevention Structures and Data to Demonstrate Boundaries of Occupant Survivability in Collisions Between Large Trucks and Passenger Vehicles. We are pleased to inform you that we have selected your abstract for Presentation and Publication.

     In order to proceed with the conference planning in a timely manner, the planning group asks that you upload your files no later than November 1, 2016.

  11. Well, I was amazed and not sure whether it made sense to proceed. It is not exactly the target audience to whom I would have imagined making a presentation. But if their focus is roadside safety, then I will take the opportunity to raise awareness about the underride problem and solutions.
  12. So, on November 1, 2016, I uploaded my revised abstract and underride research presentation paper.
  13. May the Lord bless this endeavor and work mightily to improve underride protection internationally.
  14. If He wills, San Francisco, here I come
  15. Best ProtectionRoads Safer

Good news: Electronic Logging Devices Mandate Has Survived Court Challenge; Required by 12/2017

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , ,

Good news! One of our original AnnaLeah & Mary Stand Up For Truck Safety Petition requests has been upheld in court to be required by December 2017. Electronic Logging Devices to monitor truck driver hours on the road instead of paper log books:

ELD mandate survives court challenge

Now, I hope that the Hours of Service rules will be finalized with truck driver input as to the best way of structuring them. And I hope that there will continue to be work done to eliminate the reasons that paper log books didn’t work to begin with. Because this important technology will not solve everything.

https://annaleahmary.com/2014/05/paper-log-books/

https://annaleahmary.com/tag/truck-driver-compensation/

Tired Trucker Roundtable

 

Pres. Obama, sign this Exec. Order–while you still can–to protect people from violent vehicle deaths!

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

Dear President Obama,

A Canadian mom came to visit me at my home in North Carolina last weekend. We connected quickly on many levels because we have both lost daughters in truck underride tragedies. Tragedies which could have been prevented if Vision Zero Rulemaking had been in place before their deaths to pave the way for life-saving measures to be mandated. . .

You cannot bring Jessica, Mary, and AnnaLeah back to us. But you can prevent other families from suffering similar heart-wrenching, horrific, and unnecessary grief. You can do this by taking action on the Vision Zero strategy which we spelled out for you at great length. In fact, over 20,000 people have joined with us to ask for Vision Zero action:

  1. Set a National Vision Zero Goal.
  2. Establish a White House Vision Zero Task Force.
  3. Sign a Vision Zero Executive Order to authorize Vision Zero Rulemaking by DOT. Unless this is done, people will continue to die needlessly because technologically-feasible life-saving measures will be blocked or delayed because the current rulemaking process will deem them unworthy (too costly) to save!
  4. Establish a National Office of Traffic Safety Ombudsman to oversee this strategy as an independent and influential voice for vulnerable victims of vehicle violence.

My meeting with Jeannette Holman-Price on Saturday reminded me of what I have already painfully learned about one specific but simple example of the impact of the GM Nod where no one takes responsibility for doing anything about this tragic loss of life.

  1. Truck underride is the deadly result of a geometric mis-match between a smaller passenger vehicle and a larger commercial vehicle (truck).
  2. There are effective solutions to prevent this problem but the industry does not use them because the government does not require them and the government will not require them until there are proven products available to the industry to use but the industry does not put the money out to research, design, and manufacture these products [which engineers have shown will work] [and why should they if they are not legally required to do so?] and the people like Jeannette & I (who have lost loved ones) and Aaron Kiefer and Perry Ponder and Bruce Enz (engineers who have invented solutions) do not readily have the money to get these life-saving products on the market.
  3. As one person said in a conference call which Jeannette and I recently joined in to discuss underride solutions, many of the Single Unit Trucks — which are currently exempt from federal underride standards — actually have a “guard-looking thing” hanging down from the back of their truck. So it is perfectly logical to assume that they could easily have a genuine, more-effective underride guard installed instead. And why don’t they? Because they are not required to! As another person on that phone call said, “It is lazy and criminal!”

President Obama, I do not want more heartfelt condolences from you. I want you to do what no one else can: Sign the Vision Zero Executive Order and appoint a Traffic Safety Ombudsman!

Be my hero.

Respectfully and boldly and desperately,

Marianne Karth

p.s. Unfortunately, unless you act, the needless sabotage and/or delay of countless life-saving measures will continue to go on and on — as it has for so many years — and more innocent blood will be spilled on our roads. Who will be held accountable? And who will pay the price?

do-it-president-obama

 

Cross-Border Collaboration: A Canadian Mom & A U.S. Mom Meet Up To Talk Traffic/Truck Safety

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

I am looking forward to meeting another mom-who-knows-the-grief-of-truck-underride. Jeannette Holman-Price has been traveling this week in the U.S. to advocate for safer trucks. Our home in North Carolina is her last stop and tomorrow is the day.

We are anticipating non-stop talking and expect that we can accomplish some powerful planning to multiply our advocacy efforts through cross-border collaboration in the days ahead. Watch out, world! We’re on the “warpath” to defeat preventable vehicle violence.

photo-collage-3-photosimage

“Pull that ripcord and save your life!” Road to Zero (Crash Deaths) Needs Vision Zero Rulemaking

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , ,

I just watched a video of a young Canadian woman, Jessica Holman-Price, going on a skydiving adventure — not too long before she lost her life in a 2005 truck underride tragedy.

I was struck by the comment made before she went up (then down) in the air: “You’re going to be able to pull that ripcord and save your life!”

Saved for the moment only later to lose her life . Let’s make sure that this isn’t so for countless others because — just like someone invented a simple mechanism to release a parachute — there are solutions to prevent tragic truck underride.

I am convinced that the recently-launched and much-needed Road to Zero effort will fall short of its goals if it does not include a strategy to attain Vision Zero rulemaking.

That is why I continue to push for an audience to my Vision Zero requests and hope for a champion to make it come about.

What motivates me to keep asking for this near-to-impossible change in the way this problem is addressed? On top of the unbearable grief of losing two children — who did nothing to bring about their deaths — to preventable vehicle violence, I survived the same crash and have learned that it is not an insurmountable problem to prevent underride. And yet it continues to be neglected and underride victims pay the price. I have had the advantage of observing the work of other advocates who have gone before me, as well as the convincing research by IIHS.

I have also observed the many victims and advocates who keep pushing for change — year after deadly year — and wonder why nothing much is different.

Furthermore, I think that it is important that the victims of vehicle violence — past and future — be given a powerful and independent voice through the establishment of a National Office of Traffic Safety Ombudsman. Please read why I think that this is necessary: http://annaleahmary.com/tag/traffic-safety-ombudsman/.

 

photo-collage-3-photos

 

Will the Road to Zero (Crash Deaths) include significant criminal penalties for corporate negligence?

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety,

Lou Lombardo talks about Center for Auto Safety Comments on VW Diesel Scandal Settlement:

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

“CAS Staff Attorney Michael Brooks:

“It is great news that VW diesel owners can now be reimbursed, and that Volkswagen must begin to repair the environmental damage their emissions deception caused.  However, automakers will not change their illegal behavior unless the government pursues significant criminal penalties against executives who take or condone such actions.  We look forward to news of federal criminal charges against the VW executives who participated in this fraud on the American public.”

Safe Climate Campaign Director Dan Becker:

“The government did a good job preventing further harm from VW’s diesel fraud. Most heavily polluting diesels will be removed from the road and cannot be resold unless fixed. Other automakers must learn from this scandal that they dare not disable pollution controls, lie to the government or fleece consumers. Those lessons will be reinforced when the government brings criminal charges against VW officals who perpetrated this fraud.””  See

http://www.autosafety.org/cas-statement-on-volkswagen-15-billion-emissions-settlement/

In fact, my Vision Zero Goals include holding manufacturers LIABLE for their actions, as spelled out in my drafted Presidential Memorandum for the Establishment of a White House Vision Zero Task Force:

Section 3. Action Plan.

(a) Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the Task Force shall develop and submit proposals and recommendations to the President for a National Vision Zero Goal. This will include specific strategies for moving toward the reduction of crash deaths and serious injuries. It will also outline specific strategies for establishing national traffic safety standards which are proven to reduce crash deaths and which could then be adopted, as is, by every state. These strategies will ensure that the following will occur:

(i) address the problem of traffic safety in a coordinated manner, including the following concerns: road design and conditions; all kinds of enforcement issues to be pro-active in preventing crashes; handling of traffic safety when crashes occur; driver fatigue— acknowledging the scope, extent, and gravity of Driving While Fatigued (DWF) as a reckless behavior both for truck drivers and drivers of light vehicles, and adjusting the legal system to reflect this reality; all kinds of distracted and impaired driving; automotive safety defect issues and their resolution as a high priority issue in a timely manner; and other problems as deemed appropriate, including the need for manufacturers to be held liable for deaths due to their criminal negligence and for DOT to act with the necessary authority to issue and enforce Vision Zero safety regulations which impact not only vehicle occupants but also Vulnerable Road Users.

1a85etNext 4 years

Memorial Quilt to Remember the Countless Victims & Survivors of Vehicle Violence

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety

I have a vision of a virtual memorial quilt to help us remember the countless people who have forever been changed by vehicle violence.

In the aftermath of the truck underride crash which ended my daughters’ lives and forever changed our future, I found healing through the sewing of two patchwork quilts made out of AnnaLeah’s and Mary’s clothes. I wanted to have a tangible, visible reminder of their place in my heart and life.

Remembering Mary & AnnaLeah in a Patchwork Quilt of Memories

Photo Album of AnnaLeah and Mary: Patchwork Quilt from Mary & AnnaLeah’s Clothes

Now I would like to launch a new project: a Virtual Memorial Quilt of Memories of Loved Ones Forever Changed by Vehicle Violence.

My husband, Jerry, has wanted for some time to collect photos of victims to help us put a face to the countless, too-often preventable tragedies in order to give them honor, but also to raise awareness of this major public health problem.

This morning, I received a link from Lou Lombardo with an article about a Memorial Quilt for AIDS victims. Immediately, I thought, “Yes! Let’s do this for victims of vehicle violence!” Perhaps it can even be a focal point for my other dream of organizing a nationwide network of Vision Zero/Traffic Safety community action groups.

Groups can make actual quilts and we can connect them virtually to make an unforgettable impression of the senseless highway carnage which had and is devastating far too may families. Just so wrong any way you look at it.

Let’s create a Victims of Vehicle Violence Memorial Quilt! Anybody with me?

Care 2 Petition Poster 008

 

DOT & OMB: Are you using CEA or CBA rulemaking? Road to Zero requires Vision Zero Rulemaking

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

I have a simple request for the Department of Transportation and the Office of Management & Budget/OIRA:

  1. Please let me know if you are using Cost Effectiveness Analysis or Cost Benefit Analysis.
  2. And, please be transparent by telling me what your formula is. What are your parameters?
  3. And, please sit down with us and have a face to face conversation about this.

Unless you use truly Vision Zero rulemaking, the Road to Zero Coalition’s goal will most probably fall short.

Cost.Benefit Analysis

With Road to Zero, DOT commits $3 million; compare that to $9.6 million Value of a Statistical Life

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , ,

I should be jumping up and down for joy about the recent launch of the Road to Zero Coalition by the US DOT and the National Safety Council. So it doesn’t feel great to be one of those voices who are saying negative things about this great project.

I do look forward to watching how they coordinate the efforts of many organizations around this country who work to save lives. But I have some concerns about the process:

  1. Will they make any significant change in the strategies used to address the disturbing public health problem of 35,200+ Deaths by Vehicle Violence each year?
  2. Will they harness the energy and motivation of survivors/families of victims of vehicle violence?
  3. Will they mobilize citizens to be a significant part of the solution?
  4. Will they have a powerful voice to speak on behalf of the vulnerable victims who cannot speak for themselves?
  5. Will they take steps to address the imbalance of priority in rulemaking of profit over people?

Let’s just consider the last question. One thing which I have learned, after my life was catastrophically up-ended by my two youngest daughters’ deaths from a truck underride crash, is that there appears to be a hesitancy (to put it mildly) to put a meaningful monetary value on the cost of saving human lives.

To begin with, there is the difficulty of getting safety measures to pass the stringent test of the cost/benefit analysis required in federal rulemaking which, in my mind, inordinately favors the cost to industry vs benefit of preventing deaths and serious injuries. This is also reflected in the opposition to increasing the minimum liability insurance for truckers which was set at $750,000 in 1980 and has not been raised since then — despite the current Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) set by DOT at $9.6 million for 2016.

Value of a Statistical Life-guidance-2016

If you have read much of what I write, you might realize that I am in favor of reshaping the rulemaking process to ensure that it properly values human life. But aside from that, let’s just use that $9.6 million and do a little math.

The US DOT announced with the launch of the Road to Zero Coalition that it was committing $1 million/year for three years for grants to non-profit organizations that propose initiatives to save lives. Sounds great, right? But then I took out pen and paper (to get the hands-on sense of the calculation) and worked out the Value of the Statistical Lives of the 35,200 people who died on our roads in 2015 — keeping in mind that it was probably undercounted and does not include the cost of serious injuries.

$9.6 million X 35,200 = $337, 920,000,000 or almost $338 billion in one year alone

Then I decided to take it one step further and calculate the cost of the traffic fatalities over the next 30 years of the Road to Zero strategy to save lives — without taking into account the probable increase in the VSL.

$337,920,000,000  X 30 = $10,137,600,000,000 or over $10 trillion (which includes the cost to society)

And how much is DOT dedicating to this project to try and put a dent on the estimated 1,056,000 Deaths by Vehicle Violence? $3 million (of taxpayer money) — not even 1/3  the supposed value of a person’s life. Why, my two daughters alone were supposedly worth $18.2 million combined in 2013. Two immeasurably precious ones gone far too soon.

$3,000,000 vs $10,137,600,000,000

Now I had trouble even typing those numbers in accurately, so it is entirely possible that I made a mathematical error (didn’t use a calculator). So, please, do the math yourself. And then let me know if you think that we, as a country, are making a truly meaningful effort to do something new to stem the tide of bloodshed.

IMG_4464

 

CBA Victim Cost Benefit Analysis Victim

Car Safety WarsPetition