Category Archives: Truck Safety

New Study: Crash risk soars among truck drivers who fail to adhere to sleep apnea treatment

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , ,

A recently released study shows that the risk of a crash risk soars among truck drivers who fail to adhere to sleep apnea treatment.

Results show that the rate of serious, preventable crashes was 5 times higher among truck drivers with sleep apnea who failed to adhere to PAP therapy, compared with matched controls. In contrast, the crash rate of drivers with sleep apnea who were fully or partially adherent with treatment was statistically similar to controls.

“The most surprising result of our study is the strength and robustness of the increase in the crash risk for drivers with sleep apnea who fail to adhere to mandated treatment with positive airway pressure therapy,” said lead author Stephen V. Burks, PhD, professor of economics and management and principal investigator of the Truckers & Turnover Project at the University of Minnesota, Morris. “The results of our study support the establishment of obstructive sleep apnea screening standards for all drivers through the commercial driver’s medical exam.”

Read more here:  Crash risk soars among truck drivers who fail to adhere to sleep apnea treatment

If we had a National Vision Zero Goal and Vision Zero Rulemaking Policies, what would we do with this information?

According to the authors, panels of medical experts previously convened by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) have recommended comprehensive sleep apnea screening for commercial drivers. However, rather than instituting mandatory screening, current federal regulations rely on drivers to self-report sleep apnea symptoms during a biennial medical examination to determine their fitness for duty. On March 8, 2016, the FMCSA and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued a joint Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which is the first step as both agencies consider whether to propose specific requirements for screening, evaluating and treating rail workers and commercial motor vehicle drivers for obstructive sleep apnea.

If we were actually serious about saving lives, then we would do everything humanly possible to prevent crash deaths. Here’s a chance to do it right.

According to study co-author Charles A. Czeisler, PhD, MD, FRCP, chief of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Baldino Professor of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. “Given that the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia and premature death are similarly increased in people with untreated obstructive sleep apnea, regulatory agencies worldwide owe it to truck drivers and to the motorists who share the road with them to require objective screening, diagnostic testing, and treatment adherence monitoring for all commercial drivers.”

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Letter from Vice President Biden on Traffic Safety Advocacy

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

This week, I received a letter from Vice President Joe Biden in response to my December 9, 2015, letter to him asking that he champion our efforts to reduce the traffic safety tragedies in our country. I asked him to back our petition to President Obama requesting a Vision Zero Executive Order.

I truly appreciate his heartfelt letter expressing compassion for the loss of our daughters in a truck crash, and his promise to keep us in their prayers. He also mentioned that my commitment to the issue is inspiring.

Please pray that he is inspired to the extent of actively promoting our petition requests with the powers that be in Washington.

Vision Zero Letter from Vice President Biden

Letter from Vice President Joe Biden

Letter to Vice President Biden Vision Zero Executive Order

My letter to Vice-President Biden

Joe Biden letter with Dad photo 007

Letter From One Father to Another

Tell Obama you are standing with us in this: “Family Continues Fight for Trucking Safety”

Truck Industry Could Take a Cue From Collaborative Medical Research Strategy

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , ,

I hope that the truck trailer manufacturing community (and those who purchase from them) take a cue from the CMTA–a non-profit organization which is supporting an effective research strategy to find treatment for Charcot-Marie-Tooth, a hereditary disorder which multiple members of my family have.

CMTA has organized a collaborative process which brings together a global interdisciplinary team:

One of the most important ways the CMTA accelerates the research process is by putting together teams of top scientists recruited from an international body of scientific and clinical Key Opinion Leaders in CMT. The STAR program’s unique character stems from the willingness of the scientists to come together to advance CMT research collaboratively, sharing and communicating ideas, discoveries and research findings.

The CMTA’s funding and operations focus is on translational research that will lead as directly as possible to therapeutic treatments of CMT.  To further this goal, the CMTA has put in place a STAR Advisory Board that includes both a Scientific Expert Board and a Therapy Expert Board. The CMTA’s STAR (Strategy to Accelerate Research)

This is the kind of strategy which we hope will be taking place at, and following, the Underride Roundtable on May 5, 2016, at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Vehicle Research Center in Ruckersville, Virginia.

Underride Roundtable Registration Now Open: May 5, 2016 at IIHS Vehicle Research Center

Underride Research MemeTrip North May 2015 046

March Historically a Momentous Month for Truck Underride Safety Advocacy; Beware the Ides of March!

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

March has historically been a momentous, memorable month for truck underride safety advocacy. Not that other months are totally devoid of such activity, but I have observed a noticeable pattern:

  1. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has studied and reported on the truck underride problem for many years. After our underride crash on May 4, 2013, we discovered that they had published a report on this issue just a few months earlier on March 14, 2013, as well as a prior report on March 1, 2011.
  2. On the 37th anniversary of our marriage, our family launched the AnnaLeah & Mary Stand Up for Truck Safety Petition on March 19, 2014, with one of the petition requests being to improve truck underride protection (rear, side, and front on tractor trailers, as well as for Single Unit Trucks).
  3. Later that week, on March 23, 2014,  I published a Youtube video to explain why we had launched the petition and what we were asking for–including an upgrade of the weak, ineffective federal underride standards.
  4. During the almost three years which have passed since that terribly tragic day in May, we continue to uncover new (to us) information which surely should have led to improved underride protection long before now. For example, about a month ago, I became aware of a March 16, 1977 (when I was 21–just a few days from my wedding) Senate Investigative hearing, which was reported on in the March 29, 1977 IIHS Status Report.
  5. This is how that report began: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has released the results of a crash test program focused on the deadly problem of car-into-truck underride crashes. Appearing as lead-off witness at a March 16 Senate Investigative hearing, the Institute’s president, William Haddon, Jr., M.D., presented crash test films and analyses showing that: The 25 year-old federal “rear end protection” standard for devices on the backs of tractor-trailers and trucks is “a sham.”
  6. Further, Haddon warned Senators, “Blood has been shed, heads literally have rolled and countless thousands of Americans have been injured because these agencies did not act. Further inaction would be inexcusable.”
  7. On March 5, 2016, we delivered our second petition to Washington, DC, when we took our Vision Zero Petition Book with 20,000 signatures to the Department of Transportation and President Obama. We asked for a Vision Zero Executive Order to pave the way for Vision Zero Rulemaking policies so that a truly effective and comprehensive underride standard can be issued.
  8. On March 10, 2016, the Vision Zero Petition Book and 20,000 signatures were posted as a Public Comment on the current rear underride rulemaking.
  9. On March 12, 2016, Jerry and I were privileged to participate in a successful side guard crash test in Hillsborough, North Carolina. This innovative side/rear combination can be retrofit to existing trucks on the road. Imagine the potential for saving lives!
  10. On March 2, 2016, just three days prior to our recent delivery of the Vision Zero Petition, I discovered a March 19, 1969, Federal Highway Administration underride rulemaking document on the Federal Register which indicated that their intent was to extend underride protection to the sides of large vehicles! Eight years before my wedding day, when I was 13 years-old, DOT was intending to call for stronger underride protection. And yet, 44 years later, when my daughter Mary was 13 and AnnaLeah was 17, we still had not gotten it right! That’s just wrong!
  11. It is my fervent hope that, when March 2017 rolls around, we will be celebrating a vastly improved federal standard–enthusiastically and immediately adopted by the trucking industry–for all-around-the-truck underride protection at higher speeds, including now-exempt single unit trucks as well as retrofitted to existing trucks and trailers.
  12. If this seems like a costly venture, try comparing it to the price paid by thousands upon thousands of individuals and families during the past decades of ineffective underride protection–added to the countless precious people who will be saved in the years to come from tragic, preventable death by underride.
  13. This is not rocket science; it can be done and the technology is already available!

2

Beware the Ides of March!

We aim to put an end to preventable underride deaths and serious injuries.

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

AnnaLeah and Mary, Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety,

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

I firmly believe that, in order to move as a nation Toward a Vision of Zero Crash Deaths, it will take a commitment to a National Vision Zero Goal and a coordinated endeavor of government, private industry, workers of every skill imaginable, and informed citizens. Anything short of this will be disjointed and less effective, which translates into — not simply unmet project goals but — people dying. It is not an impossible dream but it will require sacrifice and will be well worth the effort.

Among other things, I also believe that it will take listening to the hundreds of thousands of families who have lost loved ones due to traffic crashes and apologizing, as a society, for letting them down–for not addressing it as the priority it should be.

Bring a deeper measure of healing and hope by acknowledging their frustration and anger and grief. Let them know that they are being heard and that their petitions for change are being taken seriously.

Set a National Vision Zero Goal and then give these motivated people a voice. Launch a nation-wide network of Vision Zero Traffic Safety Community Action Groups which can channel their zealous energy in positive ways. In concert with a White House Vision Zero Task Force and a Cabinet which is authorized to conduct Vision Zero rulemaking, these groups could work at the local level as a powerful tool for changing the future and moving us more surely Toward Zero Crash Deaths, Serious Injuries, and Fear of Traffic.

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

Washiington Vision Zero Petition photos 013

Witnessed safety defect in action at underride crash tests; this is what snuffed out my daughters’ lives.

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

We have been following the progress of Aaron Kiefer’s development of an innovative side/rear underride guard, which he has designed on his own time when not working as a crash reconstructionist or spending time with his family. So we eagerly welcomed his invitation to help out in his MacGyver-style crash test this past Saturday. (By the way, I am a big fan of MacGyver–watched every episode on DVD with Mary & AnnaLeah.)

Aaron wanted to take this opportunity to test his design and find out what changes might be needed to make it a marketable and affordable option for trailer owners to install as a retrofit safety improvement. We joined a crew of his family, friends, and fellow crash reconstructionists at a junkyard in the Triangle area.

The morning was for set-up. Then we took a break for some brats and chips before devoting the afternoon to three crash tests. I had been unsure before arriving as to how a pick-up could tow a car and make it crash into a trailer. It became clear to me when I saw Aaron’s pulley contraption.

Crash Test Tow Set-Up

Test 1 was a side crash. The collision of the car into the side guard caused the innovative side guard to pop off its brace. But, as Aaron and Jerry said, the test was successful because the side guard stopped the car from going under the trailer beyond the windshield; it prevented Passenger Compartment Intrusion (PCI). People in the car could have walked away alive.

Test 2 was a second side guard crash with the same car. Again, the car did not go under past the windshield and there was no PCI. The guard would have protected the people in the car from death and/or severe injuries. This time the added aluminum brace at the rear sheared off. Aaron thinks that he will have to go back to the drawing board and make a stronger brace.

Test 3 was a rear crash test. This time the side guard got rolled up and set aside. The trailer was turned around and the test car set up to aim at the rear of the trailer. The original rear underride guard on the trailer had actually been damaged at some point in the past and only had four of its original eight bolts. (That was the condition the underride guard was in when Aaron purchased the trailer, which had sustained damage from collision with an overpass. The guard had clearly not been properly maintained.)

In this crash, the underride guard failed and the car rode under the trailer. There was PCI and, if there had been people in the car, they would not have escaped unharmed. The added brace on the outer edge did not hold up. In fact, it was still fastened on (come to think of it, as it took a lot of work to unfasten it from the trailer afterward), but the original underride guard popped entirely off and flew to the side — doing nothing to stop the car from going under the truck.

Aaron had actually aimed the car to hit the left outer edge of the trailer, which he had reinforced with some aluminum braces. (Note: The current federal standard, as well as the proposed improved rule, does not require this area of the trailer to be protected against underride.) Instead, the car hit the vertical bar of the guard; the entire original guard then popped off and the car went under the truck.

It’s back to the drawing board for Aaron to find a way to improve his design. It was definitely a great success in that it prevented deadly side underride. On top of that, the trailer was not damaged by the collision (except for a few little nicks). But the bracing needs to be made stronger.

From what I could see, the day’s events only served to strengthen Aaron’s resolve to put a stop to senseless deaths, which he sees all-too-often in his work. I for one am truly thankful for the wonderful work he is doing, along with the group of people who willingly set aside a Saturday to support his effort.

Photo Album of the Day’s Events

The day gave me a deeper appreciation for all who take the time to solve the problem of preventable traffic fatalities. This includes the Virginia Tech Senior Design Team and Wabash and Manac and many researchers for decades, such as George Rechnitzer and Raphael Grzebieta in Australia and Luís Otto Faber Schmutzler in Brazil, and countless other un-named individuals.

It was also personally very intense. As one participant commented, “That was violent!”

Indeed, it was very violent. All three crashes gave me a jolt. But after the third crash, which resulted in deadly underride, I found myself standing still in the aftermath. Others were busy finding tasks to measure the results and get the clean-up started–including getting the car unstuck from under the trailer. But all I could do was stand there and stare.

Not until the next day really did it all begin to sink in: how I had witnessed from observing from afar what I and my children had gone through ourselves (although with a different crash scenario). I had watched, as an onlooker, the instantaneous destruction of a vehicle and how it was that AnnaLeah’s life had been inconceivably snuffed out in the twinkling of an eye and how, in a matter of mere seconds, Mary’s body had been broken beyond repair by just such a tragically-unresolved traffic safety problem.

It seemed like my own body experienced whiplash as it tensed up and relived, through traumatic muscle memory, what I had gone through. Meanwhile my heart continues to break with the grief that knows no end even as I process this experience.

It is beyond my comprehension how we, in this country, can allow such things to occur year after year without moving heaven and earth to learn how to prevent these tragedies. I can only ask forgiveness, and apologize to the countless families who have lost loved ones through violent death by motor vehicle, for letting them down–for not addressing it as the priority it should be. As a society, we have dropped the ball.

This is why I continue to push for President Obama to set a Vision Zero National Goal and strategies to reach that goal–including Vision Zero Community Action Groups. This is why I am looking forward to the Underride Roundtable on May 5, 2016, and why we continue to ask for donations to AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety to support underride research and the effort to improve underride protection on trucks and trailers.

Jerry said several times, “It’s not every day you get to see a dream become a reality–kind of a humbling experience actually.” May there be many more such days.

2

Third Crash Test: Side Guard Crash Test #3: Successful Prevention of Truck Underride Once Again!

We need all engineers and federal officials concerned with public health to take the professional Hippocratic Oath “Do No Harm”.

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , ,

This post is from a recent demand for accountability from Care for Crash Victim’s Lou Lombardo entitled, “Seat Back Failures: Who Has The Power? & Who Has the Responsibility?”:

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

Please watch this excellent video and report by CBS News on Seat Back Failures.

The failures of both government and industry to protect the public from foreseeable tragedies – for decades – are described.  See

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/seat-back-failures-injuries-deaths-auto-safety-experts-demand-nhtsa-action/

The Center for Auto Safety has documented the efforts by citizens that were ignored over decades.  Profits were placed ahead of people decade after decade.  See

NHTSA Urged to Warn Parents of Seatback Collapse Dangers to Children in Rear Seats & How to Reduce Risk While Keeping Children in Rear

March 9, 2016
(202)328-7700

The Center for Auto Safety (CAS) today petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to “take action to protect children riding in the rear seats of vehicles from the risk of being killed or severely injured when struck by a collapsing front seatback in a rear-end crash.” The petition asks NHTSA to warn parents as follows:

If Possible, Children Should Be Placed In Rear Seating Positions Behind Unoccupied Front Seats. In Rear-End Crashes, The Backs Of Occupied Front Seats Are Prone To Collapse Under The Weight Of Their Occupants. If This Occurs, The Seat Backs And Their Occupants Can Strike Children In Rear Seats And Cause Severe Or Fatal Injuries

As the petition states, “The problem underlying the need for the warnings sought by petitioner is, of course, the poor performance of seatbacks in rear-end crashes, and of serious inadequacy of the federal motor vehicle standard, FMVSS 207, which specifies minimum seat and seatback crash performance levels.” Attached to the petition is a timeline, “Collapsing Seatbacks And Injury Causation: A Timeline Of Knowledge,” which summarizes “the history of manufacturer and NHTSA inaction to ensure that in rear-end crashes, front seats provide adequate protection not only for their occupants but for people in the rear seats behind them.”

Separately, the Center filed a detailed analysis of lawsuits, police reports and litigated cases that shows the dangers of seat back collapse are far greater than what the agency recognizes because seat back collapse is not captured by the FARS database on which the agency has relied for all too long to deny there is a seatback collapse danger.  FARS does not provide any information on seat back collapse.  Out of 64 seat back collapse death and injury crashes, the Center only found 2 where the police report referenced seat back collapse.

For many years NHTSA has urged parents to place children in the rear seats of cars because of the risk that in the front seat, they might be injured by inflating airbags in frontal crashes. But the “unintended consequences” of this policy, the petition notes, has been to “expose them to another kind of hazard – that of being struck or crushed when the back of a front seat occupied by an adult collapses rearward… Until cars on the American highway are equipped with adequately strong front seats and seatbacks, children in rear seats behind occupied front seats will continue to be in danger of death or severe injury from front seatback failures in rear-end impacts.”

The petition reports on the results of an analysis of NHTSA data by Friedman Research Corp. Done at the Center’s request, the analysis shows that over the twenty-four year period 1990-2014, nearly 900 children seated behind a front-seat occupant or in a center rear seat died in rear impacts of 1990 and later model-year cars.

As the Timeline shows, NHTSA has frequently been alerted to the hazards of weak designs and inadequate federal performance standards for seats and seatbacks. “Papers published by the Society of Automotive Engineers as early as 1967 described the need for adequate of front-seat crashworthiness in graphic and alarming terms. A poorly designed car seat ‘becomes an injury-producing agency during collision,’ said one. Another stated, ‘…a weak seatback is not recognized as an acceptable solution for motorist protection from rear end collisions.’” 

In 1974, the petition notes, NHTSA announced its intention to develop a new standard “covering the total seating system” and requiring dynamic rear-impact crash testing. But thirty years later, in 2004, it abandoned the plan, saying it needed “additional research and data analysis” and leaving in place the woefully weak requirements of FMVSS 207, a standard which has not been upgraded since its adoption in 1967. In a research study of 30-mph rear crashes done one year earlier which is not cited in the rulemaking termination, NHTSA researchers warned of the danger to children placed in rear seats at NHTSA’s recommendation. “Further, fatalities and injuries to rear child occupants due to seat back collapse of the front seat in rear impacts have also been reported. This is especially of concern since NHTSA recommends to the public that children of age 12 and under should be placed in the rear seat.”

In its conclusion, the petition states that warning parents of the hazards of front seatback collapse to children in rear seat is an essential measure “made necessary by the continued absence of a federal motor vehicle safety standard requiring that cars be equipped with adequately protective front seats.”  The agency “can take most of the requested steps on its own, without time-consuming rulemaking, and should do so promptly,” the petition notes. 

#     #     #

CAS Petitions NHTSA to Warn Parents of Seat Back Failure Dangers to Children in Rear Seats

CAS Letter to NHTSA Administrator Rosekind

Collapsing Seat Backs and Injury Causation: A Timeline of Knowledge

Friedman Study: Child Fatalities in Rear Impacts

NHTSA Seat Back Rulemaking History

Clarence Ditlow, Executive Director, Center for Auto Safety, 1825 Connecticut Ave NW #330, Washington DC 20009

For information on Who was responsible, see http://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/CFCV-MonthlyReport-March2014.pdf

and http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/opinion/weak-oversight-deadly-cars.html

We need all engineers and federal officials concerned with public health to take the professional Hippocratic Oath “Do No Harm”.

Lou

Safety is not a priority 002

Safety: I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Vision Zero Petition Book with 20,000+ signatures now posted on Federal Register for Underride Rule

AnnaLeah and Mary, Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety,

Regulations.gov - Your Voice in Federal Decision Making

The call for Vision Zero nationally and specifically to be applied to DOT Rulemaking Policy for Underride Regulations as well as countless other traffic safety measures is now posted on the Federal Register: NPRM Upgrade Underide: Vision Zero Book by Marianne Karth for President Obama

LOGO AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety

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

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

Today, I watched some of  the live streaming of NHTSA’s conference, Driving Behavioral Change in Traffic Safety. As I listened to the various speakers and panel discussions, many thoughts and questions went through my mind. . .

Driving Behavioral Change in Traffic Safety Conference being Livestreamed at DOT

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

  • It will take all of us working together.
  • It will take facing the problem head on.
  • It will take acknowledging that there is a problem–and the full extent of it.
  • It will take recognizing that we are all a part of the problem.
  • It will take talking about it openly.
  • It will take understanding that crash deaths are not just an expected risk of driving on the road but are to a great extent preventable.
  • It will take accepting that risky driver behavior is not a personal right but a violation of other people’s right to be protected from reckless behavior.
  • It will take calling risky driver behavior what it is: RECKLESS.
  • It will take classifying a vehicle as a weapon and reckless driver behavior as an act of violence.
  • It will take enacting laws that prohibit a full range of reckless driving behaviors and then enforcing those laws with stiff consequences.
  • It will take understanding  that changing personal behavior is not the only way to reduce crash deaths and learning how to work with others who are addressing vehicle and environment risk factors.
  • It will take recognizing and embracing that preventing crashes from happening is not the only thing which needs to be addressed but that we can also reduce the severity of those crashes so that death is not the end result.
  • It will take manufacturers and employers and consumers and law enforcement and engineers and countless others to recognize how their individual decisions and actions contribute to not just crash statistics but to the unnatural ending (or saving) of life for people with names and faces and hopes and dreams and other people who care about them whose lives will be changed forever.
  • And it will take us all realizing that someday soon one of those names and faces could very well be ourselves or someone whom we love and will miss dreadfully. And that it could have been prevented.
  • It will take listening to the hundreds of thousands of families who have lost loved ones due to traffic crashes and apologizing, as a society, for letting them down–for not addressing it as the priority it should be. Bringing healing and hope that their frustrations and anger and grief are being heard and that their petitions for change are being taken seriously. Giving them a voice and channeling their zealous energy in positive ways which can in fact be a powerful tool for changing the future and moving us more surely Toward Zero Crash Deaths, Serious Injuries, and Fear of Traffic.
  • And beyond that, I firmly believe that, in order to move as a nation Toward a Vision of Zero Crash Deaths, it will take take a commitment to a National Vision Zero Goal and a coordinated endeavor of government, private industry, workers of every skill imaginable, and informed citizens. Anything short of this will be disjointed and less effective, which translates into — not simply unmet project goals but — people dying. It is not an impossible dream but it will require sacrifice and will be well worth the effort.

I kept writing down  ideas as they came to me during the various presentations and discussions and emailing them to the event coordinator. I did not hear my questions being addressed. But I am going to record them (in their raw intensity) here:

After losing my 2 youngest daughters, AnnaLeah (17) and Mary (13), due to a truck underride crash on May 4, 2013, I have been calling for a National Vision Zero Goal (along with over 20,000 Vision Zero Petition Signers):
Rebekah photo of crash
I am asking President Obama to:
  1. Set a National Vision Zero Goal (it is not listed as an issue on whitehouse.gov)
  2. Establish a White House Vision Zero Task Force
  3. Sign a Vision Zero Executive Order to authorize Vision Zero Rulemaking Policies
These are the questions which I have been sending to the event coordinator today:
  1. What are you doing to address the reality (which I learned in 1979 at the University of Michigan/School of Public Health,Health Behavior/Health Education) that fear is not always the best motivator? The attitude that “it will never happen to me”?
  2. Will the addition of more and more technology for collision avoidance give people the false idea that they don’t have to pay as much attention, i.e., counteract attempts to focus on driver behavior?
  3. How many lives would be saved if the 319 proven safety standards/laws which are not being adopted by states were mandated? http://annaleahmary.com/2016/01/why-on-earth-dont-we-establish-national-traffic-safety-standards-require-them-to-be-adopted-by-states/
  4. Drunk driving is one thing.  What about stopping people for texting or using their cell phones while driving?
  5. What about drowsy driving? Are there ways for it to become something which can be included in traffic enforcement? DWF Driving While Fatigued.
  7. How about an equivalent of Volunteer Firefighters? Can we train and deputize citizens to pull over unsafe drivers?
  8. For motor vehicle-related injury prevention. What about Second Collision problems? Like auto safety defects or truck UNDERRIDE deaths and serious injuries? Is the Task Force addressing this? What role could they play to prevent these preventable deaths?
  9. Not only does traffic safety involve the driver, vehicles, and environmental factors, but it does so in three phases–pre-event, event, and post event. Every one of these factors can be addressed to prevent or reduce the severity of the event. Remember Dr. Haddon’s matrix which Adrian Lund (IIHS) shared (similar to this one, Haddon Matrix) (also, see Care for Crash Victims): 
  10. How about requiring driver training programs to set up volunteer coaches or mentors for drivers with permits to aid parents in this vital life skill development?
  11. How about change DMV written tests for driver license and renewal? Ours in NC was FULL of numbers and statistics regarding DUI consequences . How about make it more graphic and stick-in-the mind friendly? I spent my time preparing for it by memorizing numbers.

  12. Take a tip from 1954 and Jimmy Stewart. Start training at elementary level only update it to use the technology that the youngest generation is immersed in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj9Iuxw2_wk

    How about design electronic games to raise awareness and teach safe driving behavior?
  13. How about clear up the confusion about whether Marijuana IMPAIRS driving?

  14.  How can we find ways to remind people that driving choices can lead to forever results? Find ways to touch not only the head but the heart.

    Never Come Back Once a loved

    one becomes a motor vehicle crash statistic, it will be too late–they will

    Towards Zero; There’s no one someone won’t miss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsyvrkEjoXI

  15.  How about using interactive learning methods of raising awareness?

    When I interviewed my 9 and 6 year-old grandchildren about how they thought underride guards could be stronger, they showed amazing awareness and creativity.
    Put people in situations where they are faced with thinking through the results of driving choices and also purchase of safe equipment and increase their demand for affordable safer vehicles from the automotive industry.

    https://annaleahmary.com/2015/11/our-grandma-wants-to-make-the-roads-safer-remembering-2-girls-in-the-aftermath-of-a-truck-crash/

    In group settings. In game apps. Make use of church youth groups to address these issues.
  16.  REQUIRE phone manufacturers to advertise safe driving behavior

  17. Why not set a National Vision Zero Goal to raise American awareness?

    People need to know that Death by Motor Vehicle is a preventable problem but it will take us all to work together to defeat it.
    They should be just as concerned, if not more, about the Violent Weapon of Destruction that is put into the hands of drivers everywhere 24/7.
  18. What about the use of more electronic road signs to alert drivers to upcoming traffic situations? And more things like rumble strips?

  19. People need to know that they are not in control so that their driving behavior reflects that knowledge.

    Use Cass Sunstein’s idea for example for phone usage. Default Setting. Turned off when in a moving vehicle. Not sure if that is technologically possible but something like that.
    Default RULE/traffic law. If caught texting or talking on cell phone while driving, get a point on record.
    Set up a  Consequence. Have their TICKET posted on social media.
    Loss of Reputation/Respect.
    ILLUSION OF CONTROL
  20. Make salient and visible  How can we give visibility nationally and locally the extent of the Traffic Safety Problem?
  21. Electronic signs on highway to alert drivers to traffic conditions
  22. Choice architecture: use existing social groups to create localized indication of traffic safety norms, church youth groups, MOPS groups, Preschool parent groups LET them hear from families of crash victims. Give these people visibility.
  23. Savings of not losing a loved one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsyvrkEjoXI
  24. Can we get TRAFFIC SAFETY as an issue on whitehouse.gov?
  25. Can we get President Obama to set a Vision Zero Goal, establish a White House Vision Zero Task Force which would include an interdisciplinary group, and sign a Vision Zero Executive Order?
  26. Have we made Vision Zero a National Priority? http://annaleahmary.com/2016/03/tell-obama-you-are-standing-with-us-in-this-family-continues-fight-for-trucking-safety/
  27. Why not set up Community Vision Zero Activist Groups?
  28. Are there strategies raising awareness about MICROSLEEP?

  29. MAKE IT A NATIONAL Vision Zero Goal!!!! Apply the resources.

  30. Put a face to the problem!!!!! Let the victims and their families be honored and remembered on a regular basis. We are ALL vulnerable.
    Create a National Vision Zero Goal using social media and modern technology.
    I know someone who could design immersive reality simulation models to show immediate negative consequences of reckless driver behavior choices (as suggested by Dr. David Abrams).
  31. Could this group of people gathered together in Washington at this conference please, please, please call upon President Obama to set a National Vision Zero Goal, establish a Vision Zero Task Force, and sign a Vision Zero Executive Order? If he does not do those things, who else will lead us in such a United Effort? Without such a vision, the people will indeed perish.

Crash Fatality Causes & Solutions: Not Either/Or, but Both/And

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

When we met with DOT policy officials on March 4, we found that we were in agreement on a very important perspective regarding crash fatality causes and solutions: What we need to be addressing is not one thing or another, e.g., improve underride guards OR develop crash avoidance technology. No, no, no. It is not a case of either/or. It is definitely both/and!

Our crash was not an accident and many factors were involved in what came about that day. They all need to be addressed.

My heart is broken and anything less than genuine pursuit of every avenue for safety advancement only serves to deepen the pain.

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AnnaLeah, Mary, Marcus, and Vanessa, Spring 2012, Grafa Park, Midland, Texas

Weeping Willow Memories: Mary and AnnaLeah enjoyed a spring-like day in the winter of 2009 at Grafa Park in Midland, Texas. The branches of a weeping willow tree became the setting for the unleashing of their imagination. (Preserved for us by their sister, Susanna Karth)