Mary loved Thyme. She ate a lot of it the last year or so. We were going to plant some at our new house the summer of 2013. I went ahead and did it without her and used some today when fixing breaded pork chops. Wish she could have been here to harvest and enjoy it.
I also wish they would have been here to celebrate the Fourth with us. . .
Remembering a day at the beach with AnnaLeah & Mary in the Winter of 2013:
Ralph Nader speaks up about the battle for truck safety, calling for citizens to speak up for safer highways–a matter of life & death.
Read more here & see how you can help: https://blog.nader.org/2015/07/02/enough-stop-more-giant-truck-trailers-on-your-highways/
Contact Information for U.S. Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?OrderBy=state
Contact Information for U.S. House of Representatives: http://www.house.gov/representatives/
See previous posts for Congress contact information:
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Let’s make sure that we are not always pointing our finger at someone else to take the blame for highway safety. Make sure that you are not driving impaired in any way, shape, or form: DISTRACTED, DRUNK, DRUGGED, or DROWSY (DWF)!
And, if you can do something to make trucks safer–whether you are a legislator, a government regulator, a truck driver, a trucking industry executive, or a voting/driving member of this country–do it!
Give the gift of LIFE–help prevent a crash fatality!
Mary loved to give a gift–whether it was her infectious smile, a bouquet of flowers, or an invitation to have some fun!
Remember AnnaLeah and Mary–and all those countless others who have lost their lives on the roads–and give the gift of life.
Two years ago a truck crash killed our two youngest daughters, AnnaLeah (17) and Mary (13).
One year ago, we garnered over 11,000 signatures on a petition asked Secretary Foxx to advance 3 measures to improve factors related to safety on our roads.
We have seen step-by-step progress toward our goals but get concerned when we see signs that a tug of war continues over this life & death battle.
“Two Different THUD Bills Set Up Congressional Showdown on Trucking Issues” http://www.landlinemag.com/Story.aspx?StoryId=29323#.VZUr1_lViko
And while I’m at it, here are some other things going on with truck safety:
Something’s wrong with this picture! When will it end?
Let’s make sure that it is not just about $.
And let’s not just point our finger at someone else to take the blame. Let’s figure out what we can do to end this senseless, tragic heartache happening on our roads. Let’s work together.
Our family (with our youngest three) had moved to North Carolina in October 2012– less than a year before the crash occurred in Georgia on our way to family celebrations in Texas. As a result, my last, and freshest, memories of AnnaLeah and Mary are from our time here. So as I was driving around in Rocky Mount yesterday doing errands, for some reason a memory of Mary from the Spring of 2013 popped into my head.
Jerry and Mary and I had taken a short drive just outside the city to see a horse farm. We had talked about the possibility of Mary taking some horse riding lessons there in the upcoming summer. Only it was Sunday and there was no one there to show us around. We drove into the parking area and spent a few minutes watching some of the horses.
While we were driving, I was mending the frayed cuffs of one of Mary’s sweatshirts–her Grandpa’s from his days singing in a Michigan men’s group, the Singing Grandpas. The shirt had the names of all of his grandchildren embroidered on it. I had had a friend add Mary’s name to the shirt when we lived in Texas–because he had gotten the shirt before she was born–and it quickly became one of her favorites.
I finished mending the shirt before we arrived home and handed it to Mary in the back seat. I will never forget the simple but heartfelt gratefulness she expressed for my rescuing her special shirt. I am glad that I took the time to do it for her.
And I am thankful for the clear memory it gives me of her appreciation of that little act of love and, also, of the way she joyfully lived her short life. It is a reminder to me to live life wisely and fully in the present so that in my future I can truly treasure past moments.
(And I am also glad I had taken photos of Mary with her shirt because it was lost in the crash.)
Mary and her grandpa in Michigan.
(Photo of Mary’s shirt taken on 3/13/2013)
There were so many factors that caused our road journey on May 4, 2013, to end in 2 crash fatalities. I have written about that before: https://annaleahmary.com/2014/07/our-crash-was-not-an-accident/ .
In our quest to help prevent countless more lives from being foreverchanged, we have come up against the brick wall of attitudes which appear callous and too-accepting of crash deaths as an inevitable outcome of highway travel.
It is refreshing, therefore, to hear others who hold a different outlook and are bold to pursue it.
“Crocodile Tears for Heavy Vehicle Safety,” by George Rechnitzer, GR Crocodile_Tears for Heavy Vehicle Safety 2004
George starts out by saying, “. . .a front page feature caught my attention regarding: ‘community outrage’ following Australia’s well known crocodile man Steve Irwin holding his one-month old baby in one hand and feeding a large crocodile with the other. His response at such apparent community outrage and concern over the safety of his infant was that he was more worried about the safety of the baby travelling in a car than being eaten by a croc. I thought he had a point. . .
“Thinking of crocodiles, it also reminded me, once again, in this new year, of ‘crocodile tears’ being shed in some quarters over road safety, but little being done about conspicuous and well known causes of hundreds of fatalities and serious injuries on Australia’s roads every year–that is, crashes involving heavy vehicles and other road users.
“The biggest obstacle to improved heavy vehicle safety is a system that encourages and enables bureaucrats, regulators, and safety exponents, to hide behind mindless cost-benefit calculations to avoid requiring known and effective design improvements to heavy vehicles*. Yes, cost-benefit analysis indeed is the main culprit. In this regard, it is my opinion that Sweden has got it right, with their Vision Zero philosophy [13], which states that, ‘Life and health can never be exchanged for other benefits within the society.'”
George goes on to say, “So what cost-benefit analyses really means, is that when no action is taken to improve the design of heavy vehicles, people’s lives are being traded for reduced transport costs.”
“The Swedish Approach to Road Safety: The Accident is Not the Major Problem,” by Sarah Goodyear, http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/11/the-swedish-approach-to-road-safety-the-accident-is-not-the-major-problem/382995/“The largest resistance we got to the idea about Vision Zero was from those political economists that have built their whole career on cost-benefit analysis. For them it is very difficult to buy into ‘zero.’ Because in their economic models, you have costs and benefits, and although they might not say it explicitly, the idea is that there is an optimum number of fatalities. A price that you have to pay for transport.
‘The problem is the whole transport sector is quite influenced by the whole utilitarianist mindset. Now we’re bringing in the idea that it’s not acceptable to be killed or seriously injured when you’re transporting. It’s more a civil-rights thing that you bring into the policy.”
(* My note: For example, improved rear underride guards, side underride guards, front underride guards. mwkarth)
I am able to be an advocate — a vocal spokesperson on behalf of truck underride victims — only because our car was hit by a truck which spun us and then hit us again and thereby pushed us backwards into the rear of another truck.
The underride guard on the back of the truck did not withstand the crash (which is, in fact, the norm because current federal standards are ineffective) and neither did my two daughters, AnnaLeah (17) and Mary (13), who were in the back seat of the car which went underneath the truck. AnnaLeah died at the scene and Mary survived with horrific injuries–dying a few days later.
After finding out that it has already been proven that these underride guards are weak and ineffective, I have been thrust into the role of speaking up for improving the standards to provide stronger more effective underride protection to those who share the road with large trucks.
After we were joined, in the Spring of 2014, by over 11,000 people to petition Secretary Foxx to — among other things — improve the rule for underride guards, our petition was granted and a notice of rule making was issued for tractor-trailers:
We are waiting for this rule making to move forward to the next stage when we will be able to make Public Comments. This will be an important step and we will put out a call for support for this life-saving measure.
Recently, on June 12, 2015, the groundwork for a separate rule making on single unit trucks (currently not required to have underride guards, but responsible for countless crash fatalities) was sent to the Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs (Office of Management & Budget) for review:
Many advocates have worked hard before us to bring it to this point and together we need to continue forward until we have reached the goal of The Best Possible Protection.
Last evening, Jerry and I had a Skype phone call with Dr. George Rechnitzer from Melbourne, Australia. We had been corresponding with him via email for a few days, and he finally decided that we needed to have an actual conversation.
We had discovered the day before that George had done research twenty years ago to prove that more effective underride guards could be designed, built, and crash tested on actual trucks–at 75 km/h or 46 m/h.
George, a professor and researcher from Australia who has done research with Transport and Road Safety Research (TARS) authored this 315-page dissertation in 2003: The Improvement of Heavy Vehicle Design To Reduce Injury Risk In Crashes With Other Road Users https://www.filesanywhere.com/fs/v.aspx?v=8b6a69875e67767ca2a4
Here is George’s extensive resume–outlining his vast experience with safety research: GRA CV of Dr George Rechnitzer – June 2015
What impact could this have upon the future of underride prevention strategies and solutions?
(photo of our amazingly expressive Mary letting the world know her displeasure)
For far too long, the focus has disproportionately been on crash prevention solutions –at the expense of seriously examining the potential for innovative underride prevention solutions to prevent death when a truck crash actually does occur.
I just became aware of a research paper published in 1996 which clearly showed the potential for more effective underride protection: DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF ENERGY ABSORBING REAR UNDERRUN BARRIERS FOR HEAVY VEHICLES by George Rechnitzer http://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=477219 (presented at the 1996 International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles in Melbourne, Australia, which is sponsored by NHTSA).
Furthermore, George Rechnitzer, a professor and researcher from Australia who has done research with Transport and Road Safety Research (TARS) authored this dissertation in 2003: The Improvement of Heavy Vehicle Design To Reduce Injury Risk In Crashes With Other Road Users https://www.filesanywhere.com/fs/v.aspx? (2003)v=8b6a69875e67767ca2a4
Please take note of the insight into truck crash fatalities which he describes in the Introduction (pp. 9-10):
“The conspicuous slow progress in reducing well-known and solvable hazards, is well illustrated by crashes involving heavy vehicles. Problems with heavy vehicle design
have been documented for decades, as illustrated by this 1928 Times newspaper report
(Times, 1928):
“‘Dr F.J Waldo, the senior Coroner for London, stated yesterday that
during the past year he had held 63 inquiries into deaths due to road
accidents. Deaths were caused in 20 cases by lorries or commercial vans –
without side life guards which are compulsory on motor omnibuses. Nine
deaths were caused by private motor vehicles and eight by motor
omnibuses. Pedal cycles caused eight largely on account of skidding and
the fixture of a wheel in the grove of the tramlines. There were also six
deaths by horse vehicles, five by taxicabs, four by steam lorries two by
charabancs and one by fire engine. One sixth of the number occurred
among children and young people in the city.’
“Since that time, heavy vehicle design has not improved significantly in regard to
reducing their harm potential in crashes with other road users. In Australia, heavy
vehicle crashes contributed around 18% of road deaths overall, representing in the 10
years 1983 to 1993 around 4000 fatalities and 17000 seriously injured. Most at risk are
the “other road users” making up 80% of these fatalities.
“This thesis’ findings, based on the author’s extensive in-depth crash investigations and
literature review, identify that the lack of compatibility, and aggressiveness of heavy
vehicle design is a major causal factor leading to the over-representation of heavy
vehicles in serious injury and fatal crashes. These findings counter the commonly held
notions maintaining that the main problem is the mass of the heavy vehicle – a factor
that is not readily amenable to change. Importantly, the study clearly identified that
design changes to heavy vehicles can be effective in reducing the injury risk to other
road users.
“This body of the thesis presents the author’s work on the development of applied
countermeasures involving the design, and crash testing of effective rear underrun
barriers, both rigid and energy absorbing. The energy absorbing system developed is
innovative as it uses a fibreglass tube as the crushable medium contained with two
concertinaing steel tubes. The Research provides the basis for the development of new
performance criteria for effective rear underrun barriers catering for centred and offset impacts. At the time this work on the new system was being developed, it was the first of its type (to the author’s knowledge) in the world.
“The thesis concludes with presenting the important concept that crash protection for
occupants is a function of the nature of the interface between the impacting vehicles
and /or the person. This hypothesis provides an alternate perspective on what is feasible
in occupant protection in severe impact scenarios. It clearly shows that contrary to a
common view in road safety, vehicle mass per se is not the major determinate of injury
outcomes. Indeed this thesis demonstrates that injury protection is feasible against high mass vehicles be they trucks, trams or trains, by appropriate design of the interface between impacting objects.”
Here are crash tests of the underride prevention protection designed by George Rechnitzer: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLsx40j16tnkR8qrxDY9IVQ
Here are additional research papers published by George Rechnitzer (in conjunction with other researchers):
Here’s a photo of AnnaLeah in 1996 — when much of this research was available but apparently largely ignored — and Mary was a twinkle in her daddy’s eye.
So many lives could have been saved. If only. . . And why has this unconscionable* situation been allowed to go on for so long?! Enough is enough!
* excessive, unreasonable, unwarranted, uncalled for, unfair, inordinate, immoderate, undue, inexcusable, unforgivable, unnecessary, needless; informal over the top http://tinyurl.com/qgdhadv
You might be enlightened by the history of federal rulemaking on underride guards (found in the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s testimony in May 2009, in which they call for tougher underride guard standards) http://tinyurl.com/phlaqon (pasted below):
The history of Federal rulemaking on truck underride guards:
** And how many deaths due to underride crashes are underreported? For example, ours was listed on FARS (NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System) as “Passenger Compartment Intrusion Unknown.”
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has been relentlessly drawing attention to this issue for some time now, including this video:
IIHS Status Reports with articles on underride guards:
The other day, when I was reading my Bible (I don’t remember the passage or why it made me think this), the thought struck me that the Father knew the pain of knowing that His Son Jesus would never walk the earth again in the same way.
Oh, yes, He is alive forevermore and being with Him in Paradise to Infinity & Beyond forevermore will be amazing. But it will not ever be the same as it was when Jesus was walking on this earth–God & Man in One.
That thought somehow brought me comfort in knowing that the Father understands my pain in knowing that AnnaLeah and Mary will never walk this earth again with us in the same way.
And then, just this morning, I looked up Andrew Peterson’s song, After the Last Tear Falls, and as he introduced the song, he talked about how God is “familiar with our sorrow.” He sees the brokenness in our world. He cares. And in the midst of all this grief, He has also given us beauty to treasure. And there is Love.
Real pain. Real peace. https://annaleahmary.com/2015/03/real-pain-real-peace/
