Now I better understand why my dad had my mom’s dresser still full of her things in his bedroom when we emptied his house at age 90 — 24 years after she was gone. I cling to the things which are full of memories, full of them. Being a pack rat doesn’t help.
Today I found a moving box labeled by Mary: Mary’s Books, 4/27/13. Exactly one week before our crash on 5/4/2013. She loved to read. When she was little, she loved to be read to. She loved a good story. She loved to laugh.
In what universe, did we decide to put a price on a person’s life and use that to determine whether we should bother to save them — to prevent an unnatural death which would cut short their existence? If it is possible to do something which would give them a chance to live out their earthly life , then why on earth would we decide that it would cost too much? Too much?! For whom?!
I have been discouraged lately about the state of affairs in our country related to vehicle violence and more specifically, for a variety of reasons, have been missing AnnaLeah and Mary more than usual. So, when I read the recent email from Lou Lombardo (whom I was privileged to visit with during the Ralph Nader Conference), I was wondering who listens to our Vision Zero message anyway.
But then I clicked on the link at the end and read the words of a song which made me smile, The Country’s In the Very Best of Hands! (L’il Abner). It reminded me of The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band— a Disney movie which Mary and AnnaLeah enjoyed watching:
The Bower Family Band petitions the Democratic National Committee to sing a Grover Cleveland rally song at the 1888 convention, but decide instead to move to the Dakota territory on the urging of a suitor to their eldest daughter. There, Grampa Bower causes trouble with his pro-Cleveland ideas, as Dakota residents are overwhelmingly Republican, and hope to get the territory admitted as two states (North and South Dakota) rather than one in order to send four Republican senators to Washington. Cleveland opposed this plan, refusing to refer to Congress the plan to organize the Dakotas this way. When Cleveland wins the popular vote, but Harrison the presidency due to the electoral college votes, the Dakotans (particularly the feuding young couple) resolve to live together in peace, and Cleveland grants statehood to the two Dakotas before he leaves office (along with two Democrat-voting states, evening the gains for both parties).
Maybe, despite the dismal outlook of highway safety and this election year, there is hope. Perhaps all of our efforts will truly make a difference in this life for someone. And, someday, there will be no more dying, no more tears, no more vulnerable victims — only everlasting joy.
(Photos: Courtesy of The Karths/Double K Photography)
Dear Care For Crash Victims Community Members:
The Problem
Nader has said: “This country has far more problems than it deserves and far more solutions than it applies.”
The U.S.A. continues to face vehicle violence problems resulting in:
* 100 deaths per day – and rising
* 400 serious injuries per day
* Losses valued by DOT at about $2 Billion per day
The U.S. has more safety technology available than ever before in history.
And yet the Obama Administration has failed for nearly 8 years – and nearly 250,000 deaths due to vehicle violence – to set a national Vision Zero Goal. For example, Volvo has set such a goal for zero deaths in or by a new Volvo by the year 2020. Why?
Where is the hope and change for the better, that President Obama promised us?
Happy People
My recent article on the DOT NHTSA Revolving Door brought me the attached photo of DOT NHTSA and Auto Company Executives. Lots of smiles as the Obama Administration comes to a close.
But not enough people know about the specific problems of vehicle violence and how government has failed to protect them.
Unhappy People
What percentage of the American people think that they can trust their government to do the right thing?
The Pew Poll reports:
The public’s trust in the federal government continues to be at historically low levels. Only 19% of Americans today say they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” (3%) or “most of the time” (16%). See http://www.people-press.org/2015/11/23/1-trust-in-government-1958-2015/
Tort Law or Torts, I learned, is the law of compensation for wrongful inflicted injuries and was in existence long before it was ever practiced here in our country. And tort law has three purposes:
Compensation
Disclosure
Deterrence (therefore making us safer)
I also found out about the assault on tort law or “tort reform” which has convinced the American public that a system of law had somehow broken and needed to be fixed. This battle for the mind has fostered an attitude of cynicism and skepticism in jurors with the subtle messages about (fill in the blank, answers at the bottom of the post):
Frivolous ________________
Runaway ________________ and
Greedy (or ambulance-chasing) __________________
But actually, the result has been that those who have been wrongfully injured find themselves less compensated and all of us are less safe because it diminishes accountability.
In fact, once a person becomes a victim, tort reform makes them a victim all over again–this time of a system that was meant to help the victim but has been sabotaged to leave them even more vulnerable. And I can give you two examples of this:
During the lunch break, I had the opportunity to speak with a member of the audience who was there because, as a nurse midwife, she was interested in what would be said about medical malpractice. She said that what was being presented made a lot of sense. But she then told me about what she sees as victims of the focus on medical malpractice: pregnant women who are too often forced into C-sections (or other medical procedures not of their choosing) due to fear on the part of doctors of being sued. Yet, this is a case, perhaps, of the kind of PR which was mentioned; we have been led to believe that frivolous lawsuits in this area have skyrocketed and resulted in things getting out of control. Is this so?
The second example is out of my own experience. One of the presenters mentioned that too often victims cannot find trial lawyers who are willing to take their case — on a contingency basis — due to the risk of not being able to recover their costs and the concern about whether the case will be successful or be limited by caps on compensation. We have tried multiple times to get someone to take our case without success. By this time, statutes of limitations pose an additional barrier. The end result is just like I was told this week: compensation to victims is barred; disclosure is prevented; and deterrence of future actions is limited. In our case, tort reform, thereby, could have contributed to a situation which allows ongoing opposition and resistance by the industry and regulators to doing whatever it would take to end Preventable Death by Truck Underride. On May 4, 2013, I hit Double Jeopardy! A victim twice over. What will it take to break through this travesty?
Folks, this is a problem. Could it be that tort reform is just one more of the culprits that bear the responsibility for the circumstances that led to my daughters’ deaths in a truck underride crash? If the many layers of leadership in the trucking industry, government regulation, and law enforcement had been held more accountable and liable in the past, might there have been a greater likelihood that AnnaLeah and Mary would still be alive today?
I’ll probably never know for sure. But I can venture a calculated guess. And I can do whatever is within my power to make sure that things get better for someone else.
Here’s to the realization of my dream of a nationwide network of mobilized traffic safety community advocacy groups to educate and empower citizens to take back their right to a day in court as one more strategy to help us realize the vision of moving toward zero preventable deaths and serious injuries from vehicle violence.
(And just in case you need the answers to the quiz: lawsuits, verdicts, and lawyers.)
Instead of like this:
Truck Underride Timeline by IIHS at the Underride Roundtable, May 5, 2016
As always, I am after the truth of the matter and I hope that you are, as well.
Speak up for victims like Jessica, Mary, and AnnaLeah. Let our government regulators and trucking industry leaders know that we want them to act now to save lives.
U.S. and Canadian safety advocates are calling for an end to preventable truck underride tragedies. Hundreds of people die every year when pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and passenger vehicles go underneath trucks.
It can happen to anyone — even if their car has a 5-Star Crash Rating. It can happen anywhere and at any time. It happened to AnnaLeah (17) & Mary Karth (13) when their car went under the rear of a semi-trailer on May 4, 2013, in Georgia. And it happened to Jessica Holman-Price (21) when she went under the side of a truck as a pedestrian on December 19, 2005, in Canada.
We don’t want it to happen to you or to someone you love. That is why we are calling for government regulators to act now to make trucks safer. We know that the technology is available to make this happen.
Since underride fatalities are a universal problem, cross-border regulatory cooperation between the U.S. and Canada is essential. Duplication of efforts is not efficient, whereas cooperative efforts will move North America more quickly toward zero preventable truck underride deaths.
So far, the work on improving truck underride protection has taken place in silos. It is past time to break the walls of silos and the silence which ensues, to stop working behind closed doors, and to bring the discussion to the light so that we are all working together with open and transparent communication.
Therefore, in light of the tragic and unnecessary countless loss of lives which delays in underride prevention have already cost, as well as the continued tragic and preventable loss of life sure to occur if decisive action is not taken now, we are hereby petitioning the governments of the U.S. and Canada to immediately take the following step in order to bring about comprehensive underride protection:
Issue a memorandum to establish a Joint/International Underride Task Force to actively address this global public health problem.
Speak up for victims like Jessica, Mary, and AnnaLeah. Let our government regulators and trucking industry leaders know that we want them to act now to save lives.
This article asks some of the same questions which I have asked before. Namely, don’t phone manufacturers bear some responsibility to make them harder to use when driving?
Rebekah was so excited when John asked her to marry him. Shortly after she became engaged, Rebekah came home from college for a Christmas visit. Her youngest sister, Mary, baked a special multi-layered engagement cake to surprise Rebekah when she arrived from the airport.
While Rebekah was home, we talked about plans for her wedding on May 11, 2013, and practiced making cake pops for their reception. Rebekah asked me to sew her wedding dress, so we also went shopping with her sister, Susanna, to pick out material.
Over the coming months, in the midst of finishing her master’s degree, Rebekah made plans for her wedding in Texas. And I sewed her wedding dress at home in North Carolina. Mary (13) had fun serving as the modelfor her sister’s dress.
I made a small dress out of the leftover material in case Rebekah and John ever had a little girl who might like to play dress-up in a replica of her mother’s wedding dress. And Rebekah’s other sister, AnnaLeah (17), sewed another little bridal dress for their niece, Vanessa, to give her as a birthday present during our trip back to Texas for four college graduations, a wedding, and two birthdays (including AnnaLeah’s 18th birthday on May 15 and Vanessa’s 4th birthday on May 28). Although AnnaLeah was very creative and had sewn many things by hand, this was her first sewing project using a sewing machine, and I was so proud of her.
On May 4, 2013, AnnaLeah, Mary, their brother Caleb, and I started out on a road trip from our home in North Carolina to head for the celebrations in Arlington, Texas. While in Georgia, we came upon slowed traffic for a crash up ahead and a truck hit us in such a way that we were spun around and sent backward into the rear of another truck. The back of the car went under the truck when the underride guard failed to withstand the collision.
AnnaLeah and Mary were in the back seat and died as a result – AnnaLeah at the scene of the crash and Mary a few days later. They never got to see their sister get married. In fact, the family was in much confusion and Rebekah was faced with what to do – deciding that it would honor her sisters to continue with the wedding which she knew her sisters had been looking forward to.
The wedding dress had been damaged in the crash and Rebekah’s church stepped up to get her a new dress to wear. In fact, our family experienced the love and support of being surrounded and supported by many people from around the country. And so the wedding went forward with joy in the midst of sorrow.
In the aftermath, the family has had a long journey of recovering from our loss. Each of us have handled it in our own way. The wedding dress which I had lovingly sewn for my daughter’s special day never served its intended purpose. I had it cleaned and carefully stored. But, for Rebekah, it naturally does not bring to mind cherished memories.
So, when my daughter-in-law suggested that we could donate it to Allison’s Angel Gowns to be re-purposed into bereavement gowns for babies who never go home from the hospital, I cried but immediately felt at peace. At last, the dress would have a purpose in bringing comfort to others who had joined us in our pain of saying good-bye to precious ones gone too soon.
Note: I wrote this yesterday after finding out that Allison’s Angel Gowns would accept Rebekah’s first wedding dress. This is what my daughter-in-law found out for me:
So, I found a few different places that turn wedding gowns into angel gowns for babies who don’t make it out of the hospital. All of the ones that I saw have had a big influx of dresses and weren’t accepting dresses. I emailed them and explained why the dress means so much and the situation that makes getting rid of it important. I got a response back from Allison’s Angel Gowns. Not only would they love to take the dress and turn it into beautiful baby gowns to bless other families, but they would like us to write a letter telling the story so that it can stay with the dress as the dress is passed on to the seamstresses.
After reading what I wrote, I realized that my verb tenses weren’t consistent. But I decided to leave it that way because that is how it is for me — the past, present, and future are all tangled together in my head and heart.
And when I asked Rebekah if it was okay for me to share this story, she said, “You can share. Glad it will serve a purpose.”
Our crash involved a trucker going too fast for the traffic conditions but not necessarily over the speed limit. In fact, there were many factors involved in our tragic outcome. It makes me wonder what all leads to speeding trucks, as well as speeding trucks getting involved in deadly crashes. What is the root of the problem here and what is the best way to address it?
President Obama wrote an Op-Ed about the role of government in overseeing the development of self-driving cars. I find one of his comments very interesting:
There are always those who argue that government should stay out of free enterprise entirely, but I think most Americans would agree we still need rules to keep our air and water clean, and our food and medicine safe. That’s the general principle here. What’s more, the quickest way to slam the brakes on innovation is for the public to lose confidence in the safety of new technologies.
Both government and industry have a responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen. And make no mistake: If a self-driving car isn’t safe, we have the authority to pull it off the road. We won’t hesitate to protect the American public’s safety.
Well then, President Obama, I would like to discuss with you the unsafe trucks driving on the road which, at any moment, could kill an unsuspecting member of the American public — as one did my two daughters, Mary and AnnaLeah — due to inadequate underride protection. Are you ready to exercise that authority and take decisive action?
Set a National Vision Zero Goal.
Establish a White House Vision Zero Task Force.
Sign a Vision Zero Executive Order to authorize the Department of Transportation to adopt a Vision Zero Rulemaking Policy.
And then appoint a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman to advocate for the victims of vehicle violence, to protect the American public, and to mobilize citizens to act on their own behalf through a nationwide network of Vision Zero/Traffic Safety Community Action Groups.
Let’s have a serious talk about this. I’ll be in DC next week. Give me a call.
Recent (and past) events were spurring me to write this post this morning based on frustration with the way that progress is too often blocked and unnecessarily delayed on safety efforts when the people and organizations who could do something to prevent deaths tragically wait for somebody else to act before taking responsibility to move forward themselves.
The result is a Catch 22, chicken & egg dilemma which moves as slow as crystallized honey with the result that countless people die when something could have been done to make sure that they did not meet an untimely end due to Death by Motor Vehicle.
So I appreciated a Tweet by the IIHS which I noticed this morning before I was able to start writing this post:
Family members of crash victims display the glacial pace of truck underride guard improvements. pic.twitter.com/PQMJp0cxsC
I just read a very detailed explanation for why a driver might not react in time to avoid riding under the side of a semi-trailer — one without a side guard I might add. Well, that is all very interesting and we might learn something useful from it.
But, why on earth would we rely on driver behavior (especially in such an unexpected scenario) when the installation of a side guard could so easily save the driver’s life?!
Of course, taking a comprehensive approach to safety makes the most sense –one which makes other factors important as well, including:
