Tag Archives: injustice

“Money At Root of Takata’s Tragic History”

Safety Advocacy, , , ,

Talking about SAFETY becomes meaningless when no one really values human life over making a profit. When will we get that and say that we have had enough?

Latest email from Lou Lombardo:

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

NY Times publishes an excellent article on victims of vehicle violence due to air bag defects known for more than a decade.

“In the late 1990s, General Motors got an unexpected and enticing offer. A little-known Japanese supplier, Takata, had designed a much cheaper automotive airbag.

G.M. turned to its airbag supplier — the Swedish-American company Autoliv — and asked it to match the cheaper design or risk losing the automaker’s business, according to Linda Rink, who was a senior scientist at Autoliv assigned to the G.M. account at the time.

But when Autoliv’s scientists studied the Takata airbag, they found that it relied on a dangerously volatile compound in its inflater, a critical part that causes the airbag to expand.

“We just said, ‘No, we can’t do it. We’re not going to use it,’” said Robert Taylor, Autoliv’s head chemist until 2010.

Today, that compound is at the heart of the largest automotive safety recall in history. At least 14 people have been killed and more than 100 have been injured by faulty inflaters made by Takata. More than 100 million of its airbags have been installed in cars in the United States by General Motors and 16 other automakers.

Details of G.M.’s decision-making process almost 20 years ago, which has not been reported previously, suggest that a quest for savings of just a few dollars per airbag compromised a critical safety device, resulting in passenger deaths. The findings also indicate that automakers played a far more active role in the prelude to the crisis: Rather than being the victims of Takata’s missteps, automakers pressed their suppliers to put cost before all else.”

NY Times also publishes a useful article on what consumers can and should know and do.

“Defective airbags made by Takata have been tied to at least 14 deaths and more than 100 injuries. The ensuing recall — the largest in automotive history — has turned out to be messy, confusing and frustrating for car owners.”

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/business/takata-airbag-recall-guide.html

These stories need to be widely shared.  They give us all useful information on the root of vehicle violence: money.

Lou
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What can the American people do about this?
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A Terrible Turmoil; An Unresolved Grief

AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safety, , ,

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I have been familiar, for many years now, with the concept of anger being a secondary emotion. Now I get to live it out in a new circumstance: being angry due to the frustrations of the inadequacies of the justice system, regulatory system, enforcement system, et cetera of the trucking industry.

The awareness that these problems are likely to go on and on, and be ignored and belittled and result in evermore senseless deaths, leads to a helpless rage. My daughters died…and why?

For those who do not understand my struggle to move through this grieving into a greater measure of peace, I hope that you never have a reason to get a better grasp of the complexities of this dilemma.

It is not that I do not have faith that they are in a better place; I know that they are. But I daily struggle with the thought that if only somebody had done something differently, then AnnaLeah and Mary would still be here.

And because there are so many, many things that somebody could have done something about along the way that could have resulted in a different outcome, I cannot seem to stop asking the question, “Why didn’t they?!” And, will they ever?

A terrible turmoil.  An unresolved grief.

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(Related post: https://annaleahmary.com/2014/07/our-crash-was-not-an-accident/)

Reckless Driving & Criminal Injustice: One More Grief For Victims to Bear

Truck Safety, , , ,

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MOM (Mad Old Mother) has had it up to here!

I have been frustrated this week with the unveiling of new details which compound the lack of accountability and justice in our truck crash. Basically, once a truck driver is charged with homicide by vehicle, second degree–which is a misdemeanor–there is, too often, no chance that anyone will dig deeper and see if it would be more appropriately charged as first degree–a felony.

The result: a homicide for which no one is held responsible.

Then I read this morning about 7 family members killed in a truck crash on August 15, 2013. The surviving family just found out that, ” there are no charges being filed against this truck driver. The prosecutor’s office said tests showed there were no drugs or alcohol in the Michigan trucker’s system at the time of the fatal crash.”  http://lakeshorepublicmedia.org/140938/

Law Enforcement is in the habit of charging truck drivers with Homicide by Vehicle, Second Degree: A Misdemeanor. Current Laws do not define their actions as Reckless.

End Result: There is no Accountability for their Actions.

Wake up, world! According to Georgia law (where our crash occurred), “reckless driving is defined as driving a vehicle in a manner that shows reckless disregard for the safety of person or property.”

Of course, truck drivers are not charged with reckless driving because they did not set out to intentionally harm someone.

I am not saying that every truck crash fatality is due to reckless driving. But Everybody needs to understand that truck drivers get on the road in a Death Machine.

Drivers need to be properly trained and educated to understand that their Every Action can mean the difference between life & death. Especially Driving While Fatigued! (DWF)

Trucking companies need to schedule and pay their drivers with the full knowledge that they bear a part of the blame if truck drivers are fatigued.
https://annaleahmary.com/2014/07/driver-fatigue-needs-to-be-recognized-as-a-public-health-problem/

Law Enforcement needs to rethink their attitude. State departments of motor vehicle & public safety need to be more vigilant. Truck driver training schools need to train their drivers more thoroughly. County prosecutors need to become educated about the dangers of Driving While Fatigued. Laws need to be changed to reflect this deadly and overlooked reality. And the Trucking Industry needs to acknowledge that putting drivers on the road with Unsafe Equipment makes them Culpable in this Reckless behavior as well.

Injustice in truck crashes needs to stop! http://tinyurl.com/pbfburj and http://tinyurl.com/py6nmtw #trucksafety #nojustice #driverfatiguefelony