Tag Archives: road safety

Underride Guards for Single Unit Trucks: More Comments Posted on the Federal Register

The Public Comments period has closed for the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Underride Protection on Single Unit Trucks. But there were 21 last-minute comments which have now been added to the Federal Register today.

Read them here:  http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;dct=FR+PR+N+O+SR;rpp=10;po=0;D=NHTSA-2015-0070

Newly-listed commenters include:

  1. Seven Hills Engineering (Perry Ponder),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0046
  2. Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, (Scott Schmidt),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0032
  3. Boston Public Health Commission BPHC (Lisa Conley),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0048
  4. Medical Academic and Scientific Community Organization, Inc. MASCO Area Planning and Development (Paul Nelson),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0043
  5. National Transportation Safety Board (Christopher Hart),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0030
  6.  3M Traffic & Safety Security Division (Daniel Hickey),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0022
  7. National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) ( ),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0026
  8. International Brotherhood of Teamsters (Sam Loesche),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0047
  9. ORAFOL Americas Inc. (Chris Gaudette),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0033
  10. Avery Dennison (a leading designer and manufacturer of retroreflective safety materials), http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0037
  11. Transportation Safety Equipment Institute (Christopher Grigorian),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0044
  12. Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA) (Timothy Blubaugh),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0031
  13. General Motors, LLC (Brian Latouf, Director),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0034
  14. Meehan Boyle Black & Bogdanow, PC,  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0041
  15. Texas Cotton Ginners’ Association (Kelley Green),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0038
  16. Southeastern Cotton Ginners Association, Inc. (Dennis Findley),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketBrowser;rpp=25;po=25;dct=PS;D=NHTSA-2015-0070
  17. National Asphalt Pavement Association (Howard Marks),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0036
  18. National Cotton Ginners’ Association (W. Harrison Ashley),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0040
  19. City of Palo Alto-Planning & Community Environment (Joshuah Mello),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0035
  20. National Waste & Recycling Association (John Haudenshield),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0042
  21. Advocates for Highway & Auto Safety (Shaun Kildare),  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0039

Note: Previously-posted Public Comments on this issue can be accessed here:  https://annaleahmary.com/2015/09/truck-industry-engineers-safety-advocates-comment-on-truck-underride-protection-for-motorists-pedestrians-cyclists/

Underride Research Meme

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Donate online now through AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety at:  https://www.fortrucksafety.com/

Australian engineers champion the cause of better truck underride protection

I have spoken and corresponded with George Rechnitzer and Raphael Grzebieta from the Transport and Road Safety (TARS) Research Centre in Sydney. I have also written about their work on underride protection in Australia.

Yesterday, I received from them a copy of their submission to the Public Comments on the Underride Protection of Single Unit Trucks. It is worth a read to find out what is being said in other countries about this vital issue.

NHTSA-Docket-Submission-Grzebieta&Rechnitzer 20 Sept 2015

Here are some highlights:

    • Whilst there are force based design rules, e.g. in USA, Canada and Europe, it is apparent that these rules are inadequate. In our submission we strongly recommend crash test based performance requirements for under-run protection catering for both centred and off-set impact.
      Around 10 people per year on average are killed in Australia in rear under-run crashes resulting in horrific injuries such as decapitation.13 Yet the Regulation Impact Statement (RIS)14 for Underrun Protection publish by the Vehicle Safety Standards Branch at the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government in July 2009 recommended that only front under-run protection be applied to all rigid and articulated trucks. Their conclusion was that the cost-benefit ratio for frontal under-run barriers was greater than one whereas for side and rear under-run the benefit was negative, and hence such protection should not be mandated in an Australian Design Rule. Yet despite these numerous calls for changes over the past three decades, we continue to consistently kill people in such crashes, ignoring the fact that practical low cost effective under-run barriers can be fitted. That is the real unforgivable tragedy.
    • The Vison Zero and Safe System approach adopted by most of the world now and on which Towards Zero Deaths is anchored, boldly moves away from the economic- rationalist ‘cost-benefit’ models (cited in this Docket as still being used by NHTSA), to a humanistic more rational model. The important aspect of a ‘Vision Zero’ principle is that it introduces ‘ethical rules’ to guide the system designers. In other words:
      Life and health can never be exchanged for other benefits within the society
      Whenever someone is killed or seriously injured, necessary steps must be taken to avoid similar events.
    • The Authors of this submission would further point out to those at NHTSA considering how the Rear Impact Protection for Single Unit Trucks should be revised; they should consider placing themselves in the position of the gentleman being asked in the following Australian Government advertisement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsyvrkEjoXI&feature=youtu.be. This advertisement was commissioned and paid for by the Victorian State Government in Australia. We would ask the NHTSA staff responsible for this NPRM which members of their family would they allocate to die that would be acceptable to them and would meet the NHTSA cost benefit ratios being considered?

  • To break the impasse between safety stakeholders and regulators, the Authors of this submission have proposed to incorporate into the revision of the ASNZS3845.2 Australian Road Safety Barrier Systems and Devices a crash test performance requirement for rear under-run barriers for heavy trucks, shortly to be released for public comment. In that standard test requirements for under-ride barriers, called Truck Under-run Barriers (TUBs), has been developed and now included. We hope that this standard will be approved by committee members (members include Australian State Government regulators) and hopefully will be published in early 2016. The tests requirements are in part based on the US Manual for Assessing Road Hardware (MASH) and are presented below.
    We would strongly recommend that NHTSA consider such dynamic performance tests when they deliberate their development of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard for under-ride barriers.
  • TUB’s are designed to prevent a vehicle impacting the rear of a stationary truck under-riding the back of the truck in a manner where the truck structure intrudes into the impacting vehicle’s occupant compartment. The TUB’s main function is to protect the occupants in the impacting vehicle.
  • If the car is designed to such ANCAP and IIHS test protocols with the maximum crashworthiness rating, it is likely that the occupants would not sustain serious injuries in a vehicle impacting such a TUB in the configurations shown in Figure 1.
  • The manufacturers of such TUBs and operators of heavy vehicles are encouraged to explore the application of energy absorbing systems for TUBs including rear air bags mounted on the rear of trucks.

This latter recommendation is relevant to our goal of seeking research money to provide to Dean Sicking whose proposal intends to do just that: explore the application of the SAFER Barrier — an energy absorbying system — to the prevention of truck underride tragedies.

Dean Sicking’s Research Proposal: Development of Trailer Underride Preventive Measures

As soon as their Public Comment is published, I will post a link so that you can read the entire document online for a better understanding of their detailed analysis and proposal for crash test based performance requirements for truck underride protection, for both centred and off-set impact, in contrast to the force based design rules in the current U. S. federal underride standards. The Australian recommendations are based on 30 years of research and experience. (Note: the document in its entirety can be accessed at the top of this post.)

The formal period for submission of Public Comments ends today, September 21, 2015. Upon the request of several groups, I made a request that the period be extended for a short time. That request is under consideration by the agency. All published Public Comments can be found at this site, which is updated as submissions are made:  http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;dct=FR+PR+N+O+SR;rpp=10;po=0;D=NHTSA-2015-0070

George Rechnitzer and Raphael Grzebieta have, unfortunately, faced similar challenges in Australia in trying to persuade the powers that be to make rules which would prevent unnecessary and horrific deaths and injuries. However, they  are encouraged by potential upcoming changes in their country:

To break the impasse between safety stakeholders and regulators, the Authors of this submission have proposed to incorporate into the revision of the ASNZS3845.2 Australian Road Safety Barrier Systems and Devices a crash test performance requirement for rear under-run barriers for heavy trucks, shortly to be released for public comment. In that standard test requirements for under-ride barriers, called Truck Under-run Barriers (TUBs), has been developed and now included. We hope that this standard will be approved by committee members (members include Australian State Government regulators) and hopefully will be published in early 2016.

Other posts on their work include:

We look forward to working with George and Raphael at the Underride Roundtable in the Spring of 2016 and know that our country can greatly benefit from their expertise.

Underride Research Meme

WarsawINFilmPhotographer_MIMemoria_Film_063

Donate toward the  Underride Roundtable & Research Now: https://www.fortrucksafety.com/

Be a part of this timely push to prevent unnecessary deaths.

It could save someone you love.

Face it: Fragmented Approaches To Transportation Safety Don’t Work & Public Health Needs To Be Included

I’m just a little voice in the cry for safer roads. But I will keep saying: Let’s work together to make roads safer for us all. Fragmented approaches don’t seem to be working effectively. And public health research and solutions need to be included in the overall plan.

So now my question is: How can we make this happen and on a large scale?

Is anybody listening?

gertie 2947

These are some of my ideas on this: Establishing a White House Task Force to Protect Travelers From Truck Crashes (1)

Wake up, America: Let’s make our roads safe–together!

https://annaleahmary.com/2014/06/wake-up-america-lets-make-our-roads-safe-together/

Driver Fatigue Needs To Be Recognized As A Public Health Problem

https://annaleahmary.com/2014/07/driver-fatigue-needs-to-be-recognized-as-a-public-health-problem/

Articles on the topic:

Other posts related to this topic: https://annaleahmary.com/tag/driver-fatigue/

If more people drove stick shift cars, would they be more focused on driving & less distracted?

Interesting thought: I just read an article which made me think,  If more people drove stick shift cars, would they be more focused on driving & less distracted?

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/18/cars-manual-transmission-stick-shift-automatic?CMP=edit_2221

Making the transmission automatic took a step out of the driving process, and in exchange, drivers lost touch with the reality of what driving is: shoving a 4,000 lb brick through space with consequences. Driving while doing something else isn’t like letting go of your handlebars while riding a bike. It’s like operating a missile without paying attention to where it’s going.

And while advances in car technology have made vehicles safer, those same advances have also made cars bubbles of infotainment with texting, calls and Facebook at hand. In 2013, 424,000 people were injured in “distracted driving accidents”, up from 421,000 people the year before, and 10% of all drivers under the age of 20 involved in fatal crashes were reported as distracted at the time of the accident.

People who “grew up in the automotive industry or have this passion for vehicles – those are the guys that are driving manuals,” says Petrovski. “Everyone else is more in tune with what’s happening on their iPhones. They’re texting and driving. That’s pretty tough to do on a manual.”

IMG_4460

It is this “conspiracy of silence” surrounding death as it relates to crash fatalities that I would like to shatter.

Some time ago, I wrote a lengthy post. Very lengthy. With the thought in mind that some might not have read to the end, I am reposting it in a different fashion: the end comes first:

“I will be eternally grateful that Mary and AnnaLeah were ready when death knocked at their door on a day when they did not suspect it. I am comforted by a letter we found after their funeral which Mary had written to herself (meant to be read ten years later) a few weeks before our crash. One of the things she said–and which I will never forget–was that she hoped that she was living every day as if it were her last.

The Bible says that, Death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.(Ecclesiastes 7:2) Why is it that Too Often we do not do so? Why do we live and think and act as if we were invincible and invulnerable?

According to Rod Lensch, ‘One good explanation is that death is like the law of gravity. We recognize its reality but rarely think about it. People generally tend to walk into life with hope and confidence but back into death with uncertainty and fear. So the conspiracy of silence surrounding death continues unabated.’

And, it is this “conspiracy of silence” surrounding death as it relates to crash fatalities that I would like to shatter. I would like to shine a spotlight on these countless unnecessary and preventable deaths and call for change–for safety to become much more than a word that is flippantly tossed around without any real and lasting impact.

Let’s be bold and decisive and circumspectly do the sensible and compassionate thing. Let’s do our part–each one of us–to protect those around us from all harm and danger that they might love and laugh and live their life fully.

This morning, as I was taking a shower, I began singing Amy Grant’s song, Thy Word Is A Lamp Unto My Feethttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs-aiQ9NZ1g

Normally, that song is an encouragement to me. But as I got to the phrase, ‘Please be near me to the end,’ I ‘lost it’ as the memory returned of my girls’ abrupt and premature end to their lives. At one and the same time, it was a comfort that He was indeed near them ‘to the end’ and a great sorrow that their ending had to come in such a way and at such a time–so unnecessarily for me to see and bear in my own lifetime, and for them to miss out on so much more of life, not to mention all the lives now bereft of the love and gifts they so freely shared.

It is at such moments that I cry out, ‘May there be an end to Too Often, Too Little, Too Late. And may it come quickly.’”

25 AnnaLeah Jesus Loves Me 052Rebekah photo of crash

Who are no more with photo

You may read the rest of that post here: https://annaleahmary.com/2015/03/too-often-too-little-too-late-a-conspiracy-of-silence/

The “Second Collision” Does Not Have To Be So Prevalent. We can do better at preventing death & horrific injuries.

Michael Lemov, in his book Car Safety Wars, sheds light on what has been responsible for so many deaths from vehicular crashes. The automotive industry has long claimed that “Safety doesn’t sell,” and consequently too-often did not include safety features in their vehicles. As a result, too many people have died from what has come to be known as the “second collision.”

Lemov describes it this way:

“During the first six decades of the twentieth century the American automobile industry seemed wedded to the idea that safe design was not its responsibility. There was no public demand, it was said, for safer automobile design. Nor did the industry seem to think it had much responsibility to inform the public about the risks of vehicle design and the omissions such as lap and shoulder belts.

“In the years before the enactment of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in 1966, better-designed motor vehicles might have saved millions of drivers and passengers from death and injury in what had by then become known as the ‘second collision.’ This is the collision of the driver and passengers with the interior of their own vehicle during a crash.

“The basic physics of the ‘second collision‘ were described by Hippocrates in the fourth century BC when he contrasted the greater severity of wounds inflicted by a sharp penetrating object with the less-serious wounds produced by a blunt weapon. This established that when force is distributed over a larger area (say by safety belts over the shoulders, chest, and pelvis) rather than a small area (the face or head of a driver or  passenger) the force per unit of area is much less.

“Similarly, two centuries before the invention of the automobile, Sir Isaac Newton defined the relationship between velocity and deceleration of a moving object. Simply put, the greater the distance over which vehicle deceleration occurs the less injurious the force that is imparted to the occupant body, such as the head and neck. For example, the two-foot deformation, or crushing of the front end of a vehicle, is the stopping distance of an unrestrained passenger before striking the interior of the vehicle. In the same car, the stopping distance of the same passenger wearing a lap-shoulder belt, would be much greater, as the car decelerates over many feet, causing less injurious forces to the neck, skull, and body.5

“Detroit automotive engineers, of course, knew about these principles and problems of the physics of automobiles. Since at least the 1930s they had also known of some promising solutions.6 But their employers who called the shots were deterred either by cost, perceived engineering problems, or marketing considerations from doing anything much about applying them. Mostly the companies sold annual styling changes and more horsepower.7

“The reaction of the motor vehicle industry, dominated by General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, to the increasing toll of death and injury (from about 33,000 deaths per year in 1950 to 53,000 in 1969)–was consistent. The manufacturers placed primary blame on the driver and on driver attitudes.” (Car Safety Wars; One Hundred Years of Technology, Politics & Death, by Michael R. Lemov, pp. 49-50)

Unfortunately, a similar attitude toward safety and truck underride guards has probably meant that underride prevention technology has been woefully inadequate and many people may well have unnecessarily died as a result.

In fact, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has told us in person that, “It is safer to run into a brick wall than into the back of a truck.” This is due to the fact that if you run into a brick wall with a vehicle equipped with a crush zone, that crush zone is able to go into effect and protect the occupants. However, if a vehicle hits the back of a truck and the underride guard fails, the vehicle goes under the truck so that the passenger compartment is intruded upon and the crush zone (air bags and seat belts) is not allowed to operate as designed.

George Rechnitzer, a professor and researcher from Australia who has done research with Transport and Road Safety Research (TARS) believes that the underride problem can be solved. In 2003, he authored this dissertation: 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

In the introduction, Rechnitzer says that,

“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 .

Deadly second collisions do not have to be so prevalent; we can do this better!

Trip North May 2015 154

To Auto Industry: Consumers DO Care About Safety; Thanks, Scion, for choosing SAFETY over PROFIT!

The automotive industry has been saying for years that consumers don’t care about safety. What do they know?!

Read about this decision by one automotive maker to include a “precollision braking system worthy of a pricey German sedan” in one of their new affordable cars.  http://ht.ly/PeGOb

“The prevailing wisdom is that ‘young people don’t care’ about safety, said Murtha. ‘But surprisingly when we researched this stuff, they did glom on to [precollision technology]. They saw value in it.'”

Thank you, Scion, for choosing SAFETY over PROFIT!

Michael Lemov challenges the myth that consumers do not care about safety which has been perpetuated since the beginning of the automotive industry:

Car Safety Wars book cover

Tonight my son’s Toyota Camry had unintended acceleration: safe but frazzled

My son was on his way to Durham tonight– a 1 1/2 hr. drive–for a professional meet-up with other programmers. His wife got a call to come and help him. Before he made it out of town, his accelerator went out of control. Fortunately his brakes functioned well and he was able to stop–in the middle of the street in busy rush hour traffic.

We are thankful it happened before he got on the expressway and that there was no crash involved, no injuries.  But, despite many other 1996 Toyota Camrys which have experienced similar problems, there are apparently no recalls listed prior to 1999 for that model with that problem.

As soon as I heard what had happened, I started searching for his model online:

That reminded me of the book which I recently finished, Car Safety Wars by Michael Lemov:

“Car Safety Wars is a gripping history of the hundred-year struggle to improve the safety of American automobiles and save lives on the highways. Described as the “equivalent of war” by the Supreme Court, the battle involved the automobile industry, unsung and long-forgotten safety heroes, at least six US Presidents, a reluctant Congress, new auto technologies, and, most of all, the mindset of the American public: would they demand and be willing to pay for safer cars? The “Car Safety Wars” were at first won by consumers and safety advocates. The major victory was the enactment in 1966 of a ground breaking federal safety law. The safety act was pushed through Congress over the bitter objections of car manufacturers by a major scandal involving General Motors, its private detectives, Ralph Nader, and a gutty cigar-chomping old politician. The act is a success story for government safety regulation. It has cut highway death and injury rates by over seventy percent in the years since its enactment, saving more than two million lives and billions of taxpayer dollars.

But the car safety wars have never ended. GM has recently been charged with covering up deadly defects resulting in multiple ignition switch shut offs. Toyota has been fined for not reporting fatal unintended acceleration in many models. Honda and other companies have—for years—sold cars incorporating defective air bags. These current events, suggesting a failure of safety regulation, may serve to warn us that safety laws and agencies created with good intentions can be corrupted and strangled over time.

This book suggests ways to avoid this result, but shows that safer cars and highways are a hard road to travel. We are only part of the way home.”

http://www.amazon.com/Car-Safety-Wars-Technology-Politics/dp/161147745X

Having read Michael Lemov’s book, Car Safety Wars, I am not the least bit surprised–just all the more motivated to share what I have learned from this book and to do my part in speaking out for decisions and actions reflective of a safety-minded perspective.

In fact, you have not heard the last from me about this book.

Car Safety Wars book cover

Note: I temporarily made this post private until I could verify with my son what his mechanic told him. Apparently, something (possibly an oil leak or some damage due to a blown tire a month or so ago) caused the sensor for the accelerator to go awry and thus the Sudden Unintended Acceleration that he experienced. The mechanic was able to repair the throttle. (I don’t fully understand this.)

We were thinking that it sounded like it was maybe a different issue than what we have been reading about. But is it? My son was on a city street and not going very fast so that he was able to brake safely (though the accelerator was still trying to keep going). Perhaps if he had been on the expressway and going faster, he might not have been able to stop safely. ?????

My son said that maybe there was a design flaw in that the accelerator flaw was perhaps too easily impacted by oil leaking, etc. Is that a manufacturing defect? I don’t know. What if he had died as a result or killed someone else?

Marianne Karth, June 17, 2015

Update: I continue to see news reports of cases of SUA, e.g., http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/10/01/cab-driver-who-ran-over-kids-on-bronx-sidewalk-blames-car/ What if things had turned out differently with my son? What is the truth of the matter?

October 1, 2015

How Many Recalls Does It Take to Fix a Toyota?

Update (May 19, 2016): This article just posted:

Distracted & Drowsy Driving; A Matter of Personal AND Social Responsibility–NOT Either/Or

I have been thinking about this for some time now. Having lost my two youngest daughters, AnnaLeah (17) and Mary (13), two years ago due to a truck crash, I have thought a lot about things like drowsy driving and distracted driving. What it has gotten me to also do is think a lot about the answer to these problems.

https://annaleahmary.com/driver-fatigue/

https://annaleahmary.com/2014/07/our-crash-was-not-an-accident/

Actually, I don’t think that there is just one answer to decreasing these behaviors that are all-too-often resulting in people dying. I think that the answer lies in a combination of personal and social responsibility.

Yes, people need to wake up and realize that they could be the next one responsible for someone dying. Not that they would have ever meant to. Not intentionally. But a behavior that could have been avoided is reckless when it leads to a death that could have been prevented.

Unfortunately, the law is not so easily changed to reflect that and so, all-too-often, there is not a legal deterrent with teeth to change behavior–in time to make a difference for someone’s loved one. Distracted driving and drowsy driving are not usually defined as RECKLESS and therefore do not receive a stiff penalty. (After all, it could be me or someone I know that could end up in jail.) I wrote about this in great detail here:  https://annaleahmary.com/2014/08/law-enforcement-with-justice-for-all-balancing-truth-love/

Yet, I have also given much thought to the fact that it is foolish to put all of our eggs in one basket and depend on the individual to always do the right thing. This is why it is also important to address this as a social issue with multiple solutions, including changing laws, law enforcement, safety technology, and holding the manufacturers of products accountable for doing their part to make us all safer on the road.

I have not actually delved into the possibilities very thoroughly. But I want to throw out this question: Should the producers of electronic communication devices bear some responsibility for innovatively contributing to making them less easily abused when it comes to matters of life and death?

Safety is not a priority

Safety Is Not A Priority

Too Often, Too Little, Too Late; A Conspiracy of Silence

AnnaLeah and MaryIMG_20140508_114515_341

What would account for the fact that–Too Often–we humans tend to ignore dangers that lurk in the background waiting to take a life? What is it that causes us to do Too Little to prevent injury or death? Why does it take a death to wake us up and stir us up to try and do better–all Too Late for Someone?

Years ago, I worked with someone who became my friend. After a time, she had a baby who quickly became her new primary focus. I’ll call the baby Joy because she was her mama’s joy.

18 month project report

“Joy” at 18 months, 1983 (?)

We more-or-less kept in touch with Christmas cards, until one Christmas–16 years later–our former boss included a news article with her card to me: Joy had been killed when the car she was riding in was hit by a train.

Of course, my friend was devastated and despite my attempts to reach out to her, I have never heard from her again. I assumed that it was just too hard for her–knowing that I was the happy mother of nine living children.

Fast forward to 2013, when I, too, experienced the awful devastation of losing a child [make that two] to an unexpected, horrific, potentially-preventable, premature death due to a car crash [this time hit by a truck]. Now I understood what my friend had faced.

Just recently, I tried to reach out to her again–to no avail–after I ran across the news article and the picture of baby “Joy” when going through boxes at our home. I re-read the details of the crash and discovered that there had been no flashers or guard at the fateful railroad crossing–less than a mile from her high school.

As a bereaved-mom-become-safety-advocate, I wanted to know if something had been done to improve safety at the site of that crash 34 years ago. I was encouraged to find out, from the township responsible for that section of roads, that they had bypassed the option of flashers and guards and immediately closed off that particular dirt road where it crossed the tracks.

A good move. Chances are it saved someone. But it was Too Late for Joy.

Why does it Too Often take a death to wake us up to the dangers that were there all along? I will share more thoughts on that later. But it seems to me that the basic problem is that we all–all Too Often–don’t face up to the reality of death, including our own, those close to us or those around us–at least not in a way that would cause us to change anything substantially to be more vigilant, to look through the lens of alertness for danger.

Death, we whisper in our unconscious mind, won’t touch us and, on top of that, what we do won’t affect anyone else. At the same time–almost in the same breath–we do acknowledge the inevitability of death to the extent that we all Too Often develop a callous attitude. Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.

So then, talk of “safety” can easily become lip service and OTHER THINGS take precedence in our time, money, and focus. And if anything is done in the name of safety, it is Too Often Too Little to be much good–and the cost is certainly not justifiable when it  will only impact a small percentage of people anyway.

Does this have to be so? Is this the way we really want it to be: A world filled with grieving people, hearts broken more than they should be by the frustration of knowing that–just maybe–it could have been prevented?

(This is not about making people feel guilty or bitterness & unforgiveness but circumspectly planning ahead and taking responsible action.)

This, of course, is complicated by the many factors and people involved. As a result, it becomes all too easy to look the other way, to point the finger of blame at someone else, or to have on blinders which prevent each one from seeing their part in the process which needs to involve us all.

Consider this a Wake Up Call. I hope that this startles you into self-examination and leads to fruitful action. I hope so because I know the unending pain of loss and the nagging sense that my two daughters, AnnaLeah (forever 17) and Mary (forever 13), really had a whole lot of living left undone.

My faith in the God who loves me, and my knowledge that AnnaLeah and Mary had the gift of faith in Jesus as their Savior and Lord, keeps me enfolded in the comfort of His peace and the anticipation of our one-day-joyful Reunion. But it does not convince me to embrace a laissez-faire attitude about safety.

The day before their funeral, I was reading Psalm 91 and questioning, with my newly-broken heart, how God could say His angels would guard them from evil. In my mind, this had not occurred. Well, did it? (Note: I know that He cares for them by bringing them into His eternal presence.)

I accept that He is a sovereign God. But I also know that He allows sin in this world and sin leads to death and destruction. I don’t think that He caused the crash, but I know that He did not stop it or any of its horrific details.

I also believe that He says that He will make it work together for good. So I watch as that enfolds now and in the life to come. Yet, I can’t help but imagine what it would have been like had “sin” and carelessness and thoughtless decisions and who-knows-what-else had not intervened–saving God the trouble of His redeeming handiwork after their untimely deaths.

Sometime after the crash, we began attending a new church–one which has a frequent practice of reciting Martin Luther’s Morning Prayer in Sunday morning services:

“I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray that You would keep me this day also from sin and every evil, that all my doings and life may please You. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen”

https://historictrinity.org/commonprayers.html Hear the prayer as a song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AZ6g94hmnc or  https://vimeo.com/9651771 or https://soundcloud.com/kevinbueltmann/morning-prayer-song

I have a hard time saying those words because they remind me that He did not keep AnnaLeah and Mary from all harm and danger and that it seems to me that the evil foe did have power over them. I usually say to myself, “What was Luther thinking when he wrote those words?!”

So, the other day when I ran across a book in our collection, Luther & His Katie–a biography of Martin Luther and his wife, Katie–I read with a great deal of interest the description of Luther’s reaction to the death of his loved ones.

http://www.amazon.com/Luther-His-Katie-Maccuish-Dolina/dp/0906731348

After losing his 8 month-old second child to illness,

“Luther wrote, ‘My little daughter Elizabeth has been taken away from me, leaving me strangely sick at heart, almost like a woman so deeply am I grieved. I would never have believed that a father’s heart could be so tender towards his children.’

“Katie [his wife] was inconsolable and it took her a long time to get over the loss.” (p. 52) Later the author records Luther’s reaction to the death from illness of his 13 year-old daughter, Magdalena: “‘Oh God,’ Luther prayed, ‘I love her dearly but Thy will be done.’ And turning to her, ‘Magdalena, my little girl, you would like to stay with your father here and you would as gladly go to your Father in heaven?’ “‘Yes, dearest father, as God wills.’

“And Luther grieved that though God had blessed him as no bishop had been blessed in a 1000 years, yet he could not find it in his heart to give God thanks. . . .

“As the end drew near Luther fell on his knees at her bedside praying with tears that God would receive his dear one while Katie stood at the far side of the room unable to watch her child as she died in her father’s arms. Then he turned to console the weeping mother.

“‘Dearest Katie, let us think of the home our daughter has gone to, there she is happy and at peace.’ “When she was laid in her coffin he said, ‘My darling Lenchen, you will rise and shine like the stars and the sun. How strange to know that she is at peace and all is well and yet to be sorrowful!’, and to his friends who came to weep with them,

“‘Let us not be sad. I have sent a saint to heaven. If mine could be like hers, I would gladly welcome death at this very hour.’ “She was buried beside her sister Elizabeth in the churchyard and Luther wrote an epitaph,

Here I, Magdalena, Doctor Luther’s little maid

Resting with the saints, Sleep in my narrow bed

I was a child of death, For I was born in sin

But now I live, redeemed Lord Christ, By the blood You shed for me.

“She died shortly after 9 o’clock on the 10th of September and three days later the heartbroken father wrote to Justus Jonas. . . “‘I expect you have heard that my beloved Magdalena has been born again into Christ’s everlasting kingdom. Although my wife and I ought to rejoice because of her happy end, yet such is the strength of natural affection that we cannot think of it without sobs and groans which tear the heart apart.

“‘The memory of her face, her words, her expression, in life and in death–everything about our most obedient and loving daughter lingers in our hearts so that even the death of Christ (and what are all deaths compared to His?) is almost powerless to lift our minds above our loss. “‘So would you give thanks to God in our stead? For hasn’t He honored us greatly in glorifying our child? You know how gentle and sweet she was, how altogether lovely.

“‘Christ be praised who chose her and called her and has now glorified her. I pray God that I and all of us may have such a death, yes and such a life.’

“Luther himself never got over Magdalena’s death. His health deteriorated and he began to regard himself, prematurely perhaps, as an ‘old exhausted man.'” (pp. 66-69)

Somehow, reading about Luther’s reaction to the loss of two daughters made me feel better about my own.

How interesting that, as I contemplated the prevailing attitude of avoidance of death and dying–especially as it relates to safety initiatives, I received the latest issue of a quarterly newsletter which we have been getting for years. The topic: “Biblical Truths About Death and Dying (Part I, Prepare to Meet Your God. Are You Ready?)” by Rodney Lensch.

There is much which I could quote from his essay on the topic, but let me narrow it down to a few thoughts. We are all going to die–one way or another. There is a time to be born and a time to die. Ecclesiastes 2:7

Rod describes the deaths of some of the people he has known and refers to them as,

“. . . a reminder that death comes to believers in [varied and sometimes] surprising ways. Therefore we must be ready at all times, day or night. At the same time we need to claim the promises of long life and responsibly serve God and our neighbor with an eye on heaven as Paul instructs us. We are of good courage, and would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him. (2 Corinthians 8:9)”

He also cites sin as the root cause of death as, “Jesus is the only antidote for the problem of sin and death. That being true, let us repent and accept Jesus today and be ready whenever death may knock at our door.”

I will be eternally grateful that Mary and AnnaLeah were ready when death knocked at their door on a day when they did not suspect it. I am comforted by a letter we found after their funeral which Mary had written to herself (meant to be read ten years later) a few weeks before our crash. One of the things she said–and which I will never forget–was that she hoped that she was living every day as if it were her last.

The Bible says that, Death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.(Ecclesiastes 7:2) Why is it that Too Often we do not do so? Why do we live and think and act as if we were invincible and invulnerable?

According to Rod Lensch, “One good explanation is that death is like the law of gravity. We recognize its reality but rarely think about it. People generally tend to walk into life with hope and confidence but back into death with uncertainty and fear. So the conspiracy of silence surrounding death continues unabated.”

And, it is this “conspiracy of silence” surrounding death as it relates to crash fatalities that I would like to shatter. I would like to shine a spotlight on these countless unnecessary and preventable deaths and call for change–for safety to become much more than a word that is flippantly tossed around without any real and lasting impact.

Let’s be bold and decisive and circumspectly do the sensible and compassionate thing. Let’s do our part–each one of us–to protect those around us from all harm and danger that they might love and laugh and live their life fully.

This morning, as I was taking a shower, I began singing Amy Grant’s song, “Thy Word Is A Lamp Unto My Feet.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs-aiQ9NZ1g

Normally, that song is an encouragement to me. But as I got to the phrase, “Please be near me to the end,” I “lost it” as the memory returned of my girls’ abrupt and premature end to their lives. At one and the same time, it was a comfort that He was indeed near them “to the end” and a great sorrow that their ending had to come in such a way and at such a time–so unnecessarily for me to see and bear in my own lifetime, and for them to miss out on so much more of life, not to mention all the lives now bereft of the love and gifts they so freely shared.

It is at such moments that I cry out, “May there be an end to Too Often, Too Little, Too Late. And may it come quickly.”

25 AnnaLeah Jesus Loves Me 052IMG_4465AnnaLeah’s craft: In my life, Lord, Thy will be done.  AnnaLeah’s last road trip–abruptly ended.

Who are no more with photo

Safety is not a priority

Safety is not a priority 002

Re-examine the Definition of Reckless Driving

Questions About Justice in the State of Georgia

A Mother’s Memories

AnnaLeah’s Statement of Faith 3

Mary’s Baptism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9UvtWMh3J8

AnnaLeah’s Confirmation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY393AmtB8E

Mary’s Confirmation Questioning (She was to be confirmed in June 2013.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue4KZR1pFa0

AnnaLeah & Mary Are Where They Belong:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8emDfPJyqM

 Farewell to Mary and AnnaLeah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpKdHfc_xFY

Rod & Staff on death and dying 1Rod & Staff on death and dying 2

Rod & Staff on death and dying 3Rod & Staff on death and dying 4

Rod & Staff on death and dying 5

 We Rescue, Jesus Saves: https://annaleahmary.com/2014/08/we-rescue-jesus-saves/