Yesterday, Ronan Farrow reported that members of of the Senate Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee received $9,187,124 in campaign contributions in the 2016 cycle from the Transportation Sector.
See it for yourself here:
Ronan asked, “Why does it take so long to move the needle on this, when people are dying every year?” See what former head of NHTSA, Joan Claybrook, had to say about that:
What if trucking industry campaign contributions went toward safety research & implementation instead?
How much closer would we be to Zero Truck Crash Fatalities?
The trucking industry needs to answer the same question which Senator Robert Kennedy posed to GM in 1965. I’d like to ask them,
“What was your profit in 2016?”
“And how much money did you spend on safety research in 2016?”
I’d really like to know the answers — not just for 2016 but for many years before as well. Because I’m not willing to compromise. There are too many shattered families, broken hearts, and lives ended far too soon.
The trucking industry needs to answer the same question which Senator Robert Kennedy posed to GM in 1965: “What was your profit in 2015? And how much money did you spend on safety research in 2015?”
GM’s answer was a safety expenditure figure that was below 1% of their total profit. Which, in my book, makes “safety” a meaningless word.
Yesterday, I received a reply from FedEx, after following their procedure for requesting a donation. Our non-profit, AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety, completed a FedEx charitable assistance application in which we asked them to donate a used, decommissioned 53′ trailer to be used for underride research.
Like in the research undertaken this spring by Aaron Kiefer to crash test his innovative side/rear underride guard protection system. Like the kind of safety measure which could have prevented Joshua Brown from being killed when his Tesla underrode the side of a trailer.
Thank you again for contacting FedEx Freight for charitable assistance. We applaud the work AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety is doing.
After careful review, unfortunately, we must decline your request for the donation of a 53′ trailer.
FedEx Freight works directly with manufacturers and national organizations to support road safety for both our team members and the motoring public.
We wish you success with future endeavors.
Sincerely,
Iris
Iris Coetzee, Senior Communications Specialist
Bah humbug! I would like to know exactly how they work directly with manufacturers and national organizations to support road safety. Spell it out for me. Tell me exactly:
How much money they spend on safety.
and what percentage that amount is of their total profit.
and exactly what that money actually goes for.
I would like to know that information about the whole trucking industry which has opposed and resisted improved underride protection for decades resulting in countless dead people who didn’t have to die if only the trucking industry had acted in a timely and responsible way. And not just for 2015, but for every year since the underride problem was discovered.
I put together a chart for recording that kind of information juxtapositioned against some of the major life events which occurred for me during all of the years when — for the most part as far as I can see the trucking industry did practically nothing “to support road safety for both our team members and the motoring public” — at least in the area of underride prevention. And when they did, it was because we put pressure on their pocketbook.
I’d like to see some investigative reporter dig up this kind of information because I doubt that the industry would give it to me.
I was struggling yesterday with the sense that I am not adequately getting across the need for a Traffic Safety Ombudsman to facilitate a strategy to move our country more quickly toward zero crash deaths and serious injuries. And unless we embrace such a vision, too many lives will be lost when their deaths might have been prevented.
Why am I so convinced that we need a Traffic Safety Ombudsman? Because of the lives which I see shattered every day by preventable crash fatalities. And the 3.5 million traffic fatalities since the first one in 1898.
People like Mary and AnnaLeah. People like two of my facebook friends who lost loved ones (or have family members with life-altering injuries) due to truck crashes and were struggling yesterday with their frustration and anger and ongoing grief.
See the posts by these two families who shared their heartbreak, frustration, & anger about the devastation caused in their lives by preventable crashes:
How many broken hearts does that represent? How many more are yet to come?
And what do we get from those who could do something to stem the tide of Death by Motor Vehicle? Resistance. Opposition. And too often it leads to Compromise–settling for solutions that are ineffective and too often delayed. Basically, saving people from preventable crash deaths is not a national priority. And someday, it might impact you.
Take for example truck underride protection/prevention. The trucking industry has long resisted doing anything voluntarily above and beyond any shabby, inadequate regulations which might be imposed upon them. In fact, their opposition is quite probably the reason those regulations are so weak.
And they continue to resist an all-out, comprehensive technologically-possible solution to prevent DEATH BY UNDERRIDE. What is their biggest reason? Cost, of course. When the importance of crash testing a manufacturer’s underride guard with an actual crash test to prove its effectiveness is brought up, a concern is raised about whether small manufacturing companies can afford to do that kind of testing.
Well, I certainly know that crash testing is expensive and we have not been able to raise enough money through our non-profit, AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety, to support underride research crash testing. And in our efforts to find money for such an endeavor, I don’t see it as being made much of a priority. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate how we have seen some of the trailer manufacturers step up to the plate after receiving our letters asking for voluntary improvement. But is it really enough?
As far as I am concerned, if crash testing is what it takes to ensure that their product is safe enough to protect my family and they can’t afford it, well then, I’m sorry, but I would prefer that they shut down than endanger the people whom I love (and countless others as well)!
Now, I am not convinced that a solution couldn’t be worked out to help those smaller companies get their crash testing done. In fact, it was mentioned at our follow-up underride meeting on June 24 that larger companies could perhaps do some testing for smaller companies. Well, will they? Is there enough of a cooperative spirit to prove to me that Safety is not just a buzz word–that there is some actual concern about saving lives whatever it takes?
I’d like to put a challenge to the trucking industry which Senator Bobby Kennedy put to the automotive industry back in July 1965 — 50 years ago. I read about it in Michael Lemov’s informative book, Car Safety Wars. [By the way, I just have to say how cool it is to be able to Google the quote which I am looking for and be able to include it as a link to take you right to that quote in that very book. So, go look at it! And here is a link to a report on the hearing itself!]
Kennedy: What was the profit of General Motors last year? Roche [President of GM]: I don’t think that has anything to do. . . Kennedy: I would like to have that answer if I may. Donner [Chairman of GM]: The one aspect we are talking about is safety. Kennedy: What was the profit of General Motors last year? Donner: I’ll have to ask one of my associates. Kennedy: Could you please? Roche: (Pause)–$1,700,000,000 ($1.7 billion). Kennedy: What. . .? Donner: About a billion and a half. Kennedy: About a billion and a half? Donner: Yes. Kennedy: And you spent about one million dollars on this [safety research]? Donner: In this particular facet we are talking about. . . Kennedy: If you gave just one percent of your profits [to safety research] that is $170 million.
This rare challenge to the car manufacturers was reported by the press. General Motors promptly released a “corrected” statement saying that it had actually spent $193 million on “safety programs.” The figure was immediately challenged, since it appeared to include many activities that were unrelated to automobile safety. But, even if true, the figure was a small percentage of GM’s $1.7 billion annual net profit. Car Safety Wars, Michael Lemov, Google Books
So my question is to the trailer manufacturing industry specifically (and the trucking industry in general): What was your profit last year?
Second question: How much did you spend on safety research? And, more specifically, how much did you spend on underride research?
I’d really like to know the answers — not just for 2015 but for many years before as well. Because I’m not willing to compromise. There are too many shattered families, broken hearts, and lives ended far too soon.
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 Usershttps://www.filesanywhere.com/fs/v.aspx?v=8b6a69875e67767ca2a4
