Earlier today, I posted that there were 12,942 gun-related deaths in 2015 in the U.S. Someone brought another website to my attention, and I am posting the figure indicated there: 32,514 gun deaths.
Whatever the exact, accurate estimated amount, both these deaths and the 35,214 reported crash deaths in 2015 deserve our attention and unified action to work to reduce preventable violent deaths.
So why does the drafted Democratic Platform Draft Dem. Platform: “Ensure Health & Safety…Gun Violence Prevention” But NOT Vehicle Violence?
Let’s end preventable violent deaths! Appoint a Traffic Safety Ombudsman to help us do that!
With 33,000 Americans dying every year, Democrats believe that we must finally take sensible action to address gun violence. While gun ownership is part of the fabric of many communities, too many families in America have suffered from gun violence. We can respect the rights of responsible gun owners while keeping our communities safe.
We will expand background checks and close dangerous loopholes in our current laws, hold irresponsible dealers and manufacturers accountable, keep weapons of war—such as assault weapons—off our streets, and ensure guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists, domestic abusers, other violent criminals, and those with severe mental health issues.”
Hmnn…. Both are important.
But NHTSA has recorded a 9.3 % increase in [crash] fatalities in early 2015 to a level of nearly 35,000 Americans dying every year now.
PLEASE NOTE: If you sign the petition, be sure to go to your email. We the People will send you an email which will say this in the subject line: “Almost done! Verify your Petitions.WhiteHouse.gov account.” Follow the instructions to verify your signature.
Vision Zero Nationwide Network of Traffic Safety Advocacy Groups: Communities Working to Save Lives
Well, that’s a mouthful. But it is, in a nutshell, a description of one of the strategies which a Traffic Safety Ombudsman could initiate, organize, and facilitate across communities in this country. The efforts of one person multiplied through a ripple effect — harnessing grief and awareness and outrage into a powerfully-effective force for change.
Fresh out of college, I was hired to be the director a local chapter of a statewide nursing home patient advocacy non-profit organization. I worked within the West Michigan community to mobilize families of nursing home patients and other interested community members and professionals to act on behalf of vulnerable nursing home patients. I consulted with and learned from the official Michigan Long-Term Care Ombudsman.
I envision a similar strategy for mobilizing citizens and workers across the United States to effect traffic safety measures in a more consistent and timely fashion at the local, state, and federal level. MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) are organized in a similar manner. These groups would have as their purpose eliminating preventable crash deaths and serious injuries from ALL known (and currently unknown) causes.
Why do it this way? Because just about any other way is more likely to get dragged out in such a way that it will inevitably result in MORE DEATHS & SERIOUS INJURIES.
Time wasted = Tragedies
This is not, of course, the only strategy which the Traffic Safety Ombudsman would employ. But it is one which is not currently being undertaken by anyone else.
I asked Neil Arason, a Canadian road safety expert, about his thoughts on the idea of a Traffic Safety Ombudsman. This is what he shared with me. . .
Hi, Marianne,
I think what you do right now is very close to that of an ombudsman. I can’t tell you how critical it is to have safety advocates. Most changes happen because of them.
If I think of good examples of road safety advocacy, they include people like you, and also Clarence Ditlow. Government needs to know people are watching them, and advocates do a good job of getting issues out into the mainstream media and that is extraordinarily powerful and important.
An office of the ombudsman would be similar to an advocacy centre except typically it is an arm of government, albeit one that has some independence. We need to have safety advocates who are completely independent and powerful, and then on top of that as many other tools and structures for change.
I think that a traffic safety ombudsman would be one more thing that would help the overall cause. Because it is essentially an arm of government, however, it will likely be much more difficult to set up, whereas Ralph Nader just went ahead and set up the Center for Automotive Safety (directed by Clarence Ditlow), and that was that. (Although Nader had some startup capital from events that began in the late 1960s.)
Nonetheless, anyone can get into the business of advocacy and set up a centre or whatever they end up calling it. Advocacy groups work toward wholesale change in the very way that road safety is treated, the priority given to it, etc.
The ombudsman type offices, I am aware of, exist so that folks can take complaints to them, and then the Ombudsman (and its paid staff) investigate those complaints with a view to resolving them. The ombudsman works to ensure “fairness” really in decision-making. I’m not aware of any examples of how an ombudsman would work in traffic safety because I am not aware of such a function today.
When people have complaints about some road safety failure, they largely take them to lawyers it seems. I am aware of examples of the role of the ombudsman in other government sectors like income assistance, where a citizen makes a complaint and goes to the ombudsman. This works well because the government agency really stands up and notices when they get a call from the office of the ombudsman, and they really make an effort to resolve the issue.
A traffic safety ombudsman could investigate complaints with a view to making large policy changes. I would imagine that many victims’ families have no idea at first how to navigate the system. Access to an ombudsman could not just help to investigate their complaint for them, but could give them all manner of advice about where to go and what to do, e.g., use a lawyer, go to media, lobby directly, point them to various agencies for help, etc., etc.
Imagine if the ombudsman had people like you who could share with them what they know about how to get things done. The ombudsman could, I suppose, be a bit of an “information broker” in addition to its role as complaint investigator. Such an office might help people to direct their energies in ways that will do the most amount of good.
I’m no expert on any of this, that is for sure, Marianne. The only thing I know, from my own experience, is that almost all changes come from outside government and from advocates, lobbyists and the media. These are the powers that governments all around the world seem to respond to. To follow then, we need as many mechanisms as possible to support more lobbyists, advocates, and media to focus on road safety. An ombudsman would help enormously with that.
We are asking for 100,000 Americans to sign our new Traffic Safety Ombudsman petition on WhiteHouse petition site. Once we get 150 signatures, it will become searchable on their website.
If we are able to get 100,000 signatures in 30 days — by July 31, then the White House has promised that they will respond to our new petition, which calls on President Obama to appoint a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman, who will be an Advocate for Safer Roads.
Why on earth am I asking for another government-funded worker — a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman? And whatever would that person do anyway? Read more here:
PLEASE NOTE: If you sign the petition, be sure to go to your email. We the People will send you an email which will say this in the subject line: “Almost done! Verify your Petitions.WhiteHouse.gov account.” Follow the instructions to verify your signature.
Why on earth am I asking for another government-funded worker — a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman? And whatever would that person do anyway?
It would be a lot easier for you to understand if you were in my shoes. But I don’t want you to be in my shoes — continuing to grapple with the grief of losing a loved one in a preventable traffic crash. So I will try to describe, as briefly and clearly as I can, what I have in mind with this Traffic Safety Ombudsman Petition.
Basically, in the aftermath of losing two daughters, AnnaLeah (17) and Mary (13), due to a truck underride crash on May 4, 2013, we have discovered that millions have died in traffic crashes since the first one in 1898, that there are many reasons for that, and that trying to do something about those reasons is very difficult, time-consuming, and resisted. Meanwhile, while solutions are being delayed, people continue to die — often needlessly, because something could have been done to prevent their death, but was not.
There is often a political tug-of-war over these issues. An Office of National Traffic Safety Ombudsman (TSO) would be established to function outside of the political realm — untainted by the pressures of powerful lobbyists. Instead, the TSO would work with the existing government agencies, industry representatives, researchers, and safety advocates — listening to traffic safety concerns and speaking forth on behalf of matters of importance to traffic safety.
Currently, Traffic Safety is not even listed on whitehouse.gov as an Issue. This has got to change. It needs to become a national priority and we need an Advocate to listen to traffic safety concerns which are raised (in fact, actively seeking to make sure that they come to the surface) and then identify solutions and inform those who can do something about them.
Now I can do many things as an individual to raise national awareness about traffic safety issues. But my ability to motivate and facilitate change is way too limited. I don’t truly have the ear of leaders essential to the process. In fact, although my family and I have taken two petitions to Washington — with the agreement of thousands of people, they can too easily brush me away like a pesky fly. We need someone with the authority to demand an audience with the powers that be.
I have not heard one word from Washington, D.C., about our 20,000 Vision Zero Petition signatures. That’s a problem. Either they think they are already doing what that Petition requests (with which I would disagree) OR they don’t think that it is important enough to do anything about. That is something which we should all rise up about.
In fact, how I envision it is that the Traffic Safety Ombudsman would be the person to implement the requests of the Vision Zero Petition. Small businesses have a National Ombudsman. Why not do the same for the victims of tragic, preventable traffic crashes?
Makes sense to me. Because, really, who would be given the responsibility and authority to oversee these things otherwise?!
When I was reading my Bible this morning, I read a verse about Jesus ascending to sit at the right hand of the Father. What is He doing there? Advocating on our behalf, interceding for us, speaking to His Father and ours about our needs. Hmmmm, kind of like I would expect a Traffic Safety Ombudsman would do — only not in heavenly places (or not only) but getting the ear of those who can move heaven & earth to make our roads safer!
I don’t think that you need to worry about this costing the taxpayers a lot of money or creating an enormous new agency. Look at what our family has already done voluntarily and with the help of other concerned parties with our petitions and the Underride Roundtable, which we helped to organize, and the Tired Trucker Roundtable, which I have proposed. We have pulled together in communication and actual sit-down-together meetings diverse groups, such as government regulators, law enforcement, trucking industry, safety advocates, researchers, media, and victims. Organizations like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Truck Safety Coalition (with their non-governmental funds), along with citizen contributions, have helped to finance such events — without emptying the pockets of taxpayers.
The Traffic Safety Ombudsman would not be replacing the safety functions of the government or watchdog efforts of safety advocacy organizations. Rather, the TSO would be working with them and getting them to work together — with the goal of SAVING LIVES as their primary and, in fact, sole responsibility. And there would still be the need to raise national awareness and involve citizens in advocacy efforts through social media and my recommended national network of Vision Zero/Traffic Safety Community Action Groups.
With a relatively-small budget for travel, office rental, equipment & supplies, and salary & benefits, even a one-person Office of National Traffic Safety Ombudsman — with endless possibilities for internships — could accomplish a lot. A lot more than I would be able to do here in my home in Rocky Mount, North Carolina — a retired home school mom, truck crash survivor, and broken-hearted mother.
Note: And I am not the only one who thinks so! Among others. . .
Bill Bronrott, Media, government & public affairs for healthy, safe & sustainable communities. Past US DOT Appointee, Maryland State Legislator, Congressional Press Secretary, sent out a Tweet last night about the petition:
Roger Lanctot, Associate Director in the Global Automotive Practice at Strategy Analytics, Driverless Policy Making, “I was reading an impassioned letter to the President by Marianne Karth on the issue this morning – impassioned because Karth lost two daughters to a motor vehicle accident involving a truck lacking under-ride protection. . .Karth binds her thoughts into a five-point appeal: ‘Would you (President Obama), in fact, make Traffic Safety a national priority–placing it on the list of important issues listed on whitehouse.gov and then do something about it, e.g., Appoint a Traffic Safety Ombudsman who would oversee all of this and be an Advocate for vulnerable road users (which includes us all) —untainted by political pressures?'”
Neil Arason, Author of ‘No Accident’, and believer in vision zero and the need to re-think everything about our roads, told me this after signing the petition, “I have signed the petition, and have just Tweeted about it. Having a traffic safety ombudsman is such a great idea!“
Last night I found a very lengthy email from a stranger who was writing to me and to an editor at treehugger.com. He was reaching out to me–asking me to take on a traffic safety issue after I finished with underride guards.
He wanted me to raise awareness of Left Foot Braking which went out of vogue when automatic transmissions were introduced into our cars. I grew up driving a stickshift and have recently observed that perhaps people pay less attention to their driving because they don’t have to be more engaged with shifting. But I had never heard of this idea that Right Foot Braking has led to thousands of deaths.
Now I am not even going to begin to go into the details of this issue. But I want to point out what I quickly realized after clicking on a link in his email. This man had found my name and learned about my safety advocacy efforts from an article just published on treehugger.com. He was appealing to me to help him get the traffic safety issued, which he is most concerned about, resolved.
This man, Trevor Frith, was acting like I am a traffic safety advocate who could help address this problem which he truly believes is unnecessarily causing traffic fatalities. He thinks that I could help to do something to change things so that these kinds of deaths are prevented in the future. He was hoping that I would act like a Traffic Safety Ombudsman!
Well that just goes to show you: A U. S. Traffic Safety Ombudsman is definitely needed!
I mean, I can do a lot, as a “retired” home school mom — sitting here at my computer in North Carolina and shouting out my frustration over the travesty of traffic “safety” here in our country. The availability of information on the internet and the social media tools have greatly enhanced the abilities of an individual to make an impact since the days when I was a nursing home patient advocate in 1977.
But to really make headway in this crusade for safer roads, we need a recognized position of Traffic Safety Ombudsman, who has the ear of those in authority who can do something about these issues. And I don’t mean that this has to be someone who would apply political pressure but who would have good connections to communicate the needs and facilitate timely resolutions and raise national awareness and support and change.
And he/she would need the resources of any person working a full-time job of national life & death importance–not the volunteer 60 year-old mom of nine (two of them in heaven) and grandma of three working out of her bedroom “office” and pouring her heart into the battle.
So, thank you, Lloyd Alter, for publishing your article about our Traffic Safety Ombudsman Petition. I hope that it gets noticed by many people in this country and helps to get the attention of the White House and President Obama.
And thank you, Trevor W. Frith, B.S.M.E., for illustrating so aptly why a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman is needed. People’s lives are depending on it. And they don’t even realize it.
Footnote to the Braking Issue: I just got a reply from a person whom I follow on Twitter. He posts a lot about different driving techniques and safety tips. So I asked him what he knew about Left/Right Foot Braking. This is what he said:
So, you see, after less than 24 hours of learning about this issue, I am not going to claim to be an expert. But it confirms my conclusion that someone — like a Traffic Safety Ombudsman — is needed to sort out and address traffic safety issues–to get to the bottom of it and find out the truth of the matter in every case. To raise awareness and help us do what is best for travelers on our roads.
