Tag Archives: Vision Zero Petition

Rear-ending a truck should be a survivable crash. Why isn’t it?

AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safety, , , ,

I survived a truck underride crash. My daughters did not. Why not? Because we were sent backward into the back of the truck and AnnaLeah and Mary were in the backseat. The weak and ineffective underride guard gave way and the back of the truck broke their bodies.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has shown through crash testing that the current federal standards for underride guards are not strong enough to withstand most crashes but that it is possible to make stronger ones.  http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr4907.pdf

We are promoting underride research https://www.fortrucksafety.com/ and organizing a national Underride Roundtable ALMFTS Underride Guard Research Brochure.

We have also launched a Vision Zero Petition online because we believe that, unless rulemaking policy changes, when the rubber meets the road Saving Lives will not be the criteria used for making highway safety regulations as effective as humanly possible.Unnecessary compromise will occur and preventable deaths will be the result. Profit will win out over the best possible protection.

We know that rear-ending a truck should be a survivable crash and we are devoting our lives to making it a reality.

Sign & share our Vision Zero Petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/

Read more here: https://annaleahmary.com/tag/vision-zero/ and https://annaleahmary.com/underride-guards/

Underride Research Meme

Why are we devoting our lives to pushing for a DOT Vision Zero policy?

AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safety, ,

Why are we pushing so hard to get people to sign a Vision Zero petition? What difference would it make anyway? The reason we are devoting our lives to pounding on this door and asking for change is that our daughters may have lost their lives due to the lack of a Vision Zero policy.

A decision which concluded that recommended changes would not be cost effective — in other words, that it would supposedly cost more to implement safety measures than the lives saved would be worth — may have led to lax* underride guard standards. If the best possible protection had been pursued when the regulations were last updated (1996), the trucks on the road today (including the one on the road May 4, 2013) might be much safer to be driving around.

Mary and AnnaLeah might even still be around.

gertie 881AnnaLeah writing

Now what would you want for you and your family and your friends? That’s what I would like to know.

Rebekah photo of crash

*lax = not sufficiently strict, severe, or careful.  synonyms: slack, slipshod, negligent, remiss, careless, heedless, unmindul, slapdash, offhand, casual  http://tinyurl.com/qbodwjc

Sign & Share our Vision Zero Petitions:

  1. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/
  2. https://www.change.org/p/urge-obama-adopt-a-vision-zero-goal-and-sign-an-executive-order-to-save-lives-not-dollars

About This Petition

Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death—about 40,000 people die in crashes each year. The Department of Transportation makes highway safety rules based upon how much safety measures will cost. We are hoping to change that and move toward a Vision Zero safety strategy model with goals of: Zero Deaths, Zero Serious Injuries, Zero Fear of Traffic.

“Towards Zero – There’s no one someone won’t miss.” https://youtu.be/bsyvrkEjoXI

Read more about Vision Zero: https://annaleahmary.com/tag/vision-zero/

Learn more about Underride Research: https://www.fortrucksafety.com/

Establishing a White House Task Force to Achieve a Vision Zero Goal of Crash Death Reduction

“Advocates Garnering Signatures” . . . almost 11,000 in 11 days!

AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safety, , , ,

“The latest efforts by a Rocky Mount family to improve trucking safety have garnered more than 9,000 signatures from around the world in just 10 days.

“’We want to get as many signatures as we can,’ said Marianne Karth, whose daughters AnnaLeah and Mary were killed in 2013 when the car Marianne Karth was driving was pushed underneath a tractor trailer. ‘We’d like to see it surpass the 11,000 signatures we got on our first petition and I think that is possible because this has a broader focus than just truck safety. It can positively impact all motor vehicle regulations.’”

Read about it here: https://www.rockymounttelegram.com/news/advocates-garnering-signatures-3009111

Scan of RMT article October 11 2015

 

Tools For Getting Your Local Media On Board With Vision Zero & Underride Research

AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safety, , , , ,

In the aftermath of our crash, we have found ourselves walking a path we had not anticipated–safety advocacy. We have discovered the importance of raising awareness and gaining support in order to bring about life-saving changes.

After all, we had no idea about what truck underride guards were before May 4, 2013. How could we expect anyone else to know about them and understand what we were talking about unless we found every way imaginable to inform and motivate them to care about this issue–thankfully, never as much as we do.

So what I would like to talk about here is what you can do about it once you (the reader) better understand the ideas and importance behind our quest for Vision Zero, underride guards, and crash avoidance technology.

Specifically, what you can do is:

  1. Become informed about what we are talking about so incessantly.
  2. Read our Vision Zero Petition.  http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/
  3. Read even more about Vision Zero:

    For more information on Vision Zero: https://annaleahmary.com/tag/vision-zero//

    “Towards Zero – There’s no one someone won’t miss.” https://youtu.be/bsyvrkEjoXI

  4. Sign our Vision Zero Petition. (Never doubt the power of 1.)
  5. Share our Vision Zero Petition through talking to people about it, emailing, using whatever social media with which you are comfortable. (There are Sharing icons on The Petition Site.)
  6. Read our new website, AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety, which is dedicated to informing about underride guards and raising money for underride research and an Underride Roundtable to bring about the best underride protection by bringing together engineers, industry representatives, government officials, safety advocates, insurance companies, victims & their families, and the media.  https://www.fortrucksafety.com/ and https://annaleahmary.com/underride-guards/
  7. Donate to the research. (Every $1 counts.)
  8. Share the website with others.
  9. Share both of these projects with your local media.
  • When possible, look up your local media and make direct contact with them through a phone call, email, or through an online Contact Form.
  • This site has a lot of tools for reaching local media, including a map of the U.S. which allows you to click on your state and then your city and find local media.  http://sparkaction.org/act/media
  • Click on COMPOSE MESSAGE on that site.
  • Once you locate who you can contact in your community, I have written a couple of press releases for you to share with them: Press Release from ALMFTS Vision Zero and Underride Research and Press Release for the Underride Research Fundraising Campaign . These can be copied and pasted into the form provided online on that site.
  • Be sure to let them know how important this is to you and your community as well.
  • Consider making a follow-up phone call.
  • For whatever you are able to do, thank you! And I’d love to hear about it.

We have made numerous contacts with the media as our story has been shared. But we cannot be in your community. Next week there will be an article in our local Rocky Mount newspaper. I will share the link for that with you and you can pass that along to your local media as well.  We are asking you to be an extension of our national plea for the best possible protection.

Note–The news story has now been published online:  https://www.rockymounttelegram.com/news/advocates-garnering-signatures-3009111

This is not just some freak problem that will never affect you or someone you love. In fact, a Vision Zero policy in DOT rulemaking could make a big impact in not just truck safety but auto safety as well. Decisions about safety should not be led by profit. Cost/benefit analysis can never adequately measure the value of human life and health.

And, once we establish that our Vision is to reduce crash deaths one life at a time, then we can better hold corporate and government officials accountable. No longer will they be able to sweep unpleasant information about the results of defects and flaws under the rug. No longer can they justify decisions and actions which lead to unnecessary tragedy and/or deny that human life was the cost that was paid.

 

gertie 2947

Gertie reaching for Mary ...Susanna's film

Be a part of the Underride Solution. Share our story with your local media.

AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safety, , , , , ,

Our family had a paper route for 13 yrs.–afternoons during the week & mornings on the weekend. All 9 kids were involved. We know all about getting out the news–rain or shine, hail or white-out!

Tomorrow, our local paper in NC will be publishing an article about AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety & our Vision Zero Petition. Please share the news with your local media so that people in your community can become aware & help our effort. Stay tuned for details; we will post the link.

Note: The article in the Rocky Mount Telegram will actually be delayed until next week due to the storm. Here are some previous articles on our story by Brie Handgraaf.

paper route74f Mary and family dress up (2)

74f Mary and family dress up (4) 74f Mary and family dress up (3)

What would a DOT Vision Zero policy look like in actual implementation?

AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safety, , , ,

In our petition, we have asked for a paradigm shift in how truck underride guards are regulated. This means that, instead of using a force-based design rule, DOT would require performance-based standards. In other words, when a manufacturer designs an underride protection system for a truck, they would have to crash test it and prove that it could actually withstand a crash.

And we want that to be true for higher speeds than currently required and for impact all along the back of the truck–not just at the center but also at the edges (where the guards currently fail in the majority of crashes). And then, we also want side guards to be a requirement.

A Vision Zero rulemaking policy would mean that Saved Lives would win out over dollars in decisionmaking. In contrast, look at what DOT decided about underride guards in  1974:

  • 1974 US Secretary of Transportation says deaths in cars that underride trucks would have to quadruple before underride protection would be considered cost beneficial.  (History of federal rulemaking on underride guards:  https://annaleahmary.com/underride-guards/ )

In fact, there have been many engineers over the years who have insisted that the guards were weak and ineffective and that stronger guards could be designed. Here are four examples of Vision Zero principles being applied by engineers who are currently hoping to design and/or promote more effective underride protection which would actually save lives:

  1. George Rechnitzer & Raphael Grzebieta, engineers in Australia with whom we have been in contact, have proposed performance-based standards and have done extensive underride research:  NHTSA-Docket-Submission-Grzebieta&Rechnitzer 20 Sept 2015 (or in the Federal Register Public Comments on underride protection for single unit trucks: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0021)
  2. Dean Sicking, an engineer at the University of Alabama, who designed NASCAR’s SAFER Barrier to save lives and is confident that he could apply those principles to underride protection. Here is the research proposal which he has given to us and for which we are raising money so that he can do it!  Development of Trailer Underride Preventive Measures
  3. Aaron Kiefer, a forensic engineer/crash reconstructionist, who has been motivated by the tragic, preventable crash deaths which he witnesses in his work, to design an innovative underride protection system which combines side & rear guard components. We have met him and were able to go see a prototype of his invention on a semi-trailer.  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NHTSA-2015-0070-0013
  4. IIHS has researched and petitioned for improved underride protection for many years: http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr4907.pdf

For further information about Vision Zero, see these additional posts:  https://annaleahmary.com/tag/vision-zero/

 

Catch the Vision: Sign our Vision Zero Petition  http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/

Petition screenshot 021

 

A Quest for the Best/Support Underride Research: Donate Now  https://www.fortrucksafety.com/

Underride Research Meme

Can a petition really change federal rulemaking policy & reduce crash deaths?

AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safety, , ,

Save Lives Not Dollars: Urge DOT to Adopt a Vision Zero Policy We launched a new petition yesterday afternoon:  http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/

When you sign the petition, Care2 doesn’t indicate online what # you were–like they did with our AnnaLeah & Mary Stand Up For Truck Safety Petition in 2014. So I don’t know what number I was. But I waited until this morning to sign so that I could think about what I wanted to write in the COMMENTS section as I signed the petition.

This is what I wrote: There is no one that this does not potentially impact in some way. We are asking for bold and decisive action to reduce tragic, preventable crash fatalities. Don’t wait until it touches you personally to move heaven & earth to identify and require the best possible protection. Once a loved one becomes a motor vehicle crash statistic, it will be too late–they will not come back to you.

Can a petition really change rulemaking policy & reduce crash deaths? There is only one way to find out. . .

Please join the 847+ (and steadily rising) people who have signed our petition thus far to let the authorities know that we want to shake things up; we want to see an end to unnecessary tragedies.

40,000 motor vehicle crash fatalities each year: MV-TRAFFIC-FATALITIES(1899-2009)

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Our crash story: https://www.fortrucksafety.com/