There are many avenues to reducing the deaths and serious injuries from crashes. One of them is to improve the care of the victims in the aftermath of crashes. That is what this strategy aims to do.
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:
A new Report on Trauma Care is out that calls for a Vision Zero for Preventable Deaths.
Meanwhile, as the discussion continues, people all over the world die every day because their vehicle is not prevented from riding under a truck. Just like AnnaLeah. Just like Mary.
There will be a meeting on June 24, at IIHS in Arlington, VA, with some of the participants from the Underride Roundtable, attempting to hammer out a better solution.
“The death of the actor Anton Yelchin, killed when his Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled backward down a driveway and crushed him against a mailbox pillar last weekend, has cast a public spotlight on a problem with some models of Jeeps and other Fiat Chrysler vehicles.
But for the company, there is nothing new about the issue — which federal regulators first flagged last August.
The question is why, nearly a year later, Fiat Chrysler has still not come up with a fix for the problem, which has now been linked to hundreds of accidents, dozens of injuries and now — potentially — a well-publicized death.
The company, which issued a recall notice on more than one million affected vehicles in April, will say only it is still working on a solution, there was no decision about a recall until this year and there has been no delay. It has written to federal regulators that the remedy will include a software change and “an additional mechanism to mitigate the effect of operator error.”
That solution is expected no later than July or August, a Fiat Chrysler spokesman, Eric Mayne, said on Tuesday in an email.
And yet, as far back as March, Fiat Chrysler was telling federal investigators that it already had “potential solutions.”
The problem involves an electronic gearshift, whose operation is similar to that of a video-game joystick. It has confused many drivers, who thought they had left their cars in park, only to find they were in neutral, and started rolling away after the drivers stepped out.
Rollaway accidents are particularly dangerous, and the investigation and recall are taking too long, Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a consumer advocacy group, said on Tuesday.
The recent death due to an auto safety defect is just the latest and most visible of the millions of reasons why we need to make Traffic Safety a National Priority!
Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members: The Center for Auto Safety issues release on latest Jeep fatality.
June 20, 2016
Actor’s Death is Latest Example of Inadequate Recall Response; CAS Lays Out Action Plan for Chrysler to Prevent Further Deaths and Injuries due to Transmission Defect
Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin was killed June 18 when his 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee pinned him against his mailbox in a rollaway incident. Yelchin’s death is unfortunately the latest example of industry and government incompetence in the face of vehicle safety defects.
On April 22, 2016, Chrysler issued a recall of 2014-2015 Grand Cherokees, as well as 2012-14 Chrysler 300s and Dodge Chargers, in order to add an additional part to enhance the Jeeps’ monostable gear selector. The design of the monostable gear selector has been the source of much confusion for Chrysler owners, resulting in hundreds of rollaway incidents reported to both Chrysler and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Chrysler notes in its chronology that as of April 12, 2016 “FCA US has identified approximately 700 field reports potentially related to this issue which includes 212 crashes, 308 claims of property damage and 41 injuries.”
The vehicles involved had been under investigation by NHTSA since August 20, 2015, when the agency opened PE15-030. When NHTSA upgraded the investigation to EA16-002 on February 3, 2016, the agency noted 121 crashes and 30 injury incidents in its opening memo.
Despite a clear defect affecting hundreds of owners with injury and potential death, Chrysler issued a Part 577 interim notification letter to owners promising to develop a fix by the 4th quarter of 2016. Just how quickly this fix would be available to owners is unknown, and given Chrysler’s recent recall efforts in fire-prone Jeeps, owners would be potentially subject to lengthy delays when seeking a remedy.
In a letter to Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne, CAS Executive Director wrote: The Center for Auto Safety calls on Chrysler to: · Notify owners not to drive these vehicles until repaired under the safety recall. · Provide free loaner or rental cars of comparable value to all owners until the vehicles are repaired under the safety recall. · For owners who cannot wait until a recall repair is available, buy the recalled vehicles by at original purchase or lease cost with deduction for use as is done under state lemon laws where the defect exists on the day the vehicle was bought. · Provide a detailed public timeline within 10 days of what is being done to make a recall remedy available, when parts will be available for all vehicles and who is doing the engineering for the recall. · Sergio Marchionne should publicly go and apologize to the family of Anton Yelchin.
“Like all dads, I worry about my girls’ safety all the time. Especially when we see preventable violence in places our sons and daughters go every day – their schools and houses of worship, movie theaters, nightclubs, as they get older.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/weekly-address
Why?
So why does the President, that I voted for twice, continue to miss talking about vehicle violence after nearly 250,000 vehicle deaths and 1 million serious vehicle injuries under his administration?
We need an end to this strange indifference to vehicle violence.
When I saw a Tweet the other day quoting Senator Chris Murphy as saying that survivors of the Orlando mass shooting experienced a “second layer of grief” “when they realize that those who expressed sympathy won’t take action,” I could relate to it.
Sen. Chris Murphy: a “second layer of grief” is experienced by survivors who realize that those who expressed sympathy won’t take action.
— Jennifer de Guzman Strikes Again🪲 (@Jennifer_deG) June 15, 2016
Indeed, despite decades of safety advocacy efforts to draw attention to the problem of traffic crash fatalities, too little too late is being done to move us toward zero crash deaths and serious injuries.
I have asked Senator Murphy and Senator Booker to address this problem by championing the cause and setting a national vision zero goal as well as establishing an office of national traffic safety ombudsman (advocate).
So, this is an interesting read about road safety as a global health issue that has been ignored for too long. Please note the statement about the “two primary challenges to reducing road fatalities”:
Globally, road injuries are the top cause of death among people ages 15 to 29 – claiming upwards of a million lives a year. What’s more, 90% (pdf) of the world’s road deaths and serious injuries take place in low and middle-income countries, according to the United Nations (UN).
This global health emergency is finally starting to get the attention it deserves. We’re in the midst of the UN’s Decade of Action for Road Safety, which lasts until 2020; and in April, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to improve road safety.
But Dr Kelly Henning, leader of the Bloomberg Global Road Safety Program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, says there are two primary challenges to reducing road fatalities. First, despite recent efforts to raise the profile of road safety, the issue isn’t broadly appreciated. Second, progress requires several sections of government to work together. As she notes: “It is about health, but also involves [action from] traffic police and road engineers, so it requires a lot of political attention.” Road safety: the global health issue that’s been ignored for too long by Sue George, June 9, 2016
There are millions of good reasons for the United States to adopt a National Vision Zero Goal and to appoint a Traffic Safety Ombudsman to oversee the pursuit of that goal. Millions of potential saved lives that is–over the coming years here in the U.S. and in the countries who might well follow in our footsteps (if they don’t get there before us).
There are so many examples of why we should do this thing of vital importance and here are just a few which I found this morning as I briefly checked my email and Twitter:
Who should we blame if we continue to plod along and pretend that we are doing everything possible to reduce preventable and unimaginable tragedies? Well?!
I have proposed that the President establish an independent Office of National Traffic Safety Ombudsman–untainted by political pressures–to be an advocate for all things related to moving our country toward zero crash deaths & serious injuries.
This morning, I was thinking about one of the many traffic safety issues and all of a sudden thought, “Okay, so what could a Traffic Safety Ombudsman do to address this problem?” That made me want to write down ideas for what I would do if I were the National Traffic Safety Ombudsman.
I would (not necessarily in this order as this will be a stream of consciousness listing of random thoughts):
Set up a hotline for traffic safety concerns.
Set up a procedure for responding to the concerns reported to the Traffic Safety Hotline–including a means of communicating with the person reporting the problem (if desired).
Set up a system for keeping track of reported problems and how they were handled.
Set up regular communication with safety advocacy groups.
Set up regular communication with other stakeholders.
Prioritize the traffic safety concerns.
Group the traffic safety concerns into categories.
Establish a National Vision Zero Task Force (if not already done).
Coordinate the Vision Zero Task Force.
Identify how the three branches of the U.S. government can and need to be involved in advancing traffic safety and helping to move us toward zero crash deaths and serious injuries.
Develop strategies for tapping into government involvement as a means of carrying out the role of protecting its citizens.
We wanted to bring to your attention several disturbing crashes that have occurred recently. There are several contributing factors that caused these crashes, such as double tractor-trailers, fatigue, and failure to stop in time. But all of these crashes share one thing in common – a FedEx truck was involved.
