A federal agency on Tuesday called for a ban on all cellphone use by drivers — the most far-reaching such recommendation to date — saying its decision was based on a decade of investigations into distraction-related accidents, as well as growing concerns that powerful mobile devices are giving drivers even more reasons to look away from the road.
News and Information:
In the News:
New York Times
December 13, 2011
U.S. Safety Board Urges Cellphone Ban for Drivers
Clockwise from top left, Shawn Thew/EPA; Pat Wellenbach/AP; Scott Anderson/The Journal Times, via AP; Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Top left, Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, which on Tuesday urged states to ban drivers from using cellphones. The board's decision was based on a decade of investigations into distraction-related accidents.
By MATT RICHTEL
Published: December 13, 2011
As part of its recommendation, theNational Transportation Safety Boardis urging states to ban drivers from using hands-free devices, including wireless headsets. No state now outlaws such activity, but the board said that drivers faced serious risks from talking on wireless headsets, just as they do by taking a hand off the wheel to hold a phone to their ear.
And Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the N.T.S.B., an independent federal agency responsible for promoting traffic safety and investigating accidents, said the concern was heightened by increasingly powerful phones that people can use to e-mail, watch movies and play games.
“Every year, new devices are being released,” she said. “People are tempted to update their Facebook page, they are tempted to tweet, as if sitting at a desk. But they are driving a car.”
The agency based its recommendation on evidence from its investigation of numerous crashes in which electronic distraction was a major contributing factor.
Ms. Hersman said she understood that this recommendation would be unwelcome in some circles, given the number of drivers who talk and text. But she compared distracted driving to drunken driving and even smoking, which required wholesale cultural shifts to change behavior.
“It’s going to be very unpopular with some people,” she said. “We’re not here to win a popularity contest. We’re here to do the right thing. This is a difficult recommendation, but it’s the right recommendation and it’s time.”
The agency’s recommendation is nonbinding, meaning that states are not required to adopt such a ban. And it will likely be frowned upon by state lawmakers makers who are loath to infuriate constituents who have grown accustomed to using their device behind the wheel.
But, the recommendation may also provide cover for legislators, safety advocates and others who support such a broad-based ban. Many polls show that while people continue to use their devices behind the wheel, they also widely consider such behavior to be extremely dangerous.
The ban is also noteworthy because it is the first call by a federal agency to end the practice completely, rather than the partial ban that some legislators have put in place by allowing hands-free talking.
State Senator Joe Simitian of California, who succeeded in getting a law passed in 2006 that bans drivers there from talking on a hand-held phone, called the board’s recommendation “a wake-up call about the dangers of distracted driving.”
Yet, he also said he doubted it would achieve the desired result because it was unlikely that legislators in California or elsewhere would be able to pass such a ban. Mr. Simitian noted that he spent five years trying to push a ban on hand-held devices, and faced intense opposition from the phone industry.
“It’s a political nonstarter,” he said, adding that he would not attempt to propose a total ban on drivers using their devices. “I don’t believe you’ll see such a ban in my lifetime.” For all his skepticism, though, he acknowledged that political winds could shift. “A decade ago, people didn’t think we’d have a hands-free law in California. Only time will tell.”
Nine states now ban the use of hand-held phones, and 35 states ban texting by drivers, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state traffic agencies. The group’s executive director, Barbara Harsha, called the N.T.S.B. recommendation “courageous” and said it would prompt the group to reconsider its policy, which calls for banning drivers from texting but not talking on the phone.
“People may not be ready for that,” she said of such a ban. “But there will certainly be discussion about it.”
Many mobile phone companies dropped their opposition over the last decade to any restrictions on the use of phones in cars, and have in recent years joined calls to ban texting while driving. In a statement, CTIA, the cellular telephone industry trade group, said it deferred to states about whether to enforce such bans.
A complete ban on phone use by drivers would have enormous impact on many car makers that are offering integrated hands-free, voice-activated systems that allow drivers to talk and do other tasks, like calling up their phone directory.
The Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group for the industry, said in a statement that it was reviewing the N.T.S.B. recommendations. But it also defended the integrated systems, saying they allow drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road while they remain connected.
“What we do know is that digital technology has created a connected culture in the United States and it’s forever changed our society: consumers always expect to have access to technology; so managing technology is the solution,” the alliance said in a statement.
Ms. Hersman, the chairwoman of the N.T.S.B., said the safety concerns were not just about keeping hands on the wheel and eyes on the road, but also about making sure people focus on the act of driving.
“It’s about cognitive distraction. It’s about not being engaged at the task at hand,” she said, adding: “Lives are being lost in the blink of an eye. You can’t take it back, you can’t have a do over, and you can’t rewind.”
The issue is gaining greater internationally, too.
Last year, Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations, called for an end to the culture of multitasking behind the wheel. Already, 30 countries have some limitations on the use of phones by drivers, including complete bans in Germany and Portugal, said Bella Dinh-Zarr, road safety director of international road safety with the FIA Foundation, a road safety advocacy group.
Because of the growing research and concern about the issue, she said, “More and more countries are going to be looking at it.”
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Digital evidence becoming central in criminal cases
By Mike Brunker
msnbc.com
November 11, 2011
If you are unfortunate enough to land in court after a serious automobile accident, the star witness against you may not be an eyewitness or even a human being. It could be your car.
Today’s high-tech automobiles increasingly rely on computers to maximize performance and monitor operating systems. But while the under-the-hood computers are doing that, they may also be recording data about your driving.
Typically, that information is collected by a vehicle’s “event data recorder,” or EDR, a computer module that is often compared to the “black box” on a commercial airliner. Among other things, EDRs are capable of recording a number of driver behaviors, including brake application, steering, speed at time of impact in the event of a crash and whether the driver and passengers were using seatbelts.
Such information is primarily intended to help improve federal safety standards, but increasingly it is being used in court cases in which vehicles were involved in a serious accident or the commission of a crime.
For example, electronic evidence played a key role in a criminal case at the center of Friday night’s “Dateline NBC” (10 p.m. / 9 p.m. Central). The case involves a heartbroken Montana teenager, a dangerous stretch of highway and some ominous text messages.
A deadly crash on a notorious stretch of highway forever changes the lives of two Montana families. Dateline NBC's Keith Morrison reports.
“Essentially, vehicles nowadays are a huge conglomeration of computer chips and modules,” said Mike McCullough, a retired Phoenix police detective who investigated serious crashes for many years. “And the electronic data they collect is going to become more and more common as evidence down the road.”
Among the drivers of that anticipated growth are new National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulations that take effect next year.
The rules do not require EDRs – already in use in more than 85 percent of U.S. vehicles – but they mandate that in cars that have them, the devices must capture and preserve at least 15 types of crash data, including pre-crash speed, engine throttle, changes in forward velocity and airbag deployment times. And one day, the agency noted in its final rule, they may even play a role in getting emergency medical service quickly dispatched to the scene of an accident by automatically sending a 911 alert.
'Staggering' amount of information
Even now, however, such information could be cross-checked with information from devices like cellphones and GPS units to build what could be an air-tight court case.
“Now you’re in a situation where, if someone has the time and expertise, they can say you drove from here to there at this speed, you parked at Whole Foods, here’s what you bought, then you got back in your car and drove here and made a call to this number,” said Dean Gonsowski, eDiscovery counsel with Clearwell, which is part of the security firm Symantec. “... It’s staggering how much information can be collected.”
“You want to have the equipment examined to determine the reliability, both from a chronological and content standpoint,” he said. “And there are times when that evidence is of an exculpatory nature, so you want to make sure that you gain access to it – whether it’s a computer or an iPhone or whatever – and that you preserve that evidence immediately.”Drew Findling, an Atlanta attorney and chairman of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ Forensic Disciplines Committee, notes that e-evidence might just as easily create an unshakable alibi, which is why he routinely hires experts to examine equipment and data.
Courts already are wrestling with the challenges presented in general by electronic evidence, which has become almost ubiquitous in both civil and criminal cases.
“Electronic evidence is admitted in almost every trial in America, whether it’s a phone bill or electric bill or a document that’s created, stored or transmitted electronically,” said Mark D. Rasch, director of cybersecurity and privacy consulting at the technology services company CSC and former head of the Justice Department’s computer crime unit. “… When you think about it, even a crime scene photograph is electronic evidence now.”
The increasing use of digital evidence has spawned a new legal specialty – e-discovery – and has added layers of complexity that didn’t exist when cases were won or lost on paper documents. In some cases – particularly those involving corporations – the amount of digital data that must be retrieved and sorted through prior to trial is immense.
“State crime labs are adding high-tech pieces, but if you think it’s hard to examine urine and blood samples, try working through a zip drive, a hard drive or an iPhone,” said Findling, the defense attorney.
Evidentiary laws also have failed to keep pace with rapidly changing technology, said Rasch.
“We changed the discovery laws eight or 10 years ago, but we need to change a bunch of different laws, including electronic privacy laws,” he said. “And we need to continue to tweak the laws on chain of custody, validation and verification, authentication, corroboration and the scope and extent of discovery.”
While lawmakers struggle to catch up, judges and courts are taking wildly varying positions on the reliability and admissibility of digital evidence.
“Right now it depends on the state, depends on the judge,” said McCullough, president of the Southwestern Association of Technical Accident Investigators. “A lot of information has to be established to show that it’s reliable.”
Gonsowski said much of the variation is attributable to the differing technology comfort levels among judges, prosecutors and defense counsels.
“You see some inconsistent decisions because a case may require that the litigants and the judge all understand how Facebook works, for example,” he said. “… So there’s a lot of sort of groping around – not quite the blind leading the blind, but folks wrestling with these new technologies as they apply to traditional legal concepts.”
Stricter rules for digital evidence
Experts have different views of those to-and-fro battles.
Rasch, the former Justice Department official, said that courts often impose higher requirements on digital evidence than they do with physical documents, such as letters.
“We demand a (greater) degree of certitude for certain kinds of electronic evidence than is demanded in the physical world. … A lot of it has to do with the general unease we have with electronic evidence. We’re not sure it’s reliable, that it hasn’t been tampered with.”
But others worry that current laws – and the judges who enforce them – have failed to adequately consider that electronic evidence is “inherently malleable or ephemeral.”
Among them is Steven Teppler, a partner in the Chicago law firm Edelson McGuire and co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Digital Evidence Committee. He is part of what he describes as a growing movement within the legal profession to have digital evidence deemed “hearsay,” and thus generally inadmissible in legal proceedings unless its reliability can be demonstrated.
“Unless we change the rules of evidence to require a higher level of reliability, you have this built in problem where people say, ‘It comes out of the computer, therefore it must be reliable,’” he said.
But that doesn’t account for the fact that programmers create the software that instructs those machines to generate data, Teppler said.
“Computers will repetitively create bad information if they are programmed incorrectly,” he said. “Just because a computer generates it doesn’t mean it’s true.”
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New York Times
October 31, 2011
High Fatality Rate Found for Low-Cost Buses
The low-cost bus industry, which has revolutionized transportation for students and other budget-conscious travelers, has racked up an alarmingly high number of fatal accidents and safety violations over the last few years, and regulators are having a hard time enforcing federal safety standards, according to a government study released on Monday.
The National Transportation Safety Board found that so-called curbside bus companies, which pick up riders on sidewalks rather than in terminals, were involved in fatal accidents at seven times the rate of traditional carriers like Greyhound.
Curbside buses, which first gained popularity in the Chinatown districts of Manhattan and Boston by offering frequent rides between major cities for as little as $1 a seat, also were cited for violations related to driver fatigue and training at a higher rate than their conventional cousins.
In general, the report found that low-cost bus companies were a safe mode of travel and that accidents happened infrequently. In fact, among bus carriers that operate on regular schedules, the low-cost buses recorded proportionally fewer accidents than their share of the market.
But when those accidents occurred, they were far more likely than those involving traditional carriers to result in serious injury or death. (In a not particularly reassuring footnote, the report said that “most of the deaths in fatal motor coach accidents are occupants of other vehicles.”)
The report, the most extensive study of the curbside motor coach industry undertaken by the federal government, was prompted by a bus crash in the Bronx in March that killed 15 passengers returning from a casino trip.
“This industry has been growing so exponentially,” said Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, whose office requested the review. “We have to be a step ahead of them and make sure we implement the types of safety measures that are necessary.”
Senator Charles E. Schumer, who spoke at a news conference on Monday unveiling the report, described it as “a wake-up call” and asked federal officials to create a more rigorous regulatory system for the industry.
In a statement, the Transportation Department, which has oversight of the motor coach industry, said it had nearly doubled its safety inspections on buses in the past five years. It also recently issued rules banning bus drivers from talking on cellphones or sending text messages while driving.
But the agency did not dispute the findings that federal regulators can often be stymied by the unique nature of the low-cost bus industry.
Because the buses do not park in traditional terminals, officials must make inspections on crowded street corners, which they said could be logistically difficult. Regulators are also barred from inspecting buses in the middle of a scheduled trip, which can reduce the element of surprise.
Many drivers and owners of low-cost bus companies do not speak English, and their records are often kept in other languages, which investigators described as frustrating. Officials say they are concerned that the language barrier means some owners do not fully understand every federal regulation.
Another challenge is a practice that officials called “reincarnation” — when bus companies with safety violations simply start a new concern under a different name and reuse the vehicles and drivers. That tactic has been used by the company involved in the fatal Bronx crash, World Wide Travel, which is still running its buses through two other companies connected to the owner.
Ms. Velázquez, a Democrat whose district includes Chinatown, acknowledged that curbside bus companies contributed to the economic and social activities of her constituents.
“But we have a responsibility to make sure that cannot be at the expense of the lives of those who are using it,” Ms. Velázquez said. “The focus of our effort is not to punish this industry, or impose unnecessary regulation. It is to restore travelers’ confidence.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 2, 2011
An article in some editions on Tuesday about the fatality rate in the low-cost bus industry misspelled the surname of a New York State representative, one of the officials who requested a review of the industry. She is Nydia M. Velázquez, not Velasquez.
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Tough driving laws may not protect older teen
Lindsey Tanner, Associated Press
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Chicago --
Strong driver's license laws have led to fewer fatal crashes among 16-year-olds but with a disturbing side effect - more fatal accidents among 18-year-olds, a nationwide study found.
Many states require young drivers to get extensive experience, including driving with an adult, before getting a full license. But in most states, those laws only apply to those younger than 18. The new study suggests some teens are just putting off getting a license until they turn 18 - meaning they have little experience and higher odds for a deadly crash.
"There's an incentive right now to skip out and just wait until you're 18," said Scott Masten, the study's lead author and a researcher with California's Department of Motor Vehicles. "In most states, you don't even need to have driver education or driver training" if you obtain a license at 18, he said.
The study examined fatal crashes from 1986 to 2007 involving 16- to 19-year-olds. Results appear in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study authors analyzed fatal crash data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and information on each state's licensing programs.
Comparing states with the most restrictions versus those with the weakest laws or no restrictions, there were 26 percent fewer fatal crashes involving 16-year-old drivers; but among 18-year-old drivers, there were 12 percent more fatal crashes.
Evidence suggests that many teens are waiting until they're older to get their licenses; in California for example, only 13 percent of 16-year-olds have driver's licenses, Masten said.
Masten said more research is needed to determine why the fatal crash rate among 18-year-olds rose and whether an increase also occurred in nonfatal crashes.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/14/MN151L41ET.DTL
This article appeared on page A - 8 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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KIDS SAFER WITH GRANDPARENTS BEHIND THE WHEEL
from CNN.com
July, 24, 2011
Youngsters who are driven by their grandparents are less likely to suffer from serious injury if they're involved in a crash, says a new study in the journal Pediatrics.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as doctors from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, found even though grandparents are in an older group that has a higher risk of severe crashes, youngsters driven by their grandparents suffered fewer injuries in crashes and were actually safer than children driven by their parents.
With more and more baby boomers becoming grandparents, we were concerned about children in crashes with grandparents,” says Dr. Fred Henretig, lead author and an attending physician in the Philadelphia hospital's Department of Emergency Medicine.
Investigators, looked at more than four years of crash data ( January 2003- November 2007) to compare restraint-use practices and injuries among children in crashes with grandparents vs. parents. Injury data were collected on 11,859 children under the age of 15. Children driven by grandparents made up 9.5 percent of the sample taken, but resulted in only 6.6 percent of the total injuries.
Researchers found that nearly all children were either in car seats or had seat belts on during the crashes. However children in grandparent-driven vehicles were less likely to be restrained correctly. Despite this, little ones in grandparent-driven crashes had half the risk of injuries as those in parent-driven crashes.
“Although the children in crashes with grandparents could be better protected if they were using child restraints correctly, we were surprised to find that there is a protective effect on child injury risk in a crash when grandparents are driving. There is something about grandparents’ driving style with their ‘precious cargo’ in tow that is protective. If we can learn more about this style of driving, we can help drivers of all ages keep kids safe in cars," noted Henretig. ********************************************************
Why we made cars for blind drivers
July 17, 2011 1:20 p.m. EDT
Editor's note: Dennis W. Hong, an associate professor of engineering at Virginia Tech, leads RoMeLa, a robotics lab at the university that last week won a major worldwide competition in the field -- RoboCup 2011.
Blacksburg, Virginia (CNN) -- In our modern society, driving is really a necessity. It is a means of getting you to your destination wherever, whenever. Driving is also fun. Some people even consider it an expression of power. Most importantly, driving is really about freedom, about independence.
Sighted people, myself included, do it every day and take it for granted. Unfortunately, because of physical challenges, not everyone has the privilege to drive. My team of researchers wants to find a way to give the blind the ability to drive.
When we first announced that we were going to take up this challenge, many thought we were crazy, and most of the critics doubted that it could be done. Even some of my colleagues challenged us on the idea of developing a vehicle for the blind.
The car we're developing for the blind uses a sensor to measure acceleration, cameras to detect the lanes of the road, and laser range finders. Drivers are fitted with special gloves with vibrating elements that can be used to control steering and a massage chair that conveys information about the vehicle's speed and about how best to use the gas and brake pedal.
I've gotten hundreds of letters, e-mails, and phone calls from people around the world; many times these are to thank and congratulate us, but sometimes we get letters of strong concern and criticism.
First, many voiced their concern about the safety of this system. Some of these concerns were because people do not trust the technology, some of them because they do not trust the capability of the blind.
No system is failproof. However, this is where true engineering comes in. I would like to ask those who worry about the system failing -- when was the last time you doubted the autopilot that most likely was flying your plane during your last flight? But to reassure those who doubt the safety of the system, I say that the vehicle won't be on the public roads until proven as safe as, or safer than, today's vehicles for the sighted. And I believe this can be done.
Regarding the capability of the blind, I believe that with the right nonvisual user interfaces, once we can deliver all the information needed to safely operate the vehicle to the driver, the blind can perform as well as, or possibly even better than the sighted. Mark Riccobono, the first blind driver who drove our vehicle on the Daytona International Speedway, is a better driver than I am -- at least with this vehicle.
Second, some worried that even when the technology becomes mature enough and safe enough, the vehicle will be too expensive for people to afford. This is another realistic concern and an important one. We started this project to give freedom and independence to the blind -- and if only a few could afford the vehicle, what good would it be?
But we believe that mass production will lower the cost, as with personal computers, mobile phones, and regular automobiles. Still, this vehicle will be more expensive than a regular vehicle, and maybe a government subsidy program would be needed to make it more affordable for the masses.
Third, there were some people who questioned whether the type and amount of information being received by the driver from the nonvisual user interfaces we have developed for the vehicle would be sufficient.
As Mark mentioned in his speech at the press conference after the first public demo of the vehicle early this year, blind drivers have other sources of information beyond the DriveGrip and SpeedStrip controls. As sighted drivers do, Mark made active use of his other senses such as sound, listening to the noise the tires generate rolling over the roads, and used the sense of angular and linear acceleration perceived from his inner ear to make judgments and adjustments to the controls of the vehicle.
As a matter of fact, this project was really not a demonstration of the cutting-edge technology we have developed, but rather a true demonstration of what the blind can achieve with just a little bit of help from technology.
If one can believe that we will have fully autonomous, driverless cars in the future, which many people do, then there is absolutely no reason why one should doubt the possibility of a car driven by the blind safely on public roads.
Last, some argued that, by the time this technology becomes mature, we will have driverless vehicles, and thus we don't need this project. (Interestingly, I also got some e-mails from blind people saying that they do not want this technology. They said they would prefer to have better public transportation and wish we put more efforts and money into fully autonomous vehicle technology, as they don't want to drive and get into an accident.)
Now this is probably the most difficult and controversial question to answer, but it is a valuable argument worth thinking about. If we will have driverless cars in the future, why are we spending time and money developing a car that a blind person can drive?
The nonvisual user interfaces we develop can be used for applications other than for driving -- in everyday home appliances, in office settings, in educational settings. The possibilities of spinoff technologies are endless. Also we would like to show the world the true capability of the blind through this project. I want to inspire other scientists and engineers to develop new technology to help the blind.
The sensors we use for the blind driver challenge vehicle are almost identical to the ones we use for autonomous vehicles, and we have used for this project many of the technologies we have developed for our autonomous cars for the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. But the similarity ends there.
The focus of autonomous vehicle research is on developing intelligent vehicles, or artificial intelligence for cars in some sense, while the focus of the blind driver challenge vehicle is developing methods to convey a vast amount of information to the driver through nonvisual means, fast enough and accurately enough for safe driving.
For those who think we should only focus our effort in developing technologies for driverless cars, my thought is that even if you ride in an autonomous vehicle, you will want to -- and sometimes have to -- switch to "manual mode" from time to time. This is true for both blind and sighted people. There will be certain situations the computer won't be able to handle, or where the driver will choose to take control just for the fun of driving.
I am sure I will buy an autonomous car for our family in the not too distant future. But even though it will be capable of driving me to my destination, I'm also sure I would love to take the wheel and drive it from time to time.
Whenever we have new students come to our lab to work on this project, I always ask them this question: "How many times in your life do you really think you will have a chance to change the world?" I believe we are doing just that through this project. As I mentioned in my TED talk, this is just the beginning. Expect to see amazing things and technologies coming soon that will change the world.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dennis Hong.
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April 12, 2011
From the New York Times
' “We take care of a lot of people injured in car accidents, and distracted driving is a substantial contributor to these accidents,” Dr. Daniel Berry, president of the academy, said in an interview. “If we could get rid of this part of our practice, it would be a great service to the people we care for.”
Orthopedists would do very well, thank you, without the business generated by the 307,369 crashes that have occurred so far this year, according to estimates from the National Safety Council, involving drivers talking on cellphones or texting.'
To read the entire article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/health/12brody.html?src=recg
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March 19, 2011, Cortez, Colorado
from Cortez Journal.com, by Reid Wright
Riffey found not guilty
"Christopher Gayner, an accident reconstructionist testifying for the defense, argued Riffey's injuries indicate he was hurt by the seat belt on the passenger's side - a point contested in testimony from an emergency room doctor, forensic pathologist and a crash scene reconstructionist with the Colorado State Patrol".
To read the entire article pertaining to this interesting criminal case in southwest Colorado where the central issue was: Who Was Driving the Car? ... please click on the link below:
http://cortezjournal.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=14761&TM=28522.96
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March 10, 2011
from MSNBC news
New Safety Guidelines for Child Car Seats in Automobiles.
How to avoid collision dangers to children through the proper use of infant, convertible and booster seats in the car.
"The American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued separate but consistent new recommendations Monday.
Both organizations say older children who've outgrown front-facing car seats should ride in booster seats until the lap-shoulder belt fits them. Booster seats help position adult seat belts properly on children's smaller frames. Children usually can graduate from a booster seat when their height reaches 4 feet 9 inches.
Children younger than 13 should ride in the back seat, the guidelines from both groups say.
The advice may seem extreme to some parents, who may imagine trouble convincing older elementary school kids — as old as 12 — to use booster seats.
But it's based on evidence from crashes. For older children, poorly fitting seat belts can cause abdominal and spine injuries in a crash.
One-year-olds are five times less likely to be injured in a crash if they are in a rear-facing car seat than a forward-facing seat, according to a 2007 analysis of five years of U.S. crash data."
Click below to read the entire article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42537214 (msnbc, April 11, 2011).
Or click these other links for video clips pertaining to the new guidelines:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32564763#42202710
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32564763#42190931
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October 9, 2010, 1:00 pm
New York Times
Mercedes Recalls 85,000 Recent Cars for Steering Problem
By Christopher Jensen
Mercedes-Benz is recalling 85,000 of its 2010 and 2011 models because a steering problem could make the vehicles difficult to control.
The models are the 2010 C-Class and the 2010-11 E-Class, the automaker told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a recent report.
Mercedes said a connection fitting on the high-pressure power steering line might not be tight enough, allowing power-steering fluid to leak.
As a result, the automaker reported, “Owners may not have sufficient control of the vehicle under circumstances such as parking where maximum power steering is required.” The company added that the problem “could lead to a vehicle crash.”
Mercedes said it learned of the problem from customer complaints. Its report to the safety agency did not say whether there had been any accidents. A Mercedes spokesman could not immediately be reached.
In its report to the safety administration, Mercedes described the recall as voluntary. But once an automaker identifies such a safety defect, the law gives it no option but to recall the vehicle.
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New U.S. crash tests: Only Hyundai Sonata, BMW 5 get 5 stars
USAToday
October 5, 2010
Only the BMW 5 Series and Hyundai Sonata got 5-star overall ratings in the new,
tougher U.S. crash tests for 2011 models out today.
New this year: the feds first female dummy, a crash into a pole and an overall score of 1 to 5 stars, in addition to the traditional scores in the individual tests. Just those two of the first 34 vehicles tested the new way earned a 5-star overall score.
On the downside: The 2011 Toyota Camry, the best-selling U.S. car, got just 3 stars overall -- after the virtually identical 2010 model got top scores. Toyota took it on the chin -- the hybrid Camry was the only other vehicle to get 3 stars overall.
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New auto safety legislation is in the works by the U.S. Congress in the aftermath of Toyota’s recent safety dilemmas concerning vehicle sudden acceleration claims. Two new safety regulations on the table address the implementation of brake override systems and standards for event data recorders (also known as black box accident data recorders). Also being debated by Congress is the proposal to increase fines for automakers that fail to report safety defects.
Source: Automotive News, May 10,2010.
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Articles:
"Legislation regulating transportation safety is saving lives and reducing serious injuries in motor vehicle collisions year after year. In 1966 the U.S. Congress passed the Highway Safety Act, which led to the formation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The 40th anniversaries of these events recently passed unbeknownst to most people, yet the ongoing societal benefits give cause for reflection and recognition of the thousands of lives saved and .... " (MORE ... Read Entire Article).
Source: Christopher Gayner, MSME, San Luis Obispo County Bar Bulletin
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Process of accident reconstruction involves interpreting evidence -- and laws of physics
By ANDREW WOLFE Staff Writer,
September 13, 2009
from www.nashuatelegraph.com
Accidents happen, but accident reconstruction experts prefer not to call them that.
"There were days when everything was called 'accidents,' " said Nashua Police Lt. John Fisher, head of the department's accident reconstruction unit.
"In crash investigations, the term is 'crash' or 'collision.' In most of the cases, there is fault of some sort," Fisher said.
When a collision is severe and fault is unclear, the case may well wind up in court, where a dozen people will have to sort out who's to blame. Chances are good that jurors will hear from at least two accident reconstruction experts, with two differing explanations of what happened.
Having covered two such cases of late, The Telegraph asked various experts and lawyers what such disputes say about the science of accident reconstruction.
"Accident reconstruction is a tool, just like a hammer or a firearm or a computer. Like any tool, it can be used wisely and effectively or it can be used improperly and dangerously," said Richard Lehmann, the lawyer who represented a Nashua man accused of killing a pedestrian near the University of New Hampshire in 2004.
"It's presented to the jury as science. In a courtroom, it takes good lawyering to be a check on it being used dangerously."
Crash reconstruction isn't so much a science as an amalgamation of many different scientific methods and disciplines applied toward the study of motor vehicle collisions.
Experts liken the process of accident reconstruction to putting together a jigsaw puzzle with no edge pieces, no box and no photo to show how it should look when it's finished.
"Accident reconstruction, as a profession, is a blend of both science and 'art,' " wrote Bruce McNally, of McNally & Associates Accident Reconstruction Services of Rochester. "The science of accident reconstruction is grounded in Newtonian physics, and is generally beyond reproach.
"However, the 'art' of accident reconstruction is dependent upon the individual expert's understanding of the laws of physics and his/her interpretation of the physical evidence."
Reconstruction experts typically start by diagramming the scene to show the road and all its features, noting weather, lighting and other such conditions. They put each piece of potential evidence in its place, from the vehicles and occupants to any bits of debris scattered by the crash and traces such as tire or impact marks. Then, they work backward to figure out how things got there, experts say.
Certain aspects of crash investigations are fairly simple, Fisher said. Experts will seldom disagree greatly on their estimates of a vehicle's speed, for instance; interpreting the marks that tires leave on pavement is so fundamental that it rarely leads to dispute.
"Ninety-nine percent of our collisions, I would say there's really no disagreement on how the collision occurred or what the factors were," Fisher said. "More factors in a collision makes for a much more involved investigation and reconstruction."
A car that caroms off several objects, for example, will have a far more complex trajectory and set of forces exerted on people and things inside it, experts say. Crashes involving many vehicles are more complicated, and crashes with no clear roadway evidence -- tire marks or other indicators of what caused a loss of control -- can be more puzzling, too.
Still, no matter how complex, Strafford County Sheriffs Capt. Joseph DiGregorio said, every accident is simply a series of discrete events involving objects, all of which can be gauged and quantified.
"It all boils down to Newtonian physics, when you think about it," said DiGregorio, a certified reconstructionist.
(Fisher and DiGregorio worked on fatal crashes that The Telegraph covered, in which they and opposing experts reached different conclusions. Both cases remain before the courts, and Fisher and DiGregorio declined to discuss those cases specifically.
Drivers and other eyewitnesses are the least reliable source of information, reconstruction experts agree."Witness statements are nice, but I don't read them," said one expert, Carl Lakowicz, of Northpoint Collision Consultants in Gilmanton.
When people see something unfold quickly and dramatically, their brains tend to trick them into thinking they caught all of the action by filling in any gaps to make sense of what they've seen, Fisher noted.
"Humans, by nature, want to make what they don't know turn into a video," Fisher said. "Sometimes, witnesses to car collisions will speak fairly adamantly to something . . . it turns out probably didn't happen."
When witnesses' statements match the physical evidence, on the other hand, that can be powerful proof, Fisher said.
"We're careful. We look at both," he said.
Police investigate all serious collisions, by law, and most accident reconstruction experts are either active-duty or retired police officers, but some also come to the field from engineering backgrounds.
Because so many collisions result in insurance claims and lawsuits, there is a great deal of business for experts who can draw authoritative conclusions about who and what caused a crash.
Police officers learn basic accident investigation during their training with the state's police academy, Fisher said, and those who work in accident reconstruction units go through additional classes.
Police in New Hampshire generally go through courses run by the Institute of Police Technology and Management, which sends instructors to Nashua for its two-week courses. IPTM also offers weeklong courses in areas such as motorcycle crashes and collisions involving pedestrians, Fisher said.
There is an organization that accredits and certifies accident reconstruction experts, the Accreditation Commission for Traffic Accident Reconstruction, but the accreditation process takes time, money and no small amount of brainpower, and it isn't in any way mandatory to have such accreditation in order to work in the field.
You can get a couple of classes," DiGregorio said, "and dive into the accident reconstruction world."
For those reasons, active-duty police are less likely to be certified than those who work in the private sector, experts say.
"ACTAR accreditation wasn't a big deal when I got into it," but it has become more so, Fisher said of accident reconstruction. Two officers on the Nashua Police reconstruction team are currently working toward certification, he said.
"It does take a lot of study time," Fisher said. "You could be an SAE-certified engineer and not pass the ACTAR test."
Applicants can't even take the ACTAR test until they have a fair amount of training and experience. The test includes a written portion, followed by a full day spent diagramming and diagnosing simulated crash scenes, Bartlett said.
"I would say that one-day tests like this are the best we've got for distinguishing somebody who has minimal competence versus sub-minimal competence," Bartlett said, adding later, "The ACTAR test is a good effort to separate wheat from chaff."
However, while the test can weed out incompetence and single out top performers, Bartlett said, that leaves a lot of room for variety among the masses of reconstruction experts, certified and not. Bartlett said he has seen certified experts reach conclusions he found "inexplicable," and also encountered uncertified experts "who are quite competent."
"I think it's important to recognize that egalitarianism is inappropriate here: Not all 'experts' are equal," Bartlett wrote. "Training, experience, understanding of underlying principles and even ethics can come into play, and equal weight should not be given to every opinion by everyone on every topic."
DiGregorio, one of the few active-duty law enforcement officers in the state who is also ACTAR certified (Hudson Police Lt. David Bianchi is another), said he believes certification carries some clout.
Lawyers who work with such evidence in the courtroom disagree on the importance of an expert's resume. Crash reconstruction is well established and widely accepted as science, despite the lack of mandatory standards and certifications, lawyers said. Judges rarely refuse to accept experienced investigators as experts.
"Accreditation in and of itself is not the answer," Manchester attorney Paul McDonough said. "I think that jurors look at the quality of the testimony rather than the letters following the person's name.
"It's not unusual to have two experts from opposite sides testify to opposite conclusions based on the same set of facts," McDonough said, and jurors simply have to decide for themselves which is right.
"I think jurors have to perform that same function whether it's two experts testifying or two eyewitnesses testifying," he said.
Attorney Gordon Rehnborg, of Manchester, agreed that disagreements are common, but added that in his view, "The expert's total credential resume, their CV (curriculum vitae), is very important."
it's their job to enforce society's laws, police have to decide relatively early in their investigation whether they have evidence to justify arresting someone or to require a blood sample, Fisher said. If there is evidence of intoxication, however, police can always charge a driver with DWI and continue to review the crash, he noted.
Some experts in the private sector suggest police can be swayed by the need to figure things out fast and the human tendency to want to hold someone accountable when something awful happens.
"You want to do the right thing . . . and you lose objectivity," said Lakowicz, himself a retired Concord police officer.
"If a reconstructionist finds an answer that's convenient, they may simply stop digging. This is a trap that a lot of officers fall into. . . . They come to a conclusion within a half an hour and they decide, 'This is what happened.'
"We go into it kind of blindly, not having the energy and the anger and the compassion that police officers have when they show up at these terrible accidents."
Fisher and DiGregorio dispute the idea that police are inherently biased toward finding fault, although they say all experts agree with the need for objectivity. Police get paid for their time all the same, regardless of whether or whom they arrest, he notes.
"There are no bonus points for a yes or no," Fisher said.
Although police are responsible for enforcing the laws, he said, "It can't create bias. If it does, you're not doing your job.
"We've got to look into everything, and there's just no easy way out of it," Fisher said. "You can't, and we don't, jump to conclusions about these things."
Fisher recalls investigating a collision on Lake Street. A woman in the neighborhood had been broadsided by another vehicle, the driver of which was intoxicated, as witnesses at the scene clamored to point out to police.
The thing was, Fisher recalls, the woman had run a stop sign. The other driver was charged with DWI, but the crash wasn't his fault, Fisher found.
If anything, DiGregorio said, police reconstructionists are biased toward the accused. Once they estimate the probable speed of a vehicle, for instance, the expert will assume a speed at the low end of the range to give a person the benefit of doubt.
"As a police investigator, it's up to me to interpret the evidence in the best light for a defendant," DiGregorio said. "No reconstructionist wants to falsely accuse anybody of anything.
"\When two experts look at the same crash and disagree on what happened or who caused it, experts say, either there isn't enough evidence for anyone to tell what happened or one of them is wrong.
"It is true that an investigator can sometimes read more into the evidence than it can support, or may fail to recognize what it's telling us, but the science is solid when there's relevant evidence," wrote Wade Bartlett of Rochester, a mechanical engineer and ACTAR-certified specialist in motorcycle collisions. "It's up to the investigator to find it, document it and interpret it correctly without bias.
"In my experience, if experts from both 'sides' get all the same information, and the information set is sufficient to draw conclusions, the experts agree to a much greater extent than they disagree. Evidence doesn't lie, but there are some cases where there is insufficient information to come to a conclusion that's confidently 'beyond a reasonable doubt' (criminal matters) or even 'more likely than not' (civil matters)."
Knowing what can -- and can't -- be known is a big part of the job, McNally wrote.
"The limitations of any given reconstruction are based upon how much physical evidence is available in a case, how well that evidence was documented and how well that evidence is interpreted by the expert," McNally wrote. "It is up to the individual expert to understand what the limitations are in a given incident, and not exceed those limitations."
Of course, getting one case wrong doesn't mean an expert is incompetent.
DiGregorio noted, "You can be the best surgeon in the world and make a wrong diagnosis."
In lawsuits and some other types of hearings, judges and jurors decide what happened and who is to blame based on "a preponderance of the evidence," or more likely than not.
In criminal cases, cases must be proven "beyond reasonable doubt," so a tie goes to the defendant.
"If you have two theories and they are both plausible, there's got to be a not guilty; otherwise, you risk convicting innocent people," Lehmann notes.
"There's a very strong impulse to want to hold somebody responsible when something bad happens," Lehmann said. However, he added, "There's such a thing as accidents."
