September 10, 2019
In July, the California Utilities Commission granted Waymo (formerly the Google self-driving car project) the state’s first permit to test its driverless vehicles without safety drivers on public roadways. And, by the end of this year, the company planned to launch a driverless taxi service in Phoenix. Ford has promised the public a “fully autonomous […]
June 7, 2019
EDITOR’S NOTE: Five days after publication of this article Toyota announced its plans to add auto shutoff and auto park features for 2020 models to prevent CO deaths and rollaways – 13 years after first death and 7 years after Ford and GM. Last month, Dr. Sherry Hood Penney, 81, and Dr. James Livingston, 88, […]
May 15, 2019
This spring saw the reign of a popular infant sleeping device unravel. The Fisher Price Rock ‘N Play Sleeper was a type of infant hammock, consisting of a fabric and padding-covered plastic shell, suspended on a foldable metal frame. The Rock ‘N Play was the brainchild of Fisher Price industrial designer Linda Chapman, whose first-born […]
April 26, 2019
On March 24, newly minted Attorney General William Barr released a four-page summary of the Office of Special Counsel’s 448-page report of a two-year investigation into President Donald Trumps ties to and cultivation and acceptance of Russia’s help in defeating Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton via the use of stolen emails, and of Trump’s efforts to […]
April 17, 2019
The General Accounting Office added some weight to the arguments safety advocates have been making for decades about the need for the government to more vigorously tackle the truck underride problem. This week, the GAO released the results of a study to support the consideration of the STOP Underrides Act (S. 666 / H.R. 1511), […]
April 12, 2019
A new National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report says requiring tiremakers to electronically identify tires is feasible, but the main technologies to achieve it – Radio Frequency Identification tags or two-dimensional bar-codes – come with plusses and minuses that would need sorting out to achieve a standard format across manufacturers. The report was mandated by the […]
April 11, 2019
In November 2016, trade publication Automotive News published a rosy headline on the eve of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief Mark Rosekind’s departure: NHTSA positioned to continue Rosekind's work after inauguration. The article went on to repeat Rosekind’s predictions that the agency’s aggressive enforcement stance would continue because “the agency has taken steps to […]
March 27, 2019
If you can’t get a member of Congress to the crash test site, bring it to them – at least that was the thinking of underride activists Marianne Karth and Lois Durso, in hosting three tests yesterday to demonstrate the efficacy of underride guards. The tests, held in a parking lot near Audi Field, two […]
February 8, 2019
On May 7, 2016, Joshua Brown, a Tesla enthusiast, died, when his 2015 Model S in Autopilot mode, collided with a tractor trailer crossing a highway near Williston, Florida. A month later, the agency opened an investigation to throw open the hood of Tesla’s technology and probe its Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) system design and […]
January 9, 2019
On a hot Friday afternoon in June, truck driver Perry McCleod, at the wheel of a 2004 Peterbilt tractor-trailer pulling a 2016 Hyundai box trailer, crashed into the back of a Toyota Tundra, stopped at a work-zone on Interstate 94 in Cass County, Missouri. A forensic examination of the crash showed that McCleod was doing […]