November 21, 2016
Former West Virginia Secretary of State and well-known plaintiffs’ attorney Edgar “Hike” Heiskell III died yesterday after a brief battle with cancer. He was 76 years old. A true Renaissance man, Heiskell succeeded in politics and the law. His interests ranged from cooking to writing to an enduring love for pre-GM Swedish Saabs. A graduate […]
November 11, 2016
Clarence M. Ditlow III, Executive Director of the Center for Auto Safety, died last night of cancer. He was 72. His passing is a big loss for the safety advocacy community. The Center released a statement that said, in part: “His accomplishments included safety recalls of tens of millions of vehicles that saved untold thousands […]
October 6, 2016
Safety Research & Strategies is pleased to welcome automotive diagnostics expert Neil Black and Research Librarian Erica Little to our multidisciplinary research team. A 2012 graduate of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois with a B.S. in automotive technology, Black specializes in electronic circuitry failure analysis. “Understanding how circuits are designed to work is paramount […]
October 4, 2016
Safety Research & Strategies response to this request: Deny! It’s rare for an automaker to request such a change – it’s even rarer for the agency to ask for comments. But, our focus on this issue tells us that the petition is a stunning display of chutzpah, considering that the automaker is already flouting the […]
August 31, 2016
[Editor’s Note: The following article is a response to best-selling author Malcom Gladwell’s recent podcast “Blame Game” on the Toyota unintended acceleration crisis. Gladwell’s depiction of the controversial defect issues plaguing Toyotas is wildly inaccurate and refuted in many public record documents. In addition, the podcast reinforces the narrative of vehicles as mechanical objects that […]
June 30, 2016
Five and a half years ago, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration vowed that it was going to get on top of the keyless ignition safety issue, publishing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. The NPRM acknowledged that keyless ignitions, for all of their purported convenience, had introduced several safety hazards not associated with mechanical key […]
June 7, 2016
Late last week, the Rubber Manufacturers Association launched online tire recall search tool, and The Safety Record asks: Why? First, the RMA tire look-up website only contains tire recall information for its eight member companies, so recall information regarding all of the non-RMA made tires and tires that are imported and branded by U.S. distributors […]
May 23, 2016
As the Takata airbag inflator recalls top 40 million vehicles with global estimates of the eventual final tally upwards of 60 million, the OEMs have been happy to cast Takata as a rogue supplier, willing to deceive its customers – particularly Honda – by falsifying test data, and its design and parts validation processes. And […]
April 7, 2016
A Kalamazoo man is the latest vaper who turned to electronic cigarettes as a healthier alternative to traditional cigarettes and wound up with serious burns. According to an April 1 news account: “Took a couple of puffs off of it, had it between my fingers, looked down and my hand was on fire," said the […]
March 31, 2016
Earlier this month, Rich Grandy of Crystal Beach, Florida was easing his 2005 Toyota Tacoma into a parking space in front of his local 7-Eleven, when it took off, hit the front doors of the convenience store and shattered the adjacent picture window. The only thing that kept the Tacoma from advancing further into the […]