Category: Automotive

Senate Holds Hearings on NHTSA and House Releases Staff Report on GM Ignition Switch

Posted on | by admin

Another big day for NHTSA as the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance will hold a hearings today at 2:30 pm titled “Oversight of and Policy Considerations for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,” chaired by Subcommittee Chairman Claire McCaskill (D-MO).  Earlier today House Committee on Energy and Commerce released its Staff Report on the GM ignition switch crises. 

The Safety Record hasn’t unpacked all of the details of the House report, but we thought a quick comparison was in order: 

Safety Research & Strategies June 13, 2011 presentation to the National Academy of Sciences:

"Absent regulation and investigators with detailed and independent understanding of current technology, the crises will continue to occur…" (slide 26, “Toyota Unintended Acceleration: Learning From Crises and Moving Forward Sean Kane Safety Research & Strategies, Inc)

 

House Staff report on GM Ignition Switch and NHTSA:

"As manufacturers began implementing new advanced air bag systems, NHTSA’s safety defect investigators’ understanding of the systems failed to keep pace with the evolution of the technology. Critically, NHTSA investigators were completely unaware of the link between power mode and the air bag system until the GM recall in 2014."

(U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE Staff Report on the GM Ignition Switch Recall: Review of NHTSA September 16, 2014, Page 34)

 

Watch today’s Senate hearing at 2:30 pm EDT here.

Toyota: A Series of Unfortunate Chapters

Posted on | by admin

On a sunny June day, Kathy Ruginis, of Bristol, RI, had a low-speed Unintended Acceleration event in a 2010 Corolla, as she attempted to park. The car had already been remedied under the floor mat entrapment and sticky accelerator recalls, and presumably was as safe as a babe in its mother’s arms. Ruginis was making a slow, right hand turn to ease into the parking space; her foot was on the brake, when the vehicle surged forward and crashed into an unoccupied parked Jeep in front of it. Fortunately, only the Toyota and the Jeep were injured.

Kathy’s husband Bob, an electrical engineer with 35 years’ experience in embedded software and hardware design, wanted an explanation. And Toyota had one. After a June 24 physical inspection, a test drive and a download of the Corolla’s Event Data Recorder (which Toyota requested be performed), Toyota sent Bob and Kathy a letter, which basically said: we jiggled your pedal, we wiggled your floor mat, and we drove your vehicle for an exhaustive 16 miles. There’s nothing wrong with your car. So sorry. Goodbye.

Missing from that July 9 ding letter? Any mention of the EDR download, which showed pretty clearly that something was definitely wrong. According to the five-second pre-crash snapshot, just before the Corolla struck the Jeep, the brake was on, the accelerator pedal was untouched, but the speed and the engine RPMs doubled just before the crash. Get that? Brake on. Accelerator pedal off. Speed doubles.

Today, the Bristol Rhode Island couple filed a defect petition to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asking it to investigate low-speed surges in Toyota Corollas from the 2006-2011 platform. They also sent a follow-up a letter to the Independent Monitor, a position created by the March Deferred Prosecution Agreement that closed the criminal investigation into Toyota’s lies about its Unintended Acceleration problems. The Ruginises have requested that attorney David Kelley investigate whether Toyota has already begun to violate the terms of the agreement, which deferred prosecution for three years, in exchange for Toyota pleading guilty to one criminal count of wire fraud. The settlement, struck after a four-year probe, allows Toyota to merely pay its way out of the mess, as long as it stops lying to everyone about the safety of their vehicles.

Apparently, some habits are hard to quit.

In his letter to the Special Monitor, Ruginis pointed out that Toyota could not have concluded that nothing was wrong with the Corolla and that there were glaring discrepancies in what the company was saying privately to him, but publicly elsewhere. Here’s the wind-up:

  • "Toyota’s physical inspection showed that our unintended acceleration crash was not caused by floor mat entrapment or a sticking accelerator pedal; therefore Toyota’s solutions to the unintended acceleration problem by launching the sticky pedal and floor mat entrapment recalls have not been “effective and durable.”
  • Toyota has not identified the root cause of our crash; therefore the company cannot conclude that “the incident was not the result of any type of manufacturing or design defect.”
  • A vehicle that accelerates suddenly, without the driver’s input is an unsafe vehicle; therefore, in our case, Toyota did not stand behind “the safety and quality” of this vehicle.
  • In denying our claim, Toyota misled us by specifically excluding the one important piece of evidence that was unfavorable to the company’s position, but one the company has publicly proclaimed its great faith in. Toyota cherry-picked the data to claim to conclude there was no problem.”

And here’s the pitch:

“Concealing a safety issue and making misleading statements to an individual customer may not rise to the same level of chicanery as lying to a Congressional inquiry, or NHTSA investigators, or the Department of Justice. But, I have done a great deal of reading about the history of this issue, and, at its essence, what Toyota did to me is no different than what it did to thousands of other customers, and to those governmental entities over a span of over a decade – ignoring problematic data to make it look as though there is no unintended acceleration issue, making definitive statements about root causes without adequate investigation; making public promises of integrity while privately practicing deceit; and employing every means at its disposal to limit its liability of what appears to be a difficult-to-resolve technical issue, at the expense of the customer’s safety. In other words, I see that nothing has changed.”

Toyota Misery Has Plenty of Company

On June 24, as a Toyota engineer was combing the Ruginis Corolla allegedly looking for the root cause of the crash, The Safety Institute, a non-profit research and advocacy organization, released its first quarterly Vehicle Watch List on emerging – or in some cases, continuing — safety defect trends by vehicle make, model year, and alleged defect. Of the 15 vehicles on the list, Toyota Camry vehicles with speed control complaints occupied six positions – more than a third. The six model years, occupying the 7th, 8th,9th, 11th, 12th, and 14th positions on the list are, respectively, MY2007, MY2009, MY2005, MY2004, MY2008, and MY2014.

The Watch List uses publicly available data such as NHTSA consumer complaints, and manufacturer reported Early Warning Reports on deaths and injuries and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS),  and employs “peer-reviewed analytic methods to identify emerging motor vehicle safety defects that merit additional engineering and statistical review,” according to a TSI press release.

For example, recently, Boyd Martin, a mechanical engineer based in Braintree, Mass., reported two low-speed surge events in his wife’s 2011 Camry that resulted in property damage crashes. His wife is a cautious driver, Boyd said, who had only put 10,000 miles on the car. Both incidents took place in the parking lot of his company. The first occurred on July 9th; the second occurred on July 23. In both cases, Sylvia Martin was slowly maneuvering into a space, when the Camry surged forward “at full throttle,” hitting a stockade fence. After the second event, the Camry was towed to the body shop for repair. According to Sylvia Martin’s written account: “A short time later Ray called my office and told my husband that as the truck driver was taking the Camry off the flat-bed truck the driver started the engine to move the car to parking lot. The car engine raced and bolted forward. Fortunately he was able to push hard enough on the brakes to stop the car before there was further damage.”

“About an hour after he gave us that call, that’s when we started to look into it on the Internet, and began to realize that we were not alone.”

Boyd Martin says that Toyota has inspected the vehicle, but has made no conclusions yet; he is still waiting for Toyota to release the results of his EDR download. He wasn’t expecting much.

While the Corolla did not make the Watch List’s top 15, Ruginis identified plenty of similar complaints in the NHTSA data – low speed surges, many of which occurred when the driver was braking and many that caused crashes. In his defect petition to NHTSA, Ruginis pointed out that the agency’s so-called most thorough examination ever, identified low-speed surges as the most prominent UA scenario, yet one which it had never investigated. From the agency’s 2011 Toyota UA report:

Further review of the stationary and low speed incidents (combined) found that parking lot entry and exit accounted for the largest share of these incidents (40% of VOQs 64% of crashes. Many of the parking maneuver narratives reported incidents characterized by high engine power either after the driver applied the brake or immediately after shifting the transmission.”

Ruginis’s own review of NHTSA complaints by owners of 2006-2010 Toyota Corollas found 163 reports in which the driver experienced a surge at low speed or no speed; 99 drivers mentioned that the brakes were already depressed when the surge occurred or the surge occurred when the brakes were depressed; 83 incidents resulted in crashes.

The NHTSA complaint data mirrors what’s happening in the insurance subrogation field, says Dennis Lyons, of SD Lyons Automotive Forensics in Seekonk, Massachusetts. Lyons, who regularly conducts forensic inspections, says that his inspectors noticed an uptick in Toyota UA crash cases “well before it hit the front page,” immediately after the company introduced its drive-by-wire electronic throttle control system.

“The common denominator was parking or low-speed maneuvers — either pulling into the coffee shop or through the coffee shop,” he says. Lyons estimated that Toyota vehicles accounted for 36 percent of these types of cases that pass through his business; the next closest manufacturer accounted for 8 percent of those cases. “It’s my opinion that there is something definitely wrong, something abnormal about the frequency of Toyota UA issues compared to other manufacturers.”

Toyota EDR: Friend or Foe?

Normally, in all things Unintended Acceleration, the BS flows from Toyota to NHTSA, so everyone’s got their story straight. This time around, the agency and its “regulatory partner” apparently didn’t have enough time to consult.

Toyota responded to one reporter’s questions about the significance of the EDR data with:

“This data supports our conclusion that this was not a sudden unintended acceleration event but a collision that resulted from late braking, which is not unique to drivers of Toyota vehicles.”

NHTSA looked at the same data and said that because the various data points are not synchronized, the driver could have been touching the accelerator pedal in the millisecond between the one-second snapshots of data – this was most likely a case of dual pedal application.

So it’s definitely a case of late braking – so why, if the driver was braking, didn’t the vehicle speed drop? Why did it double?

Or, it’s definitely a case of dual pedal application – so why did the EDR show that nothing ever touched the accelerator pedal?

The Safety Record showed the readout to a prominent EDR expert who laughed at both explanations. Toyota has never been able to duplicate a UA during a test drive – it’s really hard to do. So, that portion of the inspection is pretty much for show, he said. As for the EDR data: “The vehicle was basically at idle and the ‘late’ braking would not have resulted in a speed surge.” He was similarly unimpressed with NHTSA’s fancy footwork. While technically correct, he allowed, “the sheer probability of that happening and not being recorded in either the current, prior or later snapshot is so remote that it really is a cop out on their part.”

Bob Ruginis said he was “flabbergasted,” when a Toyota representative told him that the EDR readout was ignored in determining that the incident was not the result of a manufacturing or design defect. “It was not logical to me,” he said. “My thoughts were: they’re not looking at it because it doesn’t show what they want it to show. If they looked at it and came up with an idea that supported them they would have put it in.” Toyota’s current explanation, Ruginis speculated, seemed to be the result of a meeting where “they sat around and tried to figure out, okay what can we say? Of course, it’s all conjecture – which is what they do.”

This the-EDR-says-whatever-we-want-it-to-say is of a piece with the history of contradictory positions the pair have taken on the value of Event Data Recorder downloads.

In February 2010, Toyota spokesman Mike Michels told The Wall Street Journal: The device is a prototype and "is still experimental," said Toyota spokesman Mike Michels. "We have found anomalies in the data that are part of our development of the system. It is our position that it is not reliable for accident reconstruction."

In July 2010, George Person, a former head of NHTSA’s Recall (Mis-) Management Division, leaked to The Wall Street Journal the results of a preliminary report on Toyota EDR data, which purported to show that 60 percent of the incidents were the result of driver error. The data was rife with contradictions and inconsistencies; the sample incidents were assembled by convenience, rather than any scientific method. No seasoned crash investigator could conclude anything from these data – certainly not that Toyota electronics are exonerated.  Yet, the leak was framed as another strike against driver’s accounts of their own experiences: “The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that the throttles were wide open and the brakes weren't engaged at the time of the crash, people familiar with the findings said.”

By 2012, Toyota was publishing technical papers in SAE International, claiming:

For the three vehicle models tested, the Toyota EDR pre-crash data and other parameters were accurate when compared with the HS-CAN data or observations. Based on the testing and analysis performed for this study, the Bosch CDR readout tool for Toyota vehicles can increase the understanding of vehicle crashes and help advance safety research and investigations.

Toyota Quietly Settling Cases

In the post-Bookout verdict era, Toyota has been quietly settling death and injury claims alleging that an electronic defect caused the unintended acceleration crash. The Bookout case, our readers will recall, emanated from a September 2007 UA event that caused a fatal crash. Jean Bookout and her friend and passenger Barbara Schwarz were exiting Interstate Highway 69 in Oklahoma, when she lost throttle control of her 2005 Camry. When foot-braking would not stop her speeding sedan, she threw the parking brake, leaving a 100-foot skid mark from right rear tire, and a 50-foot skid mark from the left. The Camry, however, continued speeding down the ramp and across the road at the bottom, crashing into an embankment. Schwarz died of her injuries; Bookout spent two months recovering from head and back injuries.

In October, Toyota hastily settled the case –  hours after an Oklahoma jury determined that the automaker acted with “reckless disregard,” and delivered a $3 million verdict to the plaintiffs — but before the jury could determine punitive damages. The jury was persuaded by the testimony of two plaintiff’s experts in software design and the design process, Michael Barr and Jerome Koopman, who reviewed Toyota’s software engineering process and the source code for the 2005 Toyota Camry, and testified that the system was defective and dangerous, riddled with bugs and gaps in its failsafes that led to the root cause of the crash.

These confidential settlements are reportedly buttoned up to an unusual degree, attorneys say; they can’t breathe a word of their existences.

So, the government got paid, the lawyers got paid, the victims with the most egregious cases are getting paid. The only ones left hanging are the Toyota owners stuck with an unsafe vehicle that hasn’t ruined somebody’s life – yet.

Bob Ruginis has been designing software and hardware for 35 years, starting in 1977, at Chrysler, when microprocessors were a dazzling new automotive technology. He went on to work with embedded systems in applications ranging from military to toys, and teaching other engineers how to use them. He says he’s disturbed to learn that the automotive sector doesn’t use structured programming, relying instead on haphazard programming practices and multiple patches.

Ruginis was also a loyal Toyota fan, who spent his driving career buying new Toyotas and driving them until they died. But after fewer than 62,000 miles this Toyota – and the entire company – is dead to the Ruginis family.

Bob and Kathy Ruginis are still hoping that Toyota will do the right thing and compensate them for a vehicle they are afraid to drive, but cannot afford to park, and do not want to foist on some unsuspecting future owner. The Safety Record has heard this story many times, from drivers who are anguished by this moral dilemma.

“I want to get rid of it, but I don’t want to sell it to someone who will end up having a crash and get hurt because the car is unsafe,” he says. Bob and Kathy Ruginis approached NHTSA and Kelley because, Bob says, “I feel Toyota is hiding something and I don’t want to hear about people getting hurt or killed and not having done anything about it. Having some reasoning and some evidence to show something is happening — if we hadn’t sent those letters, it would really affect us. We have consciences.”

How About a Tire Identification Number Consumers Can Read?

Posted on | by admin

NHTSA’s tinkering with the foundation of the tire recall system, but we doubt it will do anything to make it stronger. The proposed changes to the Tire Identification Number regulations will make things less confusing for manufacturers and NHTSA – consumers and tire technicians that use the TIN to determine if tires are recalled or too old – not so much. Safety Research & Strategies has submitted comments suggesting that the agency actually make the TIN useful for the public it was intended to serve. Read them below: 

August 25, 2014
 
The Honorable David Friedman
Acting Administrator
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
West Building
Washington, DC 20590
 
RE:       Comments on Tire Identification Number and Recordkeeping; Docket 2014-0084
 
Dear Acting Administrator Friedman:

We are pleased that the agency is proposing to standardize the length of the Tire Identification Number (TIN) “to eliminate confusion,” and perhaps “assist consumers with identifying whether their tires may be subject to recall.” As the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking notes, the TIN: “plays an important role in identifying which tires are subject to recall and remedy campaigns for safety defects and noncompliances.”

           
The TIN plays another critical role in tire safety: it assists consumers, tire technicians and other service providers in determining a tire’s age. For this reason, Safety Research & Strategies urges the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to add to this proposal a section requiring the TIN to include a non-coded date of manufacture. This amendment is made more imperative by the agency’s decision to forego a rulemaking on tire age, in favor of consumer education.
 
In March, the agency released a report summarizing its research on the hazards of tire age. [1]  The Executive Summary clearly defines the phenomenon:
 
Tire aging is a phenomenon involving the degradation of the material properties of a tire which over time can compromise its structural integrity and jeopardize its performance. Tire aging takes place whether a tire is driven or not and for this reason is a concern for spare tires and tires that are not regularly driven. The effect of aging may not be visibly detectable on these tires and their integrity may be compromised even though they could be showing a great deal of remaining tread.
 
Further, Tire Aging: A Summary of NHTSA’s Work acknowledges the effect of tire age on tire failures:
 
NHTSA research also found that especially in the warmer parts of the United States, including Arizona, Florida, Texas and Southern California, there appears to be a relationship between the age of the tire and the propensity of the tire to fail.
 
Finally, the report documents the agency’s recognition of hazardous tire age scenarios:
 
Tire aging is still a concern in the more southern parts of the Sun Belt states, during the summer months when heat build-up can cause a failure. Spare tires remain a concern as well, since they are not replaced regularly and may still show enough tread, even though the structural integrity of the tire may be compromised by aging. Adding to this concern, spare tires are often rotated into use and are sold as used tires.
 
In this report, the agency announced its intention to coordinate “a promotional and educational initiative to raise consumer awareness about tire aging issues and how to prevent these types of failures,” including “social media messages, fact sheets, infographics, and other web content.”
But before the agency begins to tweet about tire age and build its message on social media platforms, it ought to give consumers a basic tool for identifying a tire’s age on the tire itself – a non-coded date of manufacture.
 
In 1970, when the Tire Identification Number was established, tiremakers expressly protested the National Highway Safety Bureau’s attempt to create a TIN that consumers could decipher. Firestone, in particular argued that the bureau should adopt
what was then the Rubber Manufacturers Association’s two-symbol date code to obscure a tire’s age.
 
Tires are not perishable items. Therefore, a conspicuous disclosure of tire age would unavoidably introduce into the marketplace a totally artificial measure of quality unrelated to product performance and effectiveness.[2]
 
Even by 1970, tiremakers had long been aware, through their own research dating back to the 1930s, of the material degradation caused by thermo-oxidative aging.  Forty-four years later, that knowledge is no longer the sole provenance of the rubber industry – NHTSA, auto manufacturers and a number of the major tire companies publicly acknowledge that aged tires should be removed from service for safety’s sake. But none of these entities has made it easy for consumers to follow their recommendations.
In December 2001, the agency published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to establish a new standard to the existing labeling requirements and addressed, among other issues, the TIN and tire markings.[3] As part of its research, the agency conducted a series of eight focus groups to determine what consumers knew about tires and safety and what they would like to know. The agency’s research, which formed the basis of the proposal, found that consumers were confused by the codes, but wanted to learn more about what they meant.[4] Among the specific findings of the study were:
 
  • No more than one or two study participants had any understanding of more than a little of the information on tires. Some know that they can find tire pressure, tire type, weight/load rating and brand name. But few had any concept of the full range of information available. And no more than one or two could begin to explain the codes, ratings and other information.
 
  • Most study participants were perplexed by the array of alpha and numeric codes appearing on the demonstration tire. Although they suspect that the codes may hold interesting, even useful, information, none of the persons taking part in this study could identify or describe the meaning of the majority of codes, grades and scores.
 
  • Many wanted to know what the tire codes and ratings mean. Although some study participants indicated little or no interest in knowing anything more about tires than they already know, a number expressed a desire to know more about the meaning of the information that appears on tires. Most said that they felt it would make them better informed consumers.
 
  • Some study participants wished additional information was shown on tires. After they had looked at the information already contained on tires, some suggested that the following information was also displayed: Date of manufacture. Recommended replacement interval.
 
  • Study participants wished tire information was presented in “plain language.” Since they tend to believe that information provided on tires “is there for a reason,” they wished it was displayed in a more understandable format. Codes may be appropriate for the trade, they suggested, but not for consumers.
 
The agency failed to heed the results of its own study. Instead of adopting a “plain language” standard, it proposed re-ordering the TIN information and requiring that the information be molded on both sides. In the Final Rule, the agency amended its proposal and only mandated that the full TIN be molded on the outward sidewall. This has added to the confusion for consumers trying to discern their tire’s age, because unfortunately, tires are not always mounted with the complete TIN on the outside.  
 
Beginning in 2003, Safety Research & Strategies and its predecessor, Strategic Safety have been submitting comments to rulemakings related to tire age, tire identification and tire recalls. In many submissions, we have suggested that the agency improve tire safety by making the TIN readily accessible and understandable with the same aims stated by NHTSA: to ensure that consumers can identify recalled and aged tires. Most recently, we recommended that NHTSA add a TIN search function to its public Web portal and require tire makers, as well as automakers to maintain the recall remedy status by TIN, as improvements to the recall notification regulations are established. NHTSA declined our recommendation, because Congress had not mandated that it do so.
 
When the agency fails to consider human factors in rulemaking, safety suffers. An example from NHTSA’s regulatory history is permitting keyless, electronic ignition systems without considering how these systems would disrupt long established driver behaviors. In allowing the “key” to be an invisible electronic code, housed in a fob that only plays a role in starting the vehicle, but not in shutting it off, the agency re-introduced the rollaway hazard and added a carbon monoxide poisoning problem that had not existed heretofore. The agency is still in the process of a rulemaking to fix this error.
 
If the TIN is to be worthy of its intended purpose, the agency should take the next step and require machine-readability. A non-coded date of manufacture will help the average consumer and tire tech determine a tire’s age. Requiring a standardized, computer readable TIN would provide a much needed automated method for manufacturers and service providers to quickly address recalled tires or tires that were beyond their service life recommendations.  I refer the agency to our 2007 report on RFID in tires, “Tire Recalls and Tire Safety: The RFID Solution,” which explains how RFID tags could improve the tire recall system: “With a chip embedded in the sidewall and inexpensive readers installed in service shops (or an interface with the vehicle computer), motorists could have the status of their tires checked every time they take their vehicle to be serviced, or through their instrument panel.”[5] RFID in tires is not new and appears in many manufacturers tires – and it is but one available technology.  Laser-etched QR codes are another that allow access to vital tire information via a scan.  The agency can play an important role in shepherding the TIN into the 21st century. 
 
In the meantime, if the agency wants to put the burden on consumers – rather than manufacturers – to understand and act on the dangers of tire age, then it is the agency’s absolute obligation to make it possible to the public to understand a tire’s age. We urge NHTSA to amend this rulemaking to require a TIN with a non-dated code of manufacture, before it focuses on boosting its Facebook likes. 
 






[1] Tire Aging: A Summary of NHTSA’s Work; Pg. 3; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; March 2014






[2] The Firestone Tire & Rubber Company; Docket 70-12-No.1-076






[3] Docket 2001-11157; 66FR 65536; December 19, 2001






[4] Tire Labeling Focus Group Report; Docket 2001-11157-07; Equals Three Communications; May 14, 2001







 

	


	





	

			

	

		
Are Trinity Guardrails Safe?
		

			Posted on  |  by admin		

			

	

		
On June 8, Cynthia Martin and Richard Blaine Markland of Dayton, Ohio, were southbound on I-93 in Ashland, New Hampshire, when the sedan left the roadway and struck a guardrail. Those steel rails lining the highway are designed to execute a complex task: keep the vehicle from leaving the roadway without deflecting the striking vehicle back into traffic, while allowing it to safely ride down the crash forces.


But the ET-Plus guardrail that driver Cynthia Martin struck did not yield to her Subaru Impreza and peel away from the vehicle like a flat metal ribbon. Instead, it penetrated the occupant compartment at the passenger side wheel well, slicing Markland and Martin in the legs and knees. The spear formed by the folded guardrail terminal end cap sheared Markland’s knee caps and caused both to sustain serious fractures. Both have undergone multiple surgeries to repair the damage. Markland is still in the hospital two months later.


“I know we spun around,” Markland said. “The guardrail had come into the car. Cindy was feeling a lot of pressure on her leg. My right leg was an open fracture with 4-6 inches of bone exposed. My right foot was trapped between the guardrail and the airbag, and some flesh was strewn across the inside of the car. The guardrail pushed a dent in my knee area. I knew something was wrong. Seeing my leg in that condition, I was screaming.”


The Martin incident is just the latest in a string of crashes in which an ET-Plus guardrail failed to perform properly, with devastating results for motorists and their passengers. But, according to Federal Highway Administration communications with the chief engineer of the New Hampshire state department of transportation, it never should have happened. Documents released as a result of a Safety Research & Strategies lawsuit in federal court, show that the FHWA and Trinity have devoted considerable energies to tamping down allegations that a 2005 dimensional change to the guardrail end terminals have turned these highway safety devices into weapons, rather than seriously investigating them.


Dallas-based Trinity, the globally dominant producer and seller of guardrail systems, has been battling these accusations since 2012, when Joshua Harman, president of a competitor company, SPIG Industries, of Bristol, Va., charged that sometime between 2002 and 2005, Trinity modified the design of its original guardrail end terminal design, the ET-2000, causing it to fail in crashes and injure and kill occupants in striking vehicles. 


These allegations have been the subject of news stories and civil liability, patent infringement, fraud and freedom of information lawsuits. The stakes are high. State departments of transportation buy highway safety equipment from a list of vendors whose products have been crash-tested and approved by the Federal Highway Administration; the FHWA reimburses states that use approved equipment. So, the FHWA’s acceptance is critical to a manufacturer’s business. States rely on FHWA certification as an indication that the equipment performs adequately. Without knowing it, motorists also depend on the federal agency’s imprimatur when they crash into a guardrail – to get the best chance of surviving the crash safely.


Unlike other regulatory approvals from other agencies, such as the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration or the Food and Drug Administration, there is no avenue for consumer or the state to resolve defect issues. The FHWA has no enforcement power, expect to withhold its acceptance letter. The New Hampshire crash and others like it demonstrate the weakness of this “system,” when it breaks down.


The Background


In the 1960s guardrail designs used blunt ends that acted like a spear, penetrating the vehicle occupant compartment in a crash. The turned-down twist design of the 1970s buried the exposed ends, but acted like a ramp in a crash, causing vehicles to rollover. Today’s preferred design is the Energy-Absorbing End Terminal, which absorbs the crash energy, bends the end terminal away from the vehicle, and extrudes it through a slot into a flat metal ribbon.




In the early 1990s, Trinity launched the ET-2000, a guardrail system that addressed some of the safety failures of earlier designs, which speared the striking vehicle, or launched it into a rollover crash. The ET-2000 is an Energy Absorbing Terminal, which absorbs the kinetic energy of the striking vehicle, while bending the post away from it, and extruding the beam into a flattened ribbon. The FHWA first approved the ET-2000 in the early 1990s, and its field performance was satisfactory.


In 1999, Trinity launched the first version of the ET-Plus. In 2005, the manufacturer made a design change to the ET-Plus, allegedly to save material and manufacturing costs. The newer versions of the ET-Plus, manufactured in 2005, bear a dimensional change to the height of the feeder chute, through which the rail is extruded. With this change, critics charge, the end terminal no longer performs like those of the earlier design. Instead of bending away, the rail jams in the chute, causing it to fold in half, forming a spear that can penetrate the striking vehicle.


Trinity changed the design without notifying the FHWA, as required, until seven years later, when a patent dispute between Trinity and SPIG Industries, of Bristol, Va. brought this modification to light. Harmon repeatedly raised the issue with the FHWA, state DOTs and the media.


In the fall of 2012, three of 21 members of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) responded to a survey about the field performance of guardrail terminals indicating that the end terminals were involved in three severe vehicle crashes that resulted in serious injuries and deaths; two of the three agencies specifically referenced the ET‐Plus. AASHTO asked the FHWA to re-review its approval of the ET-Plus and document the modified barrier system’s crashworthiness under the federal criteria, NCHRP 350. More recently, in January, the Nevada Department of Transportation informed Trinity that its ET-Plus terminal would no longer be considered approved equipment because of the 2005 modification that was not disclosed.


Meanwhile, Harman’s whistleblower suit ended on July 18 in a mistrial, after U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap concluded that both sides had hopelessly prejudiced the proceedings, calling their conduct “replete with errors, gamesmanship, inappropriate conduct, and matters that should not be a part of any trial where a fair and impartial verdict is expected.” Judge Gilstrap criticized Trinity and Harman over their conduct concerning a witness, Dean Sicking, a University of Alabama professor who designed the ET-2000, concluding that Trinity possibly intimidated Sicking and that Harman tried to hide his participation in the trial until the last minute, as a legal tactic. Gilstrap was equally disparaging about both parties’ conduct prior to trial, charging both with “multiple instances” of “delaying, obstructing, and failing to cooperate as the rules of this Court and the rules of federal procedure…”


Harmon sued Trinity in Marshall County, Texas, under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act, in which a private individual can sue federal contractors on behalf of the government, alleging fraud. In this case, Harman claims that Trinity defrauded the FHWA in selling the ET-Plus with the dimensional change without notifying the agency, as it is required to do. If the whistleblower prevails, the plaintiff can recover a portion of the damages, estimated to be as much as $1 billion in this case.  It is anticipated that the case will be re-tried in November.


ET-Plus: FHWA Hot Potato


Publicly, the FHWA has couched the controversy as a business dispute between competitors. Internally, however, documents indicate that officials within the FHWA have admitted that these questions are legitimate. The draft of a Federal Highway Administration to Trinity that was never sent, called for an “in-service performance evaluation” of the terminals and “an investigation into the crashes documented by Mr. Joshua Harman.”…”The number of highway crashes with fatal injuries involving the ET-Plus terminals does not match the excellent history of the original ET-2000 terminal.”


In a February 2012 email to the South Carolina division of the FHWA, Nicholas Armitovich II, a highway engineer in the FHWA’s Office of Safety Technologies conceded that there were “valid questions” about the ET-Plus’s performance. But, instead of independently collecting data – running its own tests, or seeking real-world crash information — the FHWA turned to Trinity to provide assurances that the design change was insignificant. By the fall of 2012, the FHWA thought it had covered its bases, and took no action against Trinity for failing to disclose the design change. It also denied a request from AASHTO to do an independent study of the efficacy of the ET-Plus, saying that in the past, the organization had not listed such a study as among its priorities.


Recently released documents from the FHWA show that its legal team was treating its responses to inquiries from journalists and the New Hampshire department of transportation with great care, and was heavily involved in the drafting of agency communications.


On October 1, 2012 after speaking with Harman, Keith Cota, chairman of AASHTO’s Technical Committee on Roadside Safety and chief project manager for the New Hampshire DOT wrote a long email to Nick Artimovich raising concerns about Harmans’ claims. He concluded:    


The question I do have is, “for the terminal units we are installing in NH, should it be providing a 5 inch feed channel or not?” We have many, many of these terminal units on our high speed facilities and this certainly causes me some strong concern for crash worthiness of the ET-Plus and ET-2000 that we have and are installing each year. I am not sure if I want to wait until the court case is decided and al l the appeals have been completed to take action (20 years from now) or be ready to answer the next set of bigger questions as to 1) the need to retrofit the devices installed along our highway system and 2) who pays? I understand this has been going around for some time and I am just now becoming aware of the issues through the complainant in the lawsuit. I will be looking toward Nick to give some guidance as to how NH and other States should proceed. Should I be worried? Should I send this out to the full slot of TCRS State members? Or worst yet, should I brief my Chief Engineer? I don't like the box this puts me in!


The FHWA sent this explanation to Cota:


On February 14, 2012, Barry Stephens and Brian Smith of Trinity Highway Products (Trinity) stated the company's ET end terminal with the 4-inch w ide guide channels was crash tested at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) in May 2005. Roger Bligh of TTI confirmed this information on February 14. 2012. Trinity submitted documentation on various dates of changes made to its ET end terminals, which included changes from the ET-2000 to the ET-Plus. On February 14, 2012, the company reported the reduction in the width of thc guide channels from 5 inches (in the year 2000) to 4 inches (in 2005) was a design detail omitted from the documentation submitted to the Agency on August 10, 2005. On March 15, 2012, Trinity submitted a letter to FHWA dated March 14. 2011 (sic) which stated its ET-Plus with the 4-inch guide channels was crash tested at TTI in May 2005.


Cota sought further information:


I hate to be labor this issue further, but in order to verify this situation, can you have TTI or Trinity provide a couple high resolution photos of the 2005 test installation. It is my understanding they do take these pictures prior to the crash testing event? As you know this unit is being used in many States and quite expensively here in NH. We want to have some background, supportive documentation for the change in guide plate fabrication and its use in the crash test that is covered by FHWA's ((-94 acceptance letter. We checked several of our units in the field and found each has the 4-inch guide channels.


Ultimately, Cota, like the FHWA, was assured:


Thanks. This puts to bed the issue of 4 inch versus 5 inch guide channel for the extruder heads on the ET2000 and ET Plus. It is unfortunate this critical information was omitted by Trinity in its documentation for FHWA's acceptance. I am asking our NH District Maintenance Engineers as to the experiences they have seen for the impacts and in-field performance for all our energy absorbing units to see if we have a good history with the use of these terminals (ET and SKT). In addition, I am asking what issue they have experienced with the heads being miss-aligned due to nuisance hits or winter maintenance plowing impacts by wing blades. If I am able to receive good data, I will forward it for your information.


And even the FHWA was happy. In an internal email, Armitovich told his colleagues:


It appears that New Hampshire is satisfied with our response. However the question has brought the added benefit that New Hampshire will now look more closely at the actual performance of their hardware.


It is unknown whether Cota has informed the FHWA of the Martin crash, but Blaine Markland says that he is not thrilled by the prospect of being a data point in any ad hoc study about the efficacy of the ET-Plus guard rail.


Markland has been in the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH, since he was airlifted there on the evening of the crash. He has undergone about 20 surgeries – mainly to replace the flesh of his shin that was sheared off by the guardrail. He hopes to finally return home to Ohio soon to continue his recovery, and return to his job as a middle school special education teacher. Markland was disturbed to learn that the questions about the guardrail that caused his catastrophic injuries had been raised two years ago:


“It’s quite upsetting if they were aware at all, if they knew about the issues with this guardrail,” he says. “The whole concept of a guardrail is safety, and if this guardrail is causing this kind of damage, that has to be dealt with.”

	


	





	

			

	

		
Tire Industry gets Anti-Aging Reality Check
		

			Posted on  |  by admin		

			

	

		
It’s not often we encourage our readers to read a trade journal article, but a recent  commentary in Tire Review by Editor Jim Smith is a go-to.  The article is shockingly honest and puts the brakes on the industry’s claim of victory following NHTSA’s announcement that it wouldn’t pursue a tire aging standard. 


Smith also points out the agency’s findings on tire aging – while no surprise to tire and automakers – should make it abundantly clear the industry’s problems are far from over.  And it’s refreshing that we’re not the only ones who are continually confounded by NHTSA’s reports.  “NHTSA couldn’t decide on what it is defending” says Criswell.  Take a read of Decoding NHTSA’s Tire Aging Report.


If you missed our earlier blog see: NHTSA to Initiate Consumer Awareness Campaign on Tire Age – No Standard Needed

[Note: The initial version of the Tire Review article was credited to Kristen Criswell and later changed to Jim Smith.]
	


	





	

			

	

		
NHTSA Finally Tackles Rear Underride
		

			Posted on  |  by admin		

			

	

		
One Ms. Marianne Karth of the Truck Safety Coalition and 11,000 signatories have succeeded where the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety – with all its fancy-pants testing – and the Canadians – with their much tougher standard – had failed, persuading the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to initiate a rulemaking to upgrade the rear underride standard.


Earlier this month, the agency published a notice in the Federal Register announcing that it would issue two separate notices – an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on rear impact


guards and other safety strategies for single-unit trucks, and an NPRM on rear impact guards on trailers and semitrailers. Apparently, it was a May 5 meeting between the Coalition and Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx that turned the tide. The advocacy group presented their signatures and made the case that amendments to FMVSS No. 223, Rear Impact Guards, and FMVSS No. 224, Rear Impact Protection were long overdue.


IIHS got the typical cold shoulder NHTSA presents to outside suggestions. The announcement made no mention of the 2011 petition the IIHS submitted to “require stronger underride guards that will remain in place during a crash and to mandate guards for more large trucks and trailers.”  Spokesman Russ Rader says that the agency neither denied it, nor issued any official response.


“They told us they were working on it,” he says. “We’re glad that NHTSA is working to move forward in taking this first step.”


Three years ago, the IIHS didn’t gather signatures, but it did present lots of data to the data-driven agency. The Institute examined crash patterns leading to rear underride of heavy trucks and semi-trailers with and without guards, using the Large Truck Crash Causation Study, a federal database of roughly 1,000 real-world crashes in 2001-03.  It found that underride was a common outcome of the 115 crashes involving a passenger vehicle striking the back of a heavy truck or semi-trailer. Only 22 percent of the crashes didn’t involve underride or had only negligible underride, which they indicated was consistent with prior studies.  The study noted that “In 23 of the 28 cases in which someone in the passenger vehicle died, there was severe or catastrophic underride damage, meaning the entire front end or more of the vehicle slid beneath the truck.”


IIHS also performed a series of crash tests to assess the efficacy of various underride guards under different crash speeds and configurations (head-on and off-set) to determine what types of failures occurred.  The IIHS used the Chevy Malibu, a sedan with a high crash-test rating, as the bullet vehicle and trailers that were certified to Canadian and U.S. requirements as the targets.  Canadian requirements, required since 2007, are more stringent than the U.S. for strength and energy absorption.  In general the testing found significant performance differences between U.S. and Canadian guards – the Canadian guards performed significantly better.  The testing also revealed fundamental weaknesses in the attachments which don’t have to be tested as a whole system. 


In addition, IIHS pointed out that there were significant regulatory gaps allowing some heavy trucks to forgo guards altogether and if they are on trucks exempt from the regulations, the guards don’t have to meet 1996 rules for strength or energy absorption.


That petition followed a NHTSA November 2010 study showing that the guards were not very effective in preventing fatalities or serious injuries from rear impacts to tractor trailers. The study, conducted as part of the agency’s evaluation of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards 223 and 224, used state crash data from Florida and North Carolina, showing a slight – not statistically significant – decrease in fatalities and serious injuries to occupants in a rear-impact crash with a tractor trailer. The agency noted, however, that the sample size might have been too small.


Rear guard protection has been a federal requirement since 1952, when the Bureau of Motor Carriers of the Interstate Commerce Commission required heavy trucks, trailers, and semitrailers to be equipped with a rear-end protection device designed to help prevent underride. The regulation contained no specifics as to the device’s efficacy, but merely required the guard to be “substantially constructed and firmly attached.”  In 1967, the Federal Highway Administration, attempted to begin a rulemaking to require a rear underride guard for trucks, buses and trailers, but industry fought off any substantive upgrade to the regulations for 44 years. In 1996, NHTSA published a final rule establishing two Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) – 223, Rear Impact Guards, and 224, Rear Impact Protection. FMVSS 223, the equipment standard, specified strength requirements and compliance procedures for rear impact guards on semitrailers. FMVSS 224, the vehicle standard, specified mounting instructions and location specifications for those guards.


The agency has done little to improve the rule since.


The IIHS, which has been advocating for a better rear underride standard for decades, has launched a series of research projects that have ranged from determining the scope of the problem to developing a new underride guard. Last March, the Institute published the results of its latest round of testing


The IIHS has continued its research into effective underride prevention. In 2013, the Institute published the results of further testing it performed –also using a 2010 Malibu as the bullet vehicle, striking a parked truck at 35 mph in three overlap modes: 100 percent, 50 percent and 30 percent.


All eight guards successfully prevented underride, including one from Hyundai Translead, whose earlier model failed a full-width test by IIHS. In the second test, in which only half the width of the car overlapped with the trailer, all but one trailer passed. However, when the overlap was reduced to 30 percent, every trailer except one from the Canadian manufacturer Manac failed. Manac sells dry van trailers in the U.S. under the name Trailmobile. The Institute uses a 30 percent overlap for the most challenging underride test because it is the minimum overlap under which a passenger vehicle occupant's head is likely to strike a trailer if an underride guard fails.


 


“We’ve been told that five of the major trailer manufacturers have upgrades in the works that they are doing voluntarily, and we are hoping to test those upgrades as soon as they are available late this year or early next year,” Rader says. “Manufacturers have indicated the changes they made were not expensive and did not add a substantial amount of weight. It’s not a difficult task to make guards tougher.”


 

	


	





	

			

	

		
Toyota’s Gone Fishin’
		

			Posted on  |  by admin		

			

	

		
In December 2009, as Toyota faced increasing scrutiny from Congress and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the wake of the horrific unintended acceleration crash in that killed California Highway Patrolman Mark Saylor, his wife, daughter and brother-in-law, the automaker’s image-makers were prepared to go on the offensive. According to an April 2013 article in Corporate Counsel, a Toyota public relations staffer named Masami Doi wrote this email:


 


There are at most around 10 people who are the sources of negative tone communications. If they can be suppressed, I think we will be able to manage it somehow. Like you said, let’s go with an intention of destroying each individual person’s ability to oppose us, one by one. (To do or not to do is a separate question.)


 


We do not know who exactly suggested destroying each individual, but we know they tried. We know that the list at least doubled. And we know that Toyota is using Betsy Benjaminson, a private translator-turned-whistleblower who released sensitive internal Toyota documents to Corporate Counsel magazine and Iowa Senator Charles Grassley during the Toyota Unintended Acceleration crisis, as a battering ram to get at more of them.


 


On August 20, Benjaminson is scheduled to be deposed in the Los Angeles offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and to produce a slew of documents, including all communications with 20 people who have challenged Toyota’s narrative that there were no possible electronic causes of the unintended acceleration. They range from SRS president Sean Kane, to British automotive electronics experts Keith Armstrong and Antony Anderson, NASA scientists Norman Helmhold and Henning Leidecker to journalist Junko Yoshida, to Michael Barr, an embedded software specialist whose withering assessment of the safety, testability, and functionality of Toyota’s software resulted in the first jury verdict against Toyota in a UA case.


 


Ostensibly, Toyota is searching for the link between Benjaminson and a presentation Barr made to that jury, entitled “2005 Camry L4 Software Analysis.” While a public version, with redacted slides of some sub-routines is available, Benjaminson has posted the presentation in its native format on her website, and that has provided the opening for Toyota to go fishing for retaliatory evidence against its critics. (A legal defense fund has been set up for Benjaminson https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/betsy-benjaminson-legal-defense-fund.) This latest legal move is of a piece with Toyota’s aggressive stance toward entities that have dared to challenge the automaker’s public relations.    


 


Like some corporate version of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians, Toyota first tried to take out Kane and Southern Illinois University automotive electronics professor David Gilbert. SRS had begun reporting on the problem in 2009, before the Saylor crash, produced several reports,

based on public documents, on the roots of the crisis. Kane also testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the National Academies of Science that the record didn’t support Toyota’s assertion that electronics were not to blame for some of the complaints.

Gilbert got in Toyota’s crosshairs when he conducted a preliminary study for Safety Research & Strategies that showed that a short circuit in the Accelerator Pedal Position Sensor could cause Toyota’s Electronic Throttle Control to go to a wide-open condition, without setting a Diagnostic

Trouble Code. Gilbert also presented his findings to Congress.


 


Toyota hired the Benenson Strategy Group, a prominent public relations consultant, to develop the best lines of attack against the two. And they tested the messaging, via an online poll that asked the survey takers to judge Kane’s and Gilbert’s credibility.


 


Toyota criticized Gilbert’s work in a web-based press conference. Toyota, which had donated vehicles, provided internships and networking opportunities for SIU’s Automotive Technology students, sent its attorneys to Southern Illinois University Carbondale to discuss their concerns with university officials.  Terry Martin, manager of customer quality at Toyota and Neil Swartz, an SIUC alumnus and corporate manager for distribution in Toyota’s North American Parts division, resigned from the department’s advisory board. Mark Thompson, an SIU alum and a Toyota Motor Sales employee, e-mailed the school’s chancellor to suggest that Gilbert be fired and that Toyota might pull its support from the program.


 


Toyota unleashed the Cracken on James Sikes, a California Prius owner, who had the audacity to experience a UA on a San Diego highway in March 2010 as Toyota was conducting its press conference trashing Gilbert’s work. Sykes, a 61-year-old Prius owner alleged that his vehicle accelerated suddenly and would not respond to hard braking. His struggles to regain control of his vehicle were observed by a California Highway Patrol officer, who was called to the scene, and recorded on a 911 tape. The police report noted that the Prius’ brakes were burnt out and that an examination of Sykes’ vital signs by emergency medical personnel immediately after the event showed he had very high blood pressure and heart rate. The police did not charge Sykes. Toyota held another press conference to announce that a preliminary examination showed that Sykes had depressed the brakes 250 times. Toyota officials suggested, without saying so, that Sikes faked the event. Meanwhile, news outlets also reported many unflattering details of Sykes personal life, alerted by “anonymous tipsters.”  His lengthy 911 call is a sound portrait of a man in extreme stress, and if he was perpetrating a hoax, he should consider a career in acting.


 


Sikes, an easy target, faded from public view; Gilbert was not fired; SRS continued to report on Toyota UA, but in large measure, Toyota was successful in fending off challenges to its version of reality. NHTSA, itself compromised by serial fruitless investigation into the problem, opted for a political solution by engaging the NASA Engineering Safety Center to validate its technical failures and make the whole thing go away. Various ill-informed commentators amplified the message. Toyota won some civil cases and settled the ones with fact patterns that would be hard to defend before a jury.


 


Then came the Bookout verdict and it was suddenly game over. In September 2007, Jean Bookout and her friend and passenger Barbara Schwarz were exiting Interstate Highway 69 in Oklahoma in a 2005 Camry, when it experienced an unintended acceleration. Bookout tried to stop her car by pulling the parking brake, leaving lengthy skid marks. Her Camry continued to rocket down the ramp, stopping only after its nose was embedded in an embankment. Schwarz died of her injuries; Bookout spent two months recovering from head and back injuries.


 


Toyota, perhaps, thought it would play the confused old lady card at trial. But last October, an Oklahoma jury heard testimony from Barr, who spent nearly 20 months reviewing Toyota’s source code at one of five cubicles in a hotel-sized room, staffed by security guards, who ensured that entrants brought no paper in or out, wore no belts or watches. And his testimony forced Toyota to hastily settle the suit – hours after the jury determined that the automaker acted with “reckless disregard,” and delivered a $3 million verdict to the plaintiffs – but before the jury could determine punitive damages.


 


Barr testified about the specifics of Toyota’s spaghetti source code, based on his 800-page report. 


 


There are a large number of functions that are overly complex.  By the standard industry metrics some of them are untestable, meaning that it is so complicated a recipe that there is no way to develop a reliable test suite or test methodology to test all the possible things that can happen in it.  Some of them are even so complex that they are what is called unmaintainable, which means that if you go in to fix a bug or to make a change, you’re likely to create a new bug in the process.  Just because your car has the latest version of the firmware — that is what we call embedded software — doesn’t mean it is safer necessarily than the older one.  And that conclusion is that the failsafes are inadequate.  The failsafes that they have contain defects or gaps.  But on the whole, the safety architecture is a house of cards.  It is possible for a large percentage of the failsafes to be disabled at the same time that the throttle control is lost. 


 


Barr explained that many of the vehicle behavior malfunctions could be caused by the death of tasks within the CPU — in particular, the death of a proprietary-name task, called Task X at trial. The name of this task was kept secret, but its functional failures took center stage at the Bookout trial. Barr dubbed it “the kitchen-sink” task, because it controlled a lot of the vehicle’s functions, including throttle control; the cruise control – turning it on, maintain the speed and turning it off – and many of the failsafes on the main CPU.  Barr testified that Toyota’s watchdog supervisor design – software to detect the death of a task – “is incapable of ever detecting the death of a major task. That’s its whole job. It doesn’t do it. It’s not designed to do it.” Instead, Toyota designed it to monitor CPU overload, and, Barr testified: “it doesn’t even do that right. CPU overload is when there’s too much work in a burst, a period of time to do all the tasks. If that happens for too long, the car can become dangerous because tasks not getting to use the CPU is like temporarily tasks dying.”  Barr also testified that the operating system contained codes that would throw away error information, ignoring codes identifying a problem with a task.


 


In March, Toyota paid a 1.2 billion fine and admitted to criminal wrongdoing – hiding defects and lying to everyone from the government to its customers. Toyota paid the money and took a deferred prosecution deal on a single wire fraud charge to end a four-year federal criminal investigation. At the time, the chief legal officer for Toyota’s North American division said: “Entering this agreement, while difficult, is a major step toward putting this unfortunate chapter behind us.”


 


So, all this comes down to a Powerpoint presentation? We don’t think so. NHTSA has finally begun to post Toyota’s submissions to its Timeliness Query investigation (TQ10-001) on its pedal entrapment recalls – another case in which the automaker paid the government millions to put the matter to rest. So, any enterprising researcher can take a stroll through, and learn more about Toyota’s machinations. The only people who have not been able to buy their way out of the problem are the owners of Toyota vehicles controlled – or perhaps uncontrolled by the crappy and mysterious Task X.


 


Unfortunately, this “unfortunate chapter” is not behind us.

	


	





	

			

	

		
NHTSA to Initiate Consumer Awareness Campaign on Tire Age – No Standard Needed
		

			Posted on  |  by admin		

			

	

		
NHTSA to Initiate Consumer Awareness Campaign on Tire Age – No Standard Needed.    


No surprise that NHTSA isn’t going to regulate tire age – but now that agency plans to initiate a consumer awareness campaign about tire aging after years of research data showing that aging can present a safety problem particularly in the high heat states.


NHTSA has (again) announced that it will not create a safety standard based on tire age.  In a recently released report NHTSA stated “At this time, the agency does not believe it is necessary for motor vehicle safety to add a tire aging requirement to its light vehicle tire standard.”  The basis for this decision was that revised safety standards promulgated following the passage of the TREAD Act in 2000 made tires more robust.  The agency also claimed that “light vehicle tires are performing better on the road as reflected in our most recent crash data” and that “TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) on light vehicle tires since 2007 has helped alert consumers to underinflation that is also known to degrade tires faster.”


This comes as no surprise to veteran NHTSA watchers and those who have followed the tire age debate during the past decade. 


“The real problem associated with aged tires and aged tire failures is rooted not in the lack of a new test regimen, but in the tire labeling and manufacturers unwillingness to adequately educate dealers and motorists about when tires should be removed from service” said Sean Kane, President of Safety Research & Strategies, a long-time advocate for addressing tire aging hazards. 


It is undisputed that tire age is a factor in tire safety.  NHTSA research data has shown for years that tire aging can present a safety problem particularly in the high heat states.


In November 2004 Safety Research & Strategies petitioned NHTSA to initiate rulemaking to require a consumer-friendly date of manufacture molded into tire sidewalls and requested a Consumer Advisory. SRS’ petition requested that tire labeling rulemaking commence separately from the tire performance standards.  The agency denied this petition and the result was the continuation of an antiquated and unknown date code buried in the Tire Identification Number (TIN).  SRS reiterated its request in 2006 for the issuance of a Consumer Advisory when NTHSA was modifying the TIN requirements.  In a 2012 submission to NHTSA, SRS again asked for a requirement that tire manufacturers use a non-coded date of manufacture, mounted on both sidewalls so that consumers can easily determine the age of a tire and follow the age recommendations of auto and tiremakers. The agency did neither an advisory nor rulemaking on labeling and again allowed the industry to continue with a virtually indecipherable code to the dis-benefit of consumer safety. 


Nearly 20 years ago, automakers, such as Toyota and Volkswagen, first acknowledged that tires have limited service life – regardless of use or tread depth and that aged tires increased the risk of failure. In their 1990 owners’ manuals, foreign automakers warned motorists against the use of tires older than 6 years.  These advisories followed studies published in Germany in the late-1980s that found a disproportionate number of tire failures in tires older than 6 years.  Throughout that decade, tire age notices spread to many other vehicle manufacturers’ manuals, but the issue received little attention until federal investigations into the ATX and Wilderness tires showed that they were more likely to fail after several years in service. In the last few years, tiremakers Continental, Michelin, Bridgestone-Firestone, Yokohama and Cooper have also acknowledged that tires have limited service life and have issued Technical Bulletins specifying that all tires should be removed after 10 years regardless of the remaining tread depth. The bulletins also advised consumers to have their tires inspected annually once a tire reaches 5 years old.  Vehicle manufacturers and some tire associations have taken a stricter approach, recommending tire replacement after 6 years, regardless of tread depth. 


These guidelines are fairly useless without a fundamental change to the way a tire’s age is discerned. If you can’t find or understand the code, how will you know how old your tire is? The non-coded date of manufacture and the difficulty in locating the TIN hamstrings any conscientious consumer trying to follow them.


Aged tires, with acceptable tread and no significant visible signs of wear, find their way onto vehicles in a variety of ways: little or unused spares are rotated into service, consumers purchase used tires or buy a “new” tire that may have been sitting in inventory for 10 years, or consumers keep an old tire on a little-used vehicle.


This lack of visual indicators accounts for the continuing hazard of aged tires to consumers and service personnel, regardless of industry warnings and recommendations. It also underscores the need for a quick and easy way to determine a tire’s age. Consumers and service providers can’t adhere to safety guidelines, unless the tire age is readily accessible and understandable. Instead, they are left to decode the 11- or 12-symbol alphanumeric TIN. 


The result: Preventable death and injury crashes. SRS has provided NHTSA with a steady stream of catastrophic failures of tires that appear serviceable but have internal material degradation due to age and heat.  For their part, the manufacturers have settled hundreds of cases involving death and injury.  


Last year NHTSA’s Dr. Merisol Medri’s SAE presentation (click here for a copy) cited the following:


“Based on analysis of data from 2005-2007 including databases (NMVCCS, GES, CDS), 90 fatalities and over 3,200 injuries occurred annually as the result of crashes that were probably caused by tire aging or where tire aging was a significant factor.”


While NHTSA’s taken its position on tire age rulemaking, the non-regulatory National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) earlier this year announced its first tire safety investigation that will examine tire age and recalled tires (also the subject of recent ABC Nightline story).   


According to Sean Kane “the public are still at risk because they have little or no information about a mostly invisible hazard. The tire industry, vehicle manufacturers, and NHTSA recognize that tire age degradation presents a hazard – even on tires that have little use. It’s past time to give consumers the same level of awareness and the tools to protect themselves.” 

	


	





	

			

	

		
NHTSA Finally Gets Curious about Exploding Airbags
		

			Posted on  |  by admin		

			

	

		
NHTSA-watchers know that it sometimes takes a lot to pique the curiosity of the Office of Defects Investigations.


Take Takata airbags that explode, shooting shrapnel at hapless drivers. This defect, first surfaced in 2008, when Honda announced a major recall. It has returned to the news pages in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013 as Honda and four other automakers announced a cascade of recalls, each with its own specific defect root cause – one just a little different from the other. These explosions have caused two deaths and at least 22 injuries to date.


This month, NHTSA decided it was time to untangle the mess. Last Wednesday, based on six new complaints since the August 2013 recalls, NHTSA opened a Preliminary Evaluation into potentially defective airbags affecting 1.09 million Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda and Chrysler vehicles.


According to the Opening Resume, the good folks at ODI discussed these incidents with Takata and decided that heat and humidity might be a factor since all six incidents occurred in Florida or Puerto Rico. Two reports came from Takata and one from Toyota. The remaining three came to the agency’s attention via the Vehicle Owner’s Questionnaire. The Opening Resume characterizes them as “minor in nature.”


Here are the VOQ narratives:


Right after the car was hit, the passenger airbag exploded, breaking the front windshield and hitting the driver in the head causing a cut of 7 stitches and catching on fire. Airbag never inflated. (VOQ 10568848)


Oncoming driver crossed center line making a left turn in front of Honda driver. Honda struck passenger side of turning vehicle. Both driver and passenger side airbags deployed. However, the diver side airbag inflator ruptured and propelled a one-inch piece of shrapnel into the driver's right eye. Loss of sight and severe lacerations to nose requiring 100 stitches. This vehicle is not included in NHTSA recall campaigns 08V593, 09V259 or 11V260. The Honda was bought used. Information supplied by legal counsel for injured Honda driver. (VOQ 10537899)


There was a loud explosion and the next thing I remember I was sitting in my car staring at the center of my steering console. The airbag was nowhere to be seen. The airbag has completely dislodged from the steering column. After searching for it I found it between the driver’s door and the seat. It has caused cuts and burns on both of my arms as well as the left side of my face. The EMTs told me I was lucky I had large glasses on as they probably kept me from getting hit in the eye. I also am suffering from hearing problems since the explosion of the airbag. My right ear has partial hearing with moderate ringing and pain, my left ear sounds like I'm sitting in a field of crickets. It makes horrible cracking and shrill whistling sounds. I am going to see my ear doctor tomorrow. The rest of me is sore but ok. (VOQ 10585224 )


 


Apparently, metal shards ripping your face to shreds and taking out an eye is “minor.” Hey, you’ve got two eyes.  


In May 2009, 18-year-old Ashley Nicole Parham.of Oklahoma died in a 2001 Honda Accord, after her vehicle another car in the school parking lot, tripping an explosion that sent a piece of metal right into her carotid artery. In 2010, Kristy Williams, a Georgia college student, was stopped at a light, when her airbags deployed, expelling metal shards, which severed her neck and carotid artery and required two weeks in intensive care. Williams’ case against Honda was settled for an undisclosed sum. On Christmas Eve, Guddi Rathore was at the wheel of her 2001 Honda Accord, when a U.S. postal service truck pulled out in front of her. The minor fender bender caused the airbag to explode. The metal shards severed the arteries in her neck, killing Rathore in front of her three young children, also occupants in the Accord. According to news reports, the Rathore family settled with Honda and the U.S. government earlier this year for $3.5 million.


For its part, The Safety Record is curious why ODI has waited a year to follow up on the high heat and humidity angle. In Honda’s 2013 Defect and Noncompliance notice, it mentioned an inflator rupture involving a vehicle from Puerto Rico, and “another potential concern related to airbag inflator production that could affect the performance of these airbags.” We hope the PE does not simply focus on this new aspect of a 13-year-old problem.


And while we’re at it: Paging Mr. Vincent! Paging Mr. Vincent! (That is O. Kevin Vincent, NHTSA’s Chief Counsel.) Several injury incidents and at least one death occurred in vehicles outside of the recalls.  The Parnham case settled; the Rathore case settled; several other cases settled. In the latest batch of blow-ups, one of those plaintiff’s attorneys you invited to help ODI fight automotive defect crimes reported another case that should send up one the those “red flags” that the TREAD Act “demands” a follow-up. Will you look into those settlements? Did they settle for more-than-an-ambulance-chasing-nuisance amount? Will we see a Timeliness Query for Takata or Honda? Will you follow up, Mr. Vincent? Or will we, like the poor driver in VOQ, only hear crickets?  (See NHTSA Message to the Defense: Call us Before We Call You) 


NHTSA gave Takata and Honda the benefit of the doubt in 2009, when it closed a Recall Query, concluding that their many shifting explanations were adequate to forestall a civil penalty. But that was five years ago. The Safety Record sees in the publicly available documents the typical shuck and jive from automakers in a rolling recall. One thing is abundantly clear: Takata had lousy manufacturing and quality control processes. In 2006, its Monclova, Mexico propellant plant exploded. The airbag inflators keep exploding, the metal continues to fly, and the only ones paying the real penalty are the death and injury victims.  But in this new world of defect scrutiny, might we see more recalls covering even later models than previously disclosed?       

	


	





	

			

	

		
While You Were Out …
		

			Posted on  |  by admin		

			

	

		
We’re all familiar with the Friday afternoon news dump – release something controversial at close of business on the last day of the week. Don’t leave reporters much time for digging or tracking down interview subjects, and hope everyone is too busy livin’ for the weekend to pay attention. The holiday news dump is a variation on this theme and last week, as Americans were preparing to grill hotdogs and wave sparklers, some big news broke out: Graco added 1.9 million infant carriers to an earlier recall of 4.2 million safety seats for harness buckles that were nearly impossible to unlatch, making it the largest child seat recall in U.S. history. NHTSA released some after-the-fact testing and another Special Order related to a dubious customer satisfaction campaign related to rear-impact Jeep fires. GM found yet more vehicles with a bum ignition switch that needed to be recalled and laid out its compensation protocol for past victims of its malfeasance. Head below for the details:


Graco Harness Buckle Recall


Five months after Jennifer Timian of the NHTSA’s Recall Management Division sent Graco a blistering recall acknowledgement letter reaming out the manufacturer for minimizing the safety hazard of harness buckles that do not unlatch, Graco has surrendered. It added 1.9 million infant carriers to an earlier recall of about 4 million convertible and booster seats with a harness buckle that was so difficult to unlatch, that consumers reported the need to cut their children out of the seat.


Graco’s Feb. 7 Part 573 Notice of Defect and Noncompliance did a 180 in tone and substance from its original recall notice in February, in which the child safety seat-maker made it clear that it would rather eat ground glass than concede that harness buckles that become stuck by design or contamination could present a safety hazard in an emergency:


While Graco and NHTSA have not reached an accord over the nature or severity of this  issue, Graco in an abundance of caution has agreed to submit this 573 report and engage in a recall for the Subject Child Restraints.


It reluctantly recalled about 4 million convertible and booster seats, including Cozy Cline, Comfort Sport, Classic Ride 50, My Ride 65, My Ride w/Safety Surround, My Ride 70, Size 4 Me 70, Smartseat, Nautilus, Nautilus Elite, and Argos 70 models. But, Graco declined to recall an additional 1.8 million rear facing infant seats. 


 


This time, Graco’s phrasing was more careful. While the word “defect” was never whispered, Graco’s memory of the first recall was all soft-focus:


Based on its discussion with NHTSA, Graco determined that a safety recall was warranted with regard to forward-facing toddler and harnessed booster car seats due to the probability that, and in addition to the ergonomic issues noted above, the physical orientation and use patterns of those seats with older children increased the potential for foreign material to interfere with the buckle mechanism over time. This in turn could make extraction of the child occupant more difficult in an emergency situation, thereby increasing the risk of injury.


This is what is alleged to have happened to Leiana Marie Ramirez, who died in a vehicle fire three days before her second birthday, strapped in a Graco Nautilus child safety seat. Her mother  Samika Ramirez was southbound on Arroyo Seco Parkway in South Pasadena, when Samika pulled her Nissan Altima to the side of the divided highway, suspecting that she had a flat tire. Another driver, who hadn’t noticed the stopped Altima, struck it in the rear, touching off a fire. According to the police reports, Samika tried to unbuckle her daughter, but could not release the harness. The flames engulfing her car were too intense, and onlookers pulled Samika Ramirez out of the car. The Ramirez family filed a civil lawsuit against Graco in October 2012, as NHTSA was opening an investigation into the problem. At the time of the recall, Graco had not reported this lawsuit to NHTSA, as it is required to do, under the Early Warning Reporting regulations.


Graco really had no choice but to widen the recall. NHTSA was threatening to go to an Initial Determination if Graco didn’t recall the infant carriers as well. And when the agency is ready to go to the mat, a manufacturer can count on lots of negative news stories about its products and its corporate behavior. That’s perhaps, more costly to the bottom line than a recall.


Chrysler Jeep Wrangler Fires


In other holiday news, the agency has issued a Special Order to Chrysler demanding to know when in the heck it was going to initiate the trailer hitch remedy it grudgingly agreed to implement more than a year ago after former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and former NHTSA administrator David Strickland cut a deal with Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne to avoid a legal struggle. One year after Chrysler filed its Part 573, not one Jeep has been remedied, and at the rate Chrysler is going, it will take it nearly five years to implement it. The agency has taken umbrage:


For many owners, a recall remedy deferred by parts availability easily becomes a defect remedy denied. Moreover, additional delays in implementing this recall will inure to Chrysler’s benefit at the expense of vehicle owner safety. Although NHTSA acknowledges that recall campaigns may have low completion rates for any number of reasons, the agency has no intention of allowing Chrysler, or any other manufacturer, to delay recall completion to the detriment of safety.


Our readers may recall that NHTSA and Chrysler were on a collision course last spring over the unfortunate tendency of older Jeeps with behind-the-axle, rear-mounted fuel tanks to burst into flames when struck from the rear – especially at higher speeds. The Center for Auto Safety had been petitioning NHTSA for a Jeep recall since November 2009, when it formally requested that the agency open an investigation into fuel-fed fires in Jeep Grand Cherokees from the 1992-2008 model years. The advocacy group alleged that the plastic fuel tank’s placement and the lack of adequate shielding – similar in design to the infamous Ford Pinto – made it more vulnerable to rupture or leakage from rear-impacts and in rollovers.


In August 2010, the agency granted the CAS petition and opened a Preliminary Evaluation. In June 2012, ODI bumped up the investigation to an Engineering Analysis Chrysler was pretty adamant that it didn’t see a problem here, and NHTSA was equally insistent that something be done. NHTSA formally requested that Chrysler conduct a recall, and with the deadline for a formal reply looming, LaHood, Marchionne, and Strickland met in Chicago and came to a compromise.


Chrysler agreed to outfit 1.5 million, 1993-1998 Jeep Grand Cherokees and the 2002-2007 Jeep Liberty SUVs with trailer hitches, installed on vehicles not already so equipped “provided the condition of the vehicle can support proper installation.” Chrysler agreed to inspect vehicles with aftermarket and Chrysler-designed tow hitches “to assess whether the hitch and surrounding areas show evidence of sharp edges or other puncture risks. For those vehicles with after-market hitches, Chrysler will replace it with a Chrysler tow hitch “provided the condition of the vehicle can support proper installation.” In closing the Engineering Analysis, the agency said that it “had no reservations” about the trailer hitch “fix.”  Chrysler described it in its Defect and Non-Compliance Notice as “an incremental improvement” to safety in low-speed rear impact crashes.


These Special Orders, (coming so regularly now, we don’t know if they are that special any more.) are signs that NHTSA is trying mightily to acquire a spine. But this one, in particular, shows why the agency has a long way still to go.


After the Secretary of Transportation cuts the deal, ODI questions the effectiveness of the remedy in a meeting with Chrysler.


The automaker tries to allay these concerns by providing “drawings of the hitches and a limited set of test data.” When ODI questions the sufficiency of those offerings, Chrysler says it won’t do anything else.


NHTSA is then forced to conduct its own tests. And if a report about those crash tests can be believed — eight rear impact crash reconstruction tests conducted from August 2013 to January – at speeds of up to 40 mph, all is well.


When NHTSA shares it glad tidings about the tests with Chrysler, NHTSA finds out that Chrysler had waited until December 2013, to select a hitch supplier and actually placed an order in late January 2014. The first run of hitches wasn’t actually produced until May 14, and Chrysler wouldn’t have all its parts stockpiled until next month.


Basically, Chrysler’s actions might be construed as a chronic middle finger to ODI.  And the Special Order? Pretty wimpy compared to some of the zingers coming out of the Chief Counsel’s office these days.


CAS, which has tirelessly championed this issue, rightly points out that its consumers who are getting the shaft. The tests, while nice, fall short of those the agency did the Ford Pinto of the 1970s, and short of today’s FMVSS 301 fuel tank integrity test, which requires a 50-mph 30 percent offset from a 3015 pound moving barrier with low front end — more severe than the ones NHTSA for the Chrysler tow-hitch “fix.”


In the meantime, CAS reports, four people have died and two have been seriously injured in rear-impact Jeep collisions since Chrysler announced its remedy last June.


Ignition Switch Nightmare Continues


GM celebrated the holiday week, as they do every week since Marietta, Georgia attorney Lance Cooper broke the news that General Motors knew it had a defective ignition switch in the 2005-2007 Cobalt and other models for at least a decade, by announcing an expanded recall. Chrysler also announced that it was adding 696,000 2007-2009 Chrysler Town & Country minivans and Dodge Journey SUVs to its 2011 ignition-switch recall of 196,000 Journeys, Caravans and Town & Country vehicles due to ignition keys that could slip from the “run” to “accessory” position, shutting down the engine, and the power steering and airbags with it.


On Monday of the holiday week, the GM recall ballooned to 8.4 million vehicles globally. This compelled Time journalists, bored with the sheer repetition of ignition recall, after ignition recall, after Congressional hearing, after document dump, after revelation that yet another GM insider warned them about this defect years ago, are forced to come up with ridiculous fun facts about the fiasco, such as: “The recalled vehicles could wrap around the Earth more than four times and The longest time between recalls hasn’t even been longer than the World Cup. Funny stuff! (Remember when Time was relevant?)


GM also announced its compensation plan for owners of ten Chevrolet, Daewoo, Open/Vauxhall, Pontiac and Saturn vehicles with a death or injury claim for a crash that occurred before December 2014. One key case killer: airbag or seat belt pre-tensioner deployment. Any evidence of either in a crash and the claim is ineligible. What technical support does GM have for drawing its bright line in that particular place? Kenneth R. Feinberg, Administrator of the GM Ignition Compensation Claims Resolution Facility, couldn’t answer that question at his holiday week presser.