Issues
CAS Petitions NHTSA for Safe Power Windows
For more than thirty years, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has had the opportunity to prevent power window incidents inflicting death and injury by requiring manufacturers to install proper preventive mechanisms, but has neglected to do so. These tragedies could have been prevented had manufacturers been required to install fail-safe technology to ensure that occupants could not be trapped in rising windows.
CAS Statement on NHTSA’s Release of 2005 Fatal Analysis Reporting System (FARS) Highway Death Figures
8/23/2006
Statement of Center for Auto Safety Executive Director Clarence Ditlow on NHTSA’s
Release of Fatal Analysis Reporting System (FARS) Highway Death Figures for 2005
Carmakers stall roof rules
8/21/06
Safety activists say federal standards are too lax
David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Last year, federal safety officials proposed strengthening a 35-year-old vehicle roof strength standard after studying the contentious issue for more than a decade.
Safety advocates immediately criticized the new proposal as toothless and designed more to protect automakers from new cost burdens than American motorists from crushed roofs in rollovers.
Toyota Sienna Class Action Settlement Notice
Click here to view the Settlement Notice
Promising Fashion Model Dies In Fiery Crash
7/31/06
TRENTON, N.J. — She’d recently appeared on the cover of Italian Vogue, and had modeled for top designers at shows this summer in Milan and Paris.
But now, 19-year-old Heather Bratton is dead, the victim of a fiery crash on the New Jersey Turnpike. Authorities confirm that she was killed in the three-car crash a week ago.
A statement from her booking agency said she’d been headed to Newark International Airport. Her stepfather told the New York Post she’d been in New York for a photo shoot.
Wesley Chapel fashion model dies in New Jersey accident
7/30/06
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A young woman who died in a fiery auto crash on the New Jersey Turnpike last weekend has been identified as a promising fashion model from Florida.
New Jersey State Police confirmed today that 19-year-old Heather Bratton was the passenger who died at the scene of a three-car collision at about 5 a-m on July 22nd. A statement on the Web site of her booking agency, Women Management, says she was en route to a flight at Newark International Airport.
New federal traffic safety chief faces daunting to-do list
Deb Price / Detroit News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — When Nicole Nason recently took over as chief of the powerful National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, her dad gave her two gifts.
The first was a motorcycle helmet that saved his skull — and probably his life — when he was thrown from the Harley he rode as a Long Island, N.Y., highway cop. The second was a photo of the bashed-in Pontiac Catalina he and Nason’s mom walked away from without serious injuries after being hit by a drunken driver in 1979.
Nader and Ditlow ask GM to stop misleading OnStar ads and disable dangerous OnStar features
May 15, 2006
Richard Wagoner
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
General Motors Corporation
300 Renaissance Center
Detroit, MI 48226
Chet Huber
President
OnStar
400 Renaissance Center
Detroit, MI 48226
Dear Mssrs. Wagoner and Huber:
Ventilation system suggested to save kids in hot cars
By RALPH VARTABEDIAN , Los Angeles Times
An urgent federal government warning solved one crisis for children in the mid-1990s, but laid the groundwork for another tragic problem a decade later.
After small children were killed by powerful air bags in the early 1990s, the federal government issued a recommendation put all babies in rear-facing carriers in the rear seat and put young children in the rear seat, as well.
Comments on Head Start Child Restraints
Arthur L. Yeager, DMD, MMH
Fellow of the American College of Dentists
33 Park Gate Drive
Edison, NJ 08820
(732) 321-0423
Fax (732) 321-0457
alyeager@aol.com
June 16, 2006
Associate Commissioner, Head Start Bureau
Administration for Children, Youth and Families