I could not have generated the information, collected the photographs, or completed the project without the assistance and aid of others. I want to thank all of those who contributed to the successful completion of this book. My first debt is, of course, to my three amazing children who encouraged me to discover my writing purpose and pursue it with intense passion and perseverance. I am grateful that they understood the world must know this story. I am deeply grateful to my friend Mohsin Ali, former diplomatic editor for Reuters, who helped tremendously by serving as a guest lecturer to my college classes while I attended the many meetings. The hundreds of college students who participated in the research and surveys helped to get this book written. Unfortunately, some of these students perished in motor vehicle crashes. Many others were involved in crashes that caused them pain and injury. It was common to hear tragic stories on a daily basis. I constantly thank my college students and remind them that their involvement was important. What is written is never forgotten. I tell them that we learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. Hopefully, in this second century of motor vehicle travel, these students can experience the freedom to travel safely. I received much support and advice, and sometimes the best advice came from the naysayers who told me I was wasting my time. Fortunately, I turned all their negatives into positives. Many individuals are mentioned within, but this book is solely my project and all of the opinions expressed here (except for the direct quotations) are my own. I do not speak or write for the automakers, government safety establishment, standards development organizations, or advocates—but I do include their own works in my book and also what others have commented about them. I do not bash any group for all are important and I am very careful to be factual. I express my grateful appreciation to those who gave permission to use news articles and extended quotations such as the National Academies of Sciences / Transportation Research Board (TRB), the New York Times, Automotive News and EE Times, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank. Robert Kern, my literary agent in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Cathy Faduska, my senior editor at IEEE Press / John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and Kay Ethier of Bright Path Solutions, Durham, North Carolina, helped craft the initial structure of my manuscript and greatly improved the book. The entire point of an editor is to decide what is and what is not fit to print, and any book will have some selection criteria. Those criteria and the editor's judgment are its bias. The best that any author can do is make it as clear as possible why everything should be included so as to avoid "unbiased" reporting where no one can be portrayed as being wrong or opposing safety. No courage is required to publish a sanitized, non-critical version of events. To do otherwise requires a higher standard. Vehicle and highway safety cannot be accomplished through the efforts of one person, a group, or a government agency. It is a shared responsibility among people who travel, the companies that provide transport, and the agencies that regulate travel. But, one person can make a difference toward the goal of safe travel. Someday, when we are "actually all safer" while traveling in crash-proof vehicles on intelligent highways, I want to tell my children's children that I knew about this problem and did my best to erase it when I could. I will tell them in life we have two choices, try or do nothing. To me it was impossible to witness the terrible pain and suffering and not get involved. Road safety is no accident. Silence is the ultimate weapon of power in vehicle and highway safety. This book will break that silence. |
One of the great pleasures of finishing a book is that it gives the author the opportunity to thank those who helped make the project a product.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 3 - Shifting Gears: April 1998 - September 2002
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) motto is "People Saving People." In order to achieve a safe transport system, there must be a change in our views concerning responsibility, to the extent that the system designers are given clearly defined responsibility for designing the road system on the basis of actual human capabilities, thereby preventing the occurrence of those cases of death and serious injury that are possible to predict and prevent. - The Swedish Committee of Inquiry Into Road Traffic Responsibility, 1997. Although it would be possible to trace the research and development of motor vehicle event data recorders since the early 1970s, the current initiative was born on Wednesday, April 1, 1998, when NHTSA held a meeting before invited interested parties. Early in 1998, NHTSA held several internal planning meetings, and it was decided to propose the creation of a working group (WG) within NHTSA Research & Development's Motor Vehicle Safety Research Advisory Committee (MVSRAC). The purpose of these meetings was to "explore the possibility of establishing a committee to facilitate the collection and utilization of crash avoidance and crashworthiness data from on-board event data recorders." Seventeen people attended the meeting: ten from NHTSA, one from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), one from the Transportation Research Board (TRB), one from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and four from General Motors Corporation, Inc. Presentations were made by NHTSA and General Motors. Position statements were made by the NTSB, FHWA and TRB personnel. NTSB provided a history of EDR technology and discussed the NTSB recommendation. The Highway community, represented by the TRB and the FHWA, expressed interest in collection of crash data for crashes into roadside safety devices such as guard rails. Along the same lines, the TRB representative announced they were considering funding an initiative to look into using EDRs to define vehicle crash characteristics for roadside hardware. The outcome of the meeting was an agreement that a committee should be formed. Several possibilities were discussed, including forming a "Blue Ribbon" panel, setting up group through the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), and forming a working group within the Motor Vehicle Safety Research Advisory Committee (MVSRAC). Twenty-seven days later, Raymond P. Owings, PhD, NHTSA's Associate Administrator for Research and Development and Acting Chairman of the MVSRAC convened the sixteenth meeting of the MVSRAC.1 MVSRAC was formed to support the mission of NHTSA, which is to reduce injuries and fatalities associated with motor vehicle crashes. The NHTSA MVSRAC Committee had sixteen members on its main committee. These members represented the Federal Government, the Automobile and Trucking Industries, medical and injury researchers, academia, and the public. There were two subcommittees: Crashworthiness Research and Crash Avoidance. Dr. Owings began the meeting by explaining some of the general rules for the MVSRAC meeting. "The MVSRAC Committee is to meet at least once a year. It has to be a public meeting. We have to give advance notice in the Federal Register. We have to keep detailed minutes. The description in our case, well cover this whole meeting." He explained the scope of the meeting. "I want to go through what our scope is. MVSRAC provides information, advice and recommendations to the Administration on matters related to motor vehicle safety research. There are some exceptions. There have been some problems in the past, so I have legal counsel here advising me what things I can or can't do, so we had one or two lessons." Late in the afternoon on April 28, 1998, the NHTSA staff presented a briefing to the MVSRAC full committee to seek their approval in forming a working group under the Crashworthiness Subcommittee. The presentation was made by John Hinch of the NHTSA Research and Development Office. The meeting was documented by Heritage Reporting Corporation, (202) 628-4888. A transcript of the event is available in the notes section:2 The meeting was successful in helping to launch further event data recorder initiatives.3 With a green light from the MVSRAC committee all of a sudden event data recorders were back on the research and development agenda of NHTSA. They were also in the capable hands of John Hinch, one of the agency's most qualified engineers. John, a ex-Marine, was a professional with a deep understanding of vehicle and highway safety. He had a reputation for allowing all views to be heard and of getting things done. Soon afterwards, the 16th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV) was held at Windsor, Ontario, Canada, from May 31 to June 4. The ESV conferences were held every four years. The ESV program originated more than thirty years ago under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society, and was implemented through bilateral agreements between the governments of the United States, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan and Sweden. The participating nations agreed to develop experimental safety vehicles to advance the state-of-the-art technology in automotive engineering and to meet periodically to exchange information on their progress. Since its inception the number of international partners has grown to include the governments of Canada, Australia, The Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, and two international organizations - the European Enhanced Vehicle-Safety Committee, and the European Commission. Several papers were specially on emerging EDR technologies. These papers are listed in the bibliography.4 |
