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May 13, 2017

SIDE GUARDS FOR BIG TRUCKS * USA: Requested by IIHS

* DC - Safety experts urge side duards for big trucks 

--- According to the latest numbers from the government, fatal crashes involving large trucks are on the rise in the U.S., new crash tests show how guards for the sides of trucks can make a big difference. .. Tests from the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety show what happens when a car going 35 miles per hour crashes into the side of a tractor-trailer. The car goes underneath and the heads of the dummies inside smash directly into the truck... But in a second test the tractor-trailer is equipped with "underride guards" on the side of the truck…and the outcome is much different... Federal law requires large trucks to have rear underride guards, but it does not mandate the same protections for the sides of trucks... More than 1,500 people were killed in collisions between a passenger vehicle and a tractor-trailers in 2015 - more than 300 of those involved the side of the truck... 
(Photo: Underride cash)   --  Washington, DC, USA - CBS News/Ozarks First - May 10, 2017

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posted by Unknown @ 6:10 AM  0 comments

Jun 7, 2016

SAFETY ON TRUCKS * USA: Passengers rule, by FMCSA

* DC - Passengers in large commercial trucks now required to wear seat belts 

--- The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced today that passengers riding in large commercial trucks will be required to use seat belts whenever the vehicles are operated on public roads in interstate commerce. Effective August 8, 2016, the final rule revises Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations and holds motor carriers and drivers responsible for ensuring that passengers riding in large commercial trucks are using seat belts... “Seat belts save lives – period,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “Whether you’re a driver or passenger, in a personal vehicle or large truck, the simple act of wearing a safety belt significantly reduces the risk of fatality in a crash.” ... In 2014, 37 passengers traveling unrestrained in the cab of a large truck were killed in roadway crashes, according to the most recent data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Of this number, approximately one-third were ejected from the truck cab... FMCSA’s most recent Seat Belt Usage by Commercial Motor Vehicle (CMV) Drivers Survey, published in March 2014, found that commercial motor vehicle passengers use seat belts at a lower rate (73 percent) than CMV drivers (84 percent). Federal rules have long required all commercial drivers to use seat belts... Washington, DC, USA - FMCSA (PR) - June 6, 2016

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posted by Unknown @ 5:18 AM  0 comments

Oct 29, 2015

TRUCKS' SAFETY * USA - Mandatory: Automatic emergency braking systems

* DC - Why trucks are one step closer to automatic brakes
-- NHTSA entertains another incremental step towards transit’s automated future... The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has now announced that it will consider mandating all large trucks carry the automatic emergency braking systems that could have prevented that accident, and thousands like it across the U.S. each year... Automatic emergency braking (one of various names for the systems) uses radar, lasers, and cameras to see as far as 650 feet in front of a truck—about three times the typical follow distance on highways. They first signal a driver of upcoming obstacles, and then, if the driver doesn’t react, will slow or stop the vehicle. The technology has been available for nearly a decade, and is already in service in tens of thousands of trucks across the U.S. and Europe...


... The bigger picture could give truckers a different set of worries. The past 10 years have seen an explosion of automated systems on trucks, including adaptive cruise control, lane-departure warnings, and electronic stability control (which NHTSA has already mandated for large trucks by 2017). That buildup is leading, bit by bit, to fully autonomous trucks. While that will be a huge boon to overall driving safety, it could also push human truck drivers out of the picture... 
(Photos by Wabco - Wabco’s OnGuardACTIVE emergency automatic braking system for trucks detects vehicles ahead and can apply the brakes to prevent or mitigate damage from a potential crash)    --   Washington, DC, USA - Fortune, by David Z. Morris - OCT 27, 2015


* DC - Heavy-spending trucking industry pushes Congress to relax safety rules for drivers

-- Big rig crashes kill nearly 4,000 Americans each year and injure more than 85,000. Since 2009, fatalities involving large trucks have increased 17 percent. Injuries have gone up 28 percent... Given these numbers, you might expect Congress to be agitating for tighter controls on big rigs. In fact, many members are pushing for the opposite—looser restrictions on the trucking industry and its drivers... The proposals represent a wish list of the trucking industry, including allowing significantly longer and heavier trucks, and younger drivers. The industry spends heavily on lobbying and campaign contributions, giving largely to Republicans, who control both the House and Senate... Supporters insist the proposals actually will improve public safety by cutting the number of trucks on the road while also helping the trucking industry address a shortage of drivers. But critics reject the safety claims as ridiculous, saying the proposals would enrich the trucking industry, not protect the public... Truck safety advocates—many of whom have lost loved ones in big rig crashes—are dismayed over what they describe as the industry’s efforts to use Congress to achieve dangerous policy changes... 
(Photo by Raymond Clarke / Flickr)   --    FairWarning/In These Times, by BRIAN JOSEPH - Oct 28, 2015

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posted by Unknown @ 7:07 AM  0 comments

Sep 19, 2015

TRUCK INSPECTIONS * USA: Only a small fraction of the trucks pass they

* Minnesota - When big rigs push past the safety rules
... Millions of large trucks crisscross state and federal highways every day, hauling billions of tons of goods from factories, fields and warehouses. Federal and state regulations govern truckers’ driving hours, equipment maintenance and load sizes, but enforcement of those rules through surprise roadside inspections has been falling nationally... The weigh stations that dot the highway system are equipped to inspect just a small fraction of the trucks that pass through. Last year, for example, 433,078 vehicles went through a Minnesota weigh station on Interstate 94 while it was open. About 3,800 were inspected... Studies vary on who is typically at fault when trucks and other vehicles collide. Trucking industry leaders point to studies showing that passenger vehicles are overwhelmingly responsible for crashes. But in a national Large Truck Crash Causation study, looking at fatal and injury crashes in the early 2000s, trucks were assigned the “critical reason” — why something happened to make a crash inevitable — in 44 percent of such collisions. And in those crashes, 87 percent were attributed to driver error and 10 percent to a vehicle defect... 
(Photo by Renee Jones Schneider - Commercial vehicle inspector Tony Kasella works at the desk monitoring trucks that drove through the St. Croix weigh station in Minneapolis, Minn) -- Minneapolis, MINN, USA - The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)/AZ Daily Sun, by PAM LOUWAGIE - September 15, 2015

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posted by Unknown @ 5:08 AM  0 comments

Jul 23, 2015

NEW BLACK HOLE FOR CARS & TRUCKS * USA: Wireless hijacking vehicles ... !!! & * Australia: Too

* Michigan / USA - Jeep hack a red flag for industry


-- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV is vehemently opposed to hackers’ plans to reveal how they were able to wirelessly hijack a Jeep Cherokee — and potentially hundreds of thousands of other Fiat Chrysler vehicles... The apparent breakthrough is a major security issue not only for Fiat Chrysler, but all automakers... Car hacking has been demonstrated in controlled simulations in recent years -- mostly when hackers are physically plugged into the vehicle’s hardware. Security researchers Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller recently remotely hacked into a 2014 Jeep Cherokee in a real-world test that included disabling the SUV’s engine functions and controlling interior features such as air conditioning, locks and the radio... Miller, a former National Security Agency hacker, and Valasek, director of vehicle security research at the IOActive consultancy, have been sharing their research with Fiat Chrysler for nearly nine months, enabling the company to quietly release a fix ahead of the Black Hat security conference next month in Las Vegas. They plan to release redacted, yet detailed, information at that event... The men reportedly manipulated the vehicle through a vulnerability in a chip that provides a wireless and a cellular network connection. That opened the door to another component for the vehicle’s Uconnect infotainment system that allowed them to rewrite the car’s firmware and send commands through the car’s internal computer network. Miller estimated as many as 471,000 vehicles with vulnerable Uconnect systems are on the road, according to Wired. Fiat Chrysler would not confirm this number... Last week, many major automakers announced an Auto Information Sharing and Analysis Center that will serve as a central hub for intelligence and analysis, providing timely sharing of cyber threats and potential vulnerabilities in motor vehicle electronics or in-vehicle networks... Fiat Chrysler earlier this month released a software update that it says fixes the security breach... While Uconnect was singled out in the article, experts argue practically any modern vehicle could be vulnerable — a major concern, as automakers produce millions of connected cars with Internet capabilities...
(Photo: Chris Carlson / AP - Chris Valasek, poses for a picture at the during the Los Angeles Auto Show on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014, in Los Angeles. Valasek, who helped catapult car hacking into the public eye when he and a partner revealed last year they had been able to control a 2010 Toyota Prius and 2010 Ford Escape by plugging into a port used by mechanics)  --  Auburn Hill, MICH, USA - The Detroit News, by Michael Wayland - July 21, 2015


* ACT / Australia - TIC sees effetive loal shield to vehicle hacking: Australian standards and regulations ‘more stringent than in US’

-- The Truck Industry Council (TIC) believes the Australian tougher laws and regulations will protect commercial vehicles from the type of vehicle hacking danger illustrated this week in the United Sates (of A.)... Technology magazine Wired published its on-road hacking experiment just as USA senators separately brought in a Bill to strengthen up their country’s vehicle IT defences, with both moves highlighting vulnerabilities in that country... In a written response to ATN on Australian commercial vehicles’ resistance to malicious outside interference with the safety and proper functioning of onboard systems, TIC chief technical officer Mark Hammond insists they are robust... On that point, Hammond underlines the difficulty of what the security researchers undertook to get through what is a lesser EMC regime and only one vehicle... There was three years of initial work, then with a university grant of US$80,000 they purchased two more vehicles that they claimed to have spent a further 12 months tearing down and digitally and physically, mapping out their electronic control units, to get to where they are today...
(Photo: Vehicle IT security has been put in the spotlight)  --  Canberra, ACT, Australia -  Fully Loaded, by Rob McKay - 23 July 2015

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posted by Unknown @ 7:54 AM  0 comments

Jun 6, 2015

THREATENS SAFETY * USA: A stealth trucking Bill

* DC - A bill relaxing truck safety rules in Congress would endanger the public

-- With the number of fatal accidents involving tractor-trailers on the rise, now would seem like the wrong time to consider relaxing truck safety rules in the United States. Yet that is exactly where Congress appears to be headed — and proponents are trying to accomplish this maneuver in an unusually stealthy manner... Attached as a policy rider to the $55 billion Transportation, Housing and Urban Development fiscal 2016 appropriations bill now being considered by the full U.S. House of Representatives is a provision allowing truck drivers to work longer hours, haul larger double-trailers in every state and prevent the U.S. Department of Transportation from raising minimum insurance requirements from the current standards, which haven't been adjusted in 30 years... It's one thing for Congress to debate truck safety and face the reality of 4,000 people killed and 100,000 injured each year in truck-involved crashes, including a 17 percent increase in fatalities and 28 percent increase in injuries over a four-year period, but it's quite another to do so without a full-scale hearing, which is what the House has done... It also seems blatantly hypocritical for a Republican-controlled Congress to force states to soften their own truck safety rules... Polls show Americans aren't much interested in relaxing truck safety rules either — perhaps because they know that in crashes involving trucks and cars, more than 95 percent of driver and passenger fatalities are borne by those in the cars... 
(Photo: Car and Truck Accident. Automobile collisions are the most common cause of serious personal injuries and wrongful death claims in Texas) --  Washington, DC, USA - The Baltimore Sun - 3 June 2015

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posted by Unknown @ 6:34 AM  0 comments

Apr 30, 2015

SAFETY LEGISLATION * USA: Incentivize auto industry whistle-blower

* DC - Senate approves auto industry whistle-blower bill

-- The U.S. Senate approved the first piece of auto safety legislation, a bill to incentivize auto industry whistle-blowers, in the wake of recalls by General Motors Co. and Takata Corp. of tens of millions of vehicles and air bags... The legislation — first proposed in November — allows auto industry employee whistle-blowers to be paid millions if they reveal hidden dangers... Senate Commerce chairman praised the Senate’s unanimous passage of the Motor Vehicle Safety Whistleblower Act. “This bill provides important incentives for whistle-blowers in the auto industry to bring safety concerns to the attention of federal regulators when harmful safety defects are not reported. While laws and regulations currently provide certain penalties for unaddressed safety failures, this legislation seeks to help identify and stop problems before anyone is killed or seriously injured” ... Congress last year appeared eager to approve auto safety reforms in the wake of General Motors’ record-setting recall of more than 30 million vehicles and a string of death and injuries from 10 automakers with potentially defective Takata air bags... The Obama administration wants to more than triple NHTSA’s defects budget and more than double staffing, but it has received mixed reviews on Capitol Hill... 
Washington, DC, USA - Detroit News, by David Shepardson - April 28, 2015

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posted by Unknown @ 6:36 AM  0 comments

Sep 13, 2013

TRUCK SAFETY * USA

* Georgia - Report: FMCSA begins efforts to improve one

(Photo) 
Macon,GA,USA -PressRelease, by Westmoreland, Patterson, Moseley & Hinson, L.L.P. -September 07, 2013: -- In early 2012, President Obama signed into law the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, also known as MAP-21. Among other things, this law provided the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration with the authority and the means to continue its efforts to improve highway safety and reduce the incidence of truck accidents across the U.S. ... Nevertheless, despite criticism from the industry, the FMCSA and DOT are committed to using technology to identify potentially dangerous shippers and to keep their fleets off of our nation's highways. The reality is that there are thousands of truck crashes in the U.S. each year, many of which cause serious injuries and even deaths. Ensuring compliance with federal safety rules is essential to preventing these accidents and improving highway safety. The FMCSA's recent rule changes are important tools to make sure that highways are safe for everyone...

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posted by Unknown @ 6:20 AM  0 comments

Oct 27, 2010

SAFETY * Belgium - Fifty truck drivers in Lisa2Alert testing the blind spot warning system!

Brussels,Belgium -Truck Business, by Hendrik Despiegelaere -27 Oct 2010: -- The Belgian Institute for Traffic Safety (BRSI) is an experiment in which 50 drivers started the Lisa2Alert system testing. Besides Lisa2Alert Imbema Rhiwa system is also another warning to the number of blind spots to reduce accidents tested. State Secretary for Mobility, Etienne Schouppe, has ended Monday with the first truck show this warning systems. Schouppe hopes that the systems in time nearly sixty accidents per year could occur. It is an additional Lisa2Alert warning system on the existing levels (and cameras) to prevent blind spot accidents. The system is developed from practice a warning system went into sound and light signals for pedestrians, cyclists and moped riders. This system focuses on the interaction between the truck driver and other road users when he wants to turn right. Once the vehicle is below a certain speed and right turn signal is activated, allows the signal transmitter in the immediate vicinity of the vehicle a distinctive sound. In addition, simultaneous flashes throughout zijmarkeringsverlichting it...

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posted by Unknown @ 5:32 PM  0 comments

Jul 2, 2008

Truck Fleet Safety * USA - Roadcheck 2008 Shows Advances in

Arlington,VA,USA -PRNewswire/USNewswire -1 Jul 2008: -- The U.S. trucking industry showed improvement in truck safety, including a significant increase in the number of drivers who passed roadside safety inspections and were in compliance with driver work and rest rules, according to the results of the 2008 truck safety Roadcheck conducted throughout North America by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance... Figures also showed the highest percent of vehicles passing Level I safety inspections in two decades during the annual three-day safety enforcement event... This year's figures show that the trucking industry continues to make progress in educating drivers about truck safety measures. Ninety-five percent of drivers inspected passed the safety inspection, representing a 14.5 percent improvement over 2007's figures, as drivers continue to become more comfortable with and properly apply the hours-of-service rules that govern work and rest. In 2008, 96.2 percent of all drivers were in compliance with hours-of-service rules, compared with 95.1 percent a year earlier...

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posted by Unknown @ 7:30 PM  0 comments