31 Oct 2008Download Search Results
As well as searching data it is now possible to
download or export the data to a spreadsheet such as Excel. This new feature will allow the user to sort, filter and manipulate
the data in ways that are specific to their particular requirements.
23 Oct 2008New Research Tools Released by VSIRC
Search NHTSA data like you
have never searched before. VSIRC released today version 1.0 of its new online search tool. The product is a must have
for anyone doing NHTSA type searching.
The Vehicle Safety Research Information Center (VSIRC), a collaboration between Safety Research & Strategies president Sean Kane, and software developer Stephen Foley, released Version 1.0 of online research tools that provide a new level of access and search capabilities to NHTSA data and documents.
VSIRC research tools allow quick and easily retrieval of government data and documents that until now has been difficult to access and search, inaccessible through the government web portals, or no longer available from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“VSIRC offers sophisticated search tools with easy-to-use interfaces that can be tailored for broad-based research or very narrow results,” Kane says. “Searching is designed to identify relevant records by using our unique mapping system that accommodates coding errors, inconsistencies, and missing information, as well as NHTSA records and documents unavailable from the agency. Our system ensures users can maximize their ability to retrieve the data and documents they need.”
Version 1.0 includes four datasets based on records and documents from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Recalls, Defect Investigations, Complaints, and Crash / Compliance Tests. The second phase of VSIRC, which is currently underway, will include databases with the death, injury, and property damage claims from Early Warning Reporting data submitted by manufacturers to NHTSA.
Foley, who has worked in software development for 25 years and headed the development team for the well-known legal transcription software Livenote, says the VSIRC development has been a challenge due to the enormous amount of data which had to be sanitized and the creation of a simple interface across a complex data set, while achieving Google-like search speeds. As the product continues to evolve, he believes users will find that the VSIRC represents a vast improvement in the ease-of-use and the quality of data returned when compared to the search mechanisms offered by NHTSA.
VSIRC is a game changer, says Kane.
“Research that once took days or even weeks can be done in seconds,” he added. We anticipate that VSIRC will open new doors and improve safety research in many ways.”
26 Sep 2008NHTSA Grants SRS Request: Opens Investigation into Ford OEM Valve Stems
Washington, D.C. – Less than two weeks after Safety Research & Strategies requested the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration to open a defect investigation into Chinese tire valve stems used as OEM equipment
in some Ford vehicles, the Office of Defects Investigation has complied.
On September 25, SRS President Sean Kane sent a letter to Daniel Smith, NHTSA’s Associate Administrator for Enforcement, asking him to widen the current probe on prematurely cracking rubber snap-in valve stems manufactured by Shanghai Baolong / Topseal Automotive to include Ford vehicles which also used the Topseal stems. On October 14, ODI opened a Preliminary Evaluation (PE08-060) into more than a million Topseal stems on Ford vehicles, citing the possibility that they may crack due to poor ozone resistance, leading to tire damage and a possible loss-of-control crash.
The valve stems have been under investigation since May 15, when NHTSA opened a preliminary evaluation into the safety of model TR413, a 1.25 inch valve stem for a 0.453 inch rim hole, which is frequently installed as replacements in tires as they are serviced or replaced. In April, Shanghai Baolong’s American branch, Dill Air Control Products, reported the defect to the agency, telling NHTSA that valves, manufactured from July 2006 to November 2006, may leak from cracks caused by ozone exposure. The meeting was prompted by a lawsuit filed by the family of a fatal crash victim, alleging that the crash was caused by a defective tire valve stem.
On November 11, Robert Monk of Orlando, Fla. died when the right rear wheel of his 1998 Ford Explorer failed, triggering a rollover crash. The tire failure was linked to a cracked Dill TR413 valve stem manufactured by Dill Air Control Products. In March, the Monk family filed suit against the Oxford, North Carolina firm.
Dill also sent a Technical Bulletin to major tire retailers advising them that the company had received complaints of surface cracks appearing on the outside of the rubber near the rim hole in several models: TR 413, TR 413 chrome, TR 414, and TR 418 Dill ACP valve stems. “When the rubber is exposed to high levels of ozone as it is being stressed, surface cracks can appear. High speeds and an unsupportive rim profile allow the rubber valve to flex at a greater angle and may cause these cracks to propagate, leading to a slow leak of air,” the bulletin said. Dill has yet to issue a recall.
In June, Tech International, a distributor based in Johnstown, Ohio, filed a defect report claiming that an estimated 8,600 out of 6 million TRI413 valve stems, manufactured by Shanghai Baolong between July and November 2006 were affected. On September 22, the agency upgraded the Dill valve stem investigation to an Engineering Analysis based on a total of 28,000 reports of cracked tire valve stems.
SRS was persuaded by other evidence that the cracked valve stem problem was probably just as acute in Ford vehicles which used Topseal valve stems as OEM equipment. A brief field survey found prematurely cracked TR414 valve stems on 2007 Ford models, all bearing the Topseal symbol on the base of the stem. In fact, the failure modes in the appeared to be identical to those identified in the Dill-labeled models. In addition, SRS’s independent analysis of the agency’s complaint records showed that Ford was a standout among OE valve stem failure complaints, with 35 unique vehicle reports alleging valve stem failures on 2007 and 2008 Ford vehicles.
In its appeal to NHTSA, Kane argued that the agency should widen the scope if its investigation, because the true extent of the problem would most likely be much larger than the complaint data suggested. Ford vehicle owners would be more likely to take their leaking tire problems to a local tire shop instead of a Ford dealer, thus depressing the number warranty claims or repairs documented by Ford shops. Further, tire-related consumer claims presented to vehicle dealers are frequently referred to local tire dealers who sell the subject tire brand and model.
Kane noted:“Underreporting valve stem complaints is a significant issue. Even now after media coverage of the issue and the agency’s investigation, many tire shops are still unaware of the defect. If a customer presents a tire to a service shop that is leaking and the service professionals determine the leak is from the stem, it is almost always replaced without further inquiry. Because rubber snap-in valve stems are inexpensive commodities that have generally performed well for many decades, a potential defect trend is not part of the conversation. We have contacted many tire and service shops around the country and continue to find that the valve stem issue is largely undocumented -- even in shops that have seen an increase in valve stem cracking.” More about: Ford OEM Valve Stems
26 Sep 2008Biomechanics Research Update
Salena Schmidtke Zellers at BioInjury, LLC, summarizes several presentations made at the Association for
the 52nd annual Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM) conference earlier this month.
The engineers at University of Virginia, NHTSA and Autoliv found seat belts with a combination of dual force limiters and pretensioners were very successful in reducing injury potential to rear seat occupants in moderate to high severity frontal crashes. In frontal crashes from NASS CDS, belted rear seat occupants 25 years and older are three times more likely to sustain AIS3+ injuries than those < 24 and younger. With current vehicle and seat belt designs, injuries to rear seat occupants generally range from chest injuries from shoulder belt loading, to submarining from poor seat pan and seat belt designs that allow the pelvis to translate forward while restraining the torso. It is widely known that belt-induced thoracic injuries and submarining can be mitigated through the use of seatbelt pretensioners and force limiters. The testing in this study demonstrates that this is true for rear seat occupants using currently available technology.
Four different dummies were tested at Delta Vs of 48 and 29 kph in either a standard three-point belt or a three-point belt with a lap belt pretensioner and a progressive force-limiter. Although force limiters increase belt payout, pretensioners remove slack from the belt and facilitate earlier application of load to the occupant, thus reducing the forward excursion experienced for a given force limit. In these tests, the restraints with the pretensioner and force limiter resulted in decreased average peak internal chest deflection for each of the dummies at both speeds. More importantly, the belts with force limiters and pretensioners allowed little or no increase in forward head excursion and whole body kinematics were improved for all dummies by restricting pelvic excursion and slightly increasing torso pitch. In the standard belt tests, the pelvis exhibited large forward motions, limiting the forward rotation of the torso. The causes the torso to angle backward at the time of maximum excursion, increasing the potential for submarining. It is clear from this testing that improving belt design in the rear seat compartment will reduce torso injuries from the shoulder belt and submarining injuries resulting from poor seat belt geometry and seat pan design.
Injury Risk for Children in Rear Impacts: Role of the Front Seat Occupant (Jermakian, Arbogast, Durbin, Kallan)The scientists at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania examined rear impacts in which when a child is seated behind a yielding front seat. This statistical analysis of State Farm data and NASS-CDS data from 2000 to 2006 demonstrated at least a two-fold increase in injury risk for children seated behind yielding seat backs in rear impact crashes. The authors acknowledged that most of the research focused on reducing injury in rear impacts has been on protecting the front seat occupants through seat design, particularly the prevention of whiplash in low speed rear impacts. Injuries to children and other rear seat occupants can occur from the interaction with the front seat occupant and their seat back when the seat “yields” rearward. The authors noted that seat back deformation plays a larger role in injury causation with younger children in child restraints because of their closer proximity to the front seat back as it deforms.
This study attempted to clarify the incidence of rear seat child injury from a yielding front seat back in real world rear impacts. State Farm and NASS CDS data from 1,035 restrained child occupants seated in a second row outboard position in rear impact tow-away crashes were analyzed to examine the injury risk of reported front seat back deformation on injury risk. They found that the injury risk doubled for children with seatback deformation occurring directly in front of them (4.8 percent vs. 2.1percent). The small sample of NASS-CDS data showed a four-fold increase in injury risk to rear seated occupants when the seat in front of them deformed rearward. The authors concluded that “seat back designs focused only on the front seat occupants may have unintended negative consequences for rear seat occupants and suggested that both front and rear seat occupants should be considered when evaluating the trade-offs associated with seat design.”
