A Tragic Accident Spotlights a Hole In Auto Regulation

[question everything]

This is from today's Page one of the WSJ. I read the first few paragraphs and just knew that I had to post them here, they are so poignant..

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The Wall Street Journal

January 7, 2005

Joe's Van

A Tragic Accident Spotlights a Hole In Auto Regulation

Vehicles Adapted for Disabled Are Covered by Few Rules; Balancing a Desire to Drive

'Lord, Thank You for My Mom'

By AMY SCHATZ
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 7, 2005; Page A1

COUDERSPORT, Pa. -- Trapped in his 2000 Dodge Caravan, Joseph A. Brown wrote a note on his Sharp hand-held computer. It began: "I didn't commit suicide." The 23-year-old quadriplegic had intended to drop off some trash at the dump that October 2003 afternoon before heading to Wal-Mart. His customized van was traveling at about 70 miles per hour when it careened off State Road 49. It bumped through a low-lying corn field and bounced off hay bales before coming to a halt at the base of a crabapple tree, according to a police accident report and a survey of the scene.

Thanks to an airbag, Mr. Brown wasn't badly injured. But the impact broke the harness that secured his motorized wheelchair in place and Mr. Brown found himself sprawled across the van's midsection. He couldn't pull himself back into his chair, the police report says. The Dodge's resting place was a short walk from the nearby highway, but the van lay obscured under a grove of trees. There is no cellphone service in that remote part of the Allegheny Mountains.

Stuck in the van, Mr. Brown whiled away two hours thinking and listening to the radio. Then, in his hand-held computer, which he often used as a notebook, he wrote a message to his mother describing his accident and its aftermath. "I didn't commit suicide," he wrote as the afternoon began to draw to a close. "Sorry for the title. But I was afraid that if I didn't make it, that's what people would think." He continued: "You're probably wondering what happened. Good freakin question!!!...I think this all has something to do with that stupid accel button on the steering wheel." Within three hours, the sun had set. His khaki pants, T-shirt and blue pullover couldn't keep out the chill. The temperature dropped to about 38 degrees. Mr. Brown's body didn't generate enough heat to stay alive and he died that night of hypothermia, according to the coroner's report. The Pennsylvania State Police found his body two days later.

(snip)

Nonetheless, in the weeks following the accident, Mr. Brown's mother decided she wanted to campaign for better regulatory oversight. Rebecca Froebel, 46, a caseworker for the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, learned that a faulty part responsible for her son's crash had malfunctioned in at least one other previous incident. She began a letter-writing campaign and sent information packets to local and national politicians suggesting ways to make vehicles safer. Her recommendation: Modified vehicles should have an engine kill-switch within easy reach of a driver and a Global Positioning System device to broadcast their location in an emergency.

(snip)

Regulatory agencies closely track the car industry, but they have paid scant attention to this area. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has written just one safety rule, relating to a device that lifts wheelchairs into vehicles. No one knows how many modified vehicles malfunction or crash because regular police records don't contain such detailed information. What little oversight exists comes from veterans' groups and state-based rehabilitation programs that pay for customization work. Among the disabled community, there's little clamor for change. Some interest groups privately fear that a more-intrusive government will conclude these vehicles are unsafe. That could raise their cost and make liability insurance more expensive, crimping one of the last vestiges of freedom for disabled people.

(snip)

Write to Amy Schatz at [e-mail]

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110505136588019305,00.html

[Porcupine]

1. We should just give every disable person a valet...

to drive them around, clean up after them and do all those gritty tasks the rest of us do ourselves. Hey we could also purchase them sex surrogates so they don't miss out there either.

I'm sorry these people have problems but enough is enough. There are able bodied, working American citzens who do not have the resources to provide food, shelter, clothing and medical care at the most minimal levels. Meanwhile the government spends huge sums modifying vehicles so quadriplegics can drive.

There are limits to what these people should get in support. We are already past these limits in some cases. Enough already.