Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

A freelance photographer was working on assignment for the New York Times, covering an H.I.V. scare at a St. Louis high school and trying to build a rapport with teenagers involved with the story. Sitting in the back seat of a car, photographer Dan Gill happened to snap a picture of the teenage driver texting on her cell phone while driving about 60 miles per hour, both hands off the wheel, as someone in the front passenger seat steered. Gill didn’t intentionally seek such a controversial picture. It was just one of the scores of photographs he took in documenting the daily lives of some teenagers.

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Dozens of accident victims and their lawyers made their way to Washington, DC, and the halls of Capitol Hill last week, urging lawmakers and the Obama administration to protect their ability to pursue medical claims against Chrysler and General Motors.

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Consumer and safety advocates nationwide are praising President Obama’s reported nomination of Chuck Hurley to serve as the next leader of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – the government agency that sets the standards for automobile roof crush strength. Actually, setting roof crush standards is not something the NHTSA has done much of since 1971 — the year it established the alarmingly weak standards that are still on the books today. Safety advocates hope that Hurley will overhaul the weak standards, which were written so many decades ago, by the auto companies and for the auto companies.

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Paula Lawlor, founder of the nonprofit organization People Safe in Rollovers, is being honored by the Consumer Attorneys of San Diego as Consumer Advocate of the Year. Lawlor is a resident of Del Mar, California in San Diego County. She has worked as a consumer safety advocate for 10 years, pressuring government and automobile manufacturers to improve the strength of automobile roofs.

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In November, we reported that federal U.S. standards for vehicle roof safety were dangerously low, and that the decision to raise the standards, even just to a level still inferior to that of many foreign auto manufacturers, has been continually delayed. Then, just yesterday we speculated as to whether a bailout of the auto industry would mean better, safer American cars.

Unfortunately, it looks as if the Department of Transportation is just as dysfunctional as the American auto industry in its ability to do the right thing … or anything at all.

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In June, we reported that the U.S. Senate panel reviewing a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposal for increased standards in roof strength had asked the agency to delay its decision, originally scheduled for July 1. The NHTSA agreed to further review of the policy, and set a new date for release on Oct. 1. Yesterday, the agency announced another delay, pushing the decision back to December, according to a report in the Detroit News.

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