Only 3 vehicles of more than 100 evaluated by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety have child restraint installation hardware that earns a good rating for ease of use, while more than half have hardware that is poor or marginal.
The Institute's new LATCH ratings will serve as a resource for families looking for a vehicle that makes it easy to transport their children safely. They also are intended to encourage vehicle manufacturers to pay attention to this equipment and make improvements. Properly installed, age-appropriate child restraints provide considerably more protection for children in crashes than safety belts alone. However, observational studies have found that parents and caregivers often fail to secure them tightly or make other installation mistakes.
LATCH, which stands for Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children, is intended to make it easier to install a child seat properly. It works: Child restraints installed with LATCH, rather than with vehicle safety belts, are more likely to be installed correctly, research has shown. But in many vehicles, LATCH hardware could be better. Parents are more likely to install the seat correctly when the LATCH hardware meets certain key ease-of-use criteria.
Forty-five million people – or 1 in 7 Americans – are living in poverty in the United States today. It often takes just one misfortune or one missed paycheck to change an individual or family’s life causing them to fall below the poverty line. Today, Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA) launches #End45 – Raise a Hand to End Poverty in America, a national initiative to help shine a spotlight on the issue and the millions of others in need or struggling to make ends meet.
Timed to coincide with Pope Francis’s visit to the United States in late September and to align with his commitment to helping the poor, #End45 – Raise a Hand to End Poverty in America encourages individuals to show support for the cause by taking a picture of their hand with “#End45” written on the palm and posting it to their social media channels using the hashtag #End45.
To view the multimedia release go to:
http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7599151-catholic-charities-end-poverty-in-america/
Spring is around the corner, and it won’t be long before it’s prom and graduation seasons for many high schoolers. Rites of passage for many, these are times for teens to celebrate, but can also be times of poor decision-making, especially when vehicles are involved. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that 2,524 teen drivers and passengers were killed and 177,000 were injured in 2013. Twenty-seven percent of these fatalities occurred between April and June, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
“The statistics are staggering, especially when you consider that most of these accidents and fatalities are preventable,” said Randy Petro, Mercury Insurance’s chief claims officer. “We don’t want any families to suffer through the loss of a child, so Mercury is taking action with the launch of the ‘Mercury Insurance Drive Safe Challenge.’”
The Mercury Insurance Drive Safe Challenge kicked off with a free defensive driving program, which included hands-on driving skills training and classroom material. An interactive website provides teens with detailed instruction, as well as gives parents the tools to shape responsible driving behavior.
To view the multimedia release go to:
http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7772251-mercury-teen-drive-safe-challenge/
In the impressive conference center of the Milad Tower rising over Tehran’s roofs the 16th Energy Globe World Awards have been handed over in an international gala. Vice President Mrs. Masoumeh Ebtekar referred in her speech to the importance of such awards for outstanding environmental projects and their implementation. This event is the starting signal for intensified efforts concerning sustainability in Iran which is underlined by an expansion program for Renewables and energy efficiency. Also Maneka Gandhi emphasized that a sustainable change in our world can’t be achieved by talks or laws but only by taking action as showed by the Energy Globe submissions.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and presenter Prof. Munasinghe said: It is necessary that poor and rich countries take each other’s hand in order to exchange experiences and support each other.
3 nominees respectively from all 5 continents competed in the 5 categories Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Youth. The nominees have been chosen from around 2000 submissions from 177 countries.
To view the multimedia release go to:
http://www.multivu.com/players/uk/7740251-masoumeh-ebtekar-awarded-best-projects/
Going on the offensive against one of the most daunting challenges in cancer, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) today announced the launch of a groundbreaking, collaborative clinical trial for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a deadly disease which has seen few improvements in treatments in more than 40 years.
Beat AML was announced yesterday by Vice President Biden, along with many new, Moonshot inspired initiatives across industry, non-profit and government.
AML is the most lethal of the blood cancers, which together are the third leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S.; AML is responsible for more than 10,000 deaths each year. Despite advances in treating other blood cancers, the standard of treatment for AML – a combination of toxic chemotherapies – has remained the same for more than 40 years. Overall prognosis remains poor, with a five-year survival rate below 20 percent for patients over age 60.
To view the multimedia release go to:
http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7554854-lls-beat-aml-acute-myeloid-leukemia/
Buckling precious cargo into a late-model vehicle has gotten a bit easier in the past year, the Institute’s LATCH ease-of-use ratings show.
IIHS launched its ratings of child seat installation hardware in vehicles in June 2015. Out of 102 vehicles rated at that time, the majority were poor or marginal. Today, a total of 170 current models have been evaluated, and most are good or acceptable. Three models — the Audi Q7, Lexus RX and Toyota Prius — earn the top rating of good+, a distinction that no vehicle achieved last year.
A properly installed, age-appropriate child restraint can protect a child much better in a crash than a safety belt alone. LATCH, which stands for Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children, is intended to make it easier for caregivers to install child restraints properly. Child restraints installed with LATCH are more likely to be put in correctly than restraints installed using the vehicle safety belt, IIHS research has shown.
Even with LATCH, installation errors are common. The Institute’s ratings are based on key ease-of-use criteria that have been shown to minimize mistakes.
World Water Day is March 22, and the children and youth of Children International are celebrating around the world. They know firsthand the difference clean, accessible water can make in their lives.
Some of them also know what it feels like to make clean water available to others. In 2012, the youth of Children International in Lusaka, Zambia, dedicated their Youth Empowerment Fund to extend the supply of clean, piped water to the poor community of Chibolya.
To view Multimedia News Release, go to http://www.multivu.com/mnr/57995-children-international-world-water-day
Just over half of 2018 model vehicles evaluated by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety are available with headlights that do an adequate job of lighting the road at night and limiting glare for oncoming drivers, but most good-rated headlights are optional or bundled with other features that can raise the price of the vehicle.
Since IIHS released its first headlight ratings for passenger vehicles in 2016, most manufacturers have focused on improving this key safety component. That year, only 2 of 95 headlight systems on 2016-model vehicles evaluated earned a good rating.
For the 2018 model year, the best-available headlights on 32 of 165 models evaluated earn the highest rating of good, and the best-available headlights on 58 models earn the second-highest rating of acceptable. Thirty-two models have only marginal-rated headlights, while poor-rated headlights are the only ones available for 43 models.
A new crash test program from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety aims to ensure that manufacturers pay attention to the safety of front passengers as well as drivers.
The test was developed after it became clear that some manufacturers were giving short shrift to the right side of the vehicle when it comes to small overlap front crash protection. A good or acceptable passenger-side rating will be required to qualify for the Institute’s 2018 TOP SAFETY PICK+ award.
The first test group in the passenger-side small overlap front test program did better overall than vehicles IIHS previously evaluated for research. Ten out of 13 midsize cars tested earn a good rating, while one is acceptable and two earn a marginal rating.
In contrast with a group of 2014-16 model small SUVs tested for research, none of the 2017-18 midsize cars had a poor or marginal structural rating. Instead, the biggest problem in the new group was inconsistent airbag protection in five cars, which would put passengers’ heads at risk.
Flying takes a heavy toll on Americans’ performance: according to results released today from a 1Above survey conducted online in May by Harris Poll among over 2,000 U.S. adults, 81% of U.S. fliers (Americans who’ve ever flown) whose most recent flight was an hour or longer say they need one full day or more to recover after a flight. Yet results show poor hydration and flying habits abound - factors that greatly exacerbate jet lag symptoms and health risks long after each flight. 1Above, the New Zealand brand behind the flight drink designed to help people combat jet leg and arrive ready, is releasing these findings as they launch in North America this week.
To view the Multimedia News Release, go http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7540851-1above-flight-drink-survey/
Not a single small SUV out of 21 tested earns a good rating in the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s headlight evaluations, and only four are available with acceptable-rated headlights.
Among the 21 vehicles, there are 47 different headlight combinations available. More than two-thirds of them are rated poor, making this group of vehicles even more deficient when it comes to lighting than the midsize cars that were the first to be rated earlier this year.
Headlight performance in today’s vehicles varies widely. Government standards are based on laboratory tests, which don’t accurately gauge performance in real-world driving. The issue merits attention because about half of traffic deaths occur either in the dark or around dawn or dusk.
As with midsize cars, the IIHS evaluations of small SUVs showed that a vehicle’s price tag doesn’t correspond to the quality of headlights. More modern lighting types, including high-intensity discharge (HID) and LED lamps, and curve-adaptive systems, which swivel in the direction of steering, also are no guarantee of good performance.
