From left: Jason (and Jay-Fay Fraser.Photo: Courtesy of Michelle and Jason FraserBefore the Frasers' Thanksgiving 2016 turned to tragedy, it began as a day of gratitude. The family of four — mom Michelle, dad Jason and their kids, Jay-Fay and Jace — had just finished serving meals for the homeless in a low-income Dallas neighborhood, an annual tradition, when they headed home.They say they took every standard precaution when getting in the car: Everyone was wearing their seat belts and 12-year-old Jay-Fay was seated behind her dad, who was driving.But when the family’s vehicle was rear-ended on the highway, the sudden force of the crash sent Jason slamming backward into his daughter.It was unexpected but unavoidable, he now knows: “When you get rear-ended past a certain rate, the front seats break.““They designed that, I think, in hopes to save the spine and neck of the person in the front seat,” Jason tells PEOPLE. “But what they have done … is kill kids in the back seat. Or maim them.“The impact sent Jason’s seat backward, collapsing and causing a 360-degree fracture around his daughter’s head.From left: Michelle, Jace, Jay-Fay and Jason Fraser.Courtesy of Michelle and Jason FraserJason was injured in the accident as well, suffering a concussion and spending a day in the hospital. But his daughter was much worse off.“She literally died on the side of the road, in front of us,” he says. “But she came back to life in the ER.“Jay-Fay was intubated and “clung to life” for a month and a half, according to her mom. From there, she recovered slowly.“We left on Thanksgiving Day and we didn’t come home again until May 5,” Michelle says. Years later, she still remembers how “it was very strange to come home and see the Thanksgiving decorations still out.“Jay-Fay has made some progress since the crash that nearly killed her, but her life little resembles what it was before. She receives in-home rehabilitation services and uses a robot to assist in her walking.“She went from an eight-time state champion gymnast and a competitive dancer all over the United States to having full life support to now, we basically run a therapy clinic and a hospital out of our house,” Jason says.Jay-Fay Fraser, before the accident.Courtesy of Michelle and Jason FraserThe couple says they have found themselves grappling with the “why” nearly every day — why had it happened to them, but also why it had happened at all.Those questions, they say, drive their quest for reforms.“The entire trunk was crunched in, but the fuselage of the car was intact. The car really performed per the safety standards that are out there, and that’s why we’re really on a mission,” Michelle says. “Because if that’s the definition of a car performing well, we need to change those standards.“She and Jason learned they weren’t alone.“I was in-patient and during that time I met several people in the ICU and in the in-patient rehab who had been in very similar situations,” Jason says. “I found a couple and had one come and find me who said both of their kids' heads had been cracked open. Now they’re in wheelchairs.““This light bulb went off in my head,” Jason continues. “I said, ‘This is happening not just to us. This is a problem with vehicles. This could be happening everywhere.’ “Indeed, aCBS News investigationpublished earlier this year “identified more than 100 people who were severely injured or killed in alleged seatback failures in the past 30 years.“From left: Jason, Jay-Fay, Michelle and Jace Fraser.Courtesy of Michelle and Jason FraserJason says he vowed to himself: “If and when they got through this, we want to be a light to help others. Maybe we can make some lemonade out of these lemons.“The couple was first introduced to representatives from the consumer advocacy group The Center for Auto Safety and began meeting with lawmakers to promote federal legislation that would update safety standards for seat backs.Those guidelines haven’t been updated for half a century, when the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) set them in 1967.Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the NHTSA referred PEOPLE the strength requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards No. 207, which governsseating systemsand No. 202a, which governshead restraints.“Safety is NHTSA’s top priority and we use the best available data to inform our safety decisions,” the spokesperson said, adding that the head restraint standard was “substantially revised in 2009.“The seat standards have not been revised recently, however. “Over the years, NHTSA has conducted significant work to assess whether the seat standard needs changed. NHTSA determined in 2004 that the available data did not support changing the standard,” the spokesperson added.The spokesperson said the agency has continued to research the issue in recent years and is evaluating a crash test dummy “specifically developed to test head and neck injuries, which are the most common in rear-end collisions, which could help us determine how much the front seat can be strengthened without causing more injuries to both front and backseat passengers.“Along with the Center for Auto Safety, the Frasers are now advocating for the passage of theModernizing Seat Back Safety Act, S. 1413, which was introduced in the Senate in April and would require the NHTSA to craft new safety standards to better protect back-seat passengers during rear-end collisions.Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts who is sponsoring the measure, said ina press releasethat it made sense to look into vehicle safety when asweeping infrastructure planwas being weighed in Congress.“Every year on average, over 36,000 people are killed and nearly three million more are injured in motor vehicle crashes,” Markey said. “These numbers reveal a public health crisis that we must not accept as inevitable. We can prevent these unnecessary tragedies with proven strategies and technologies … As Congress debates infrastructure and surface transportation reauthorization in the weeks ahead, I will fight for these bills and ensure that safety is at the forefront of everything we do. Upgrading our roads and highways also means upgrading safety.“Safety experts say current standards governing automobile seat backs were designed for vehicles built in the 1950s, when the seat backs were shorter and more flexible.But as the seat backs have grown gradually stronger, the standards governing them have remained the same. Experts say that, as a result, they aren’t built to withstand higher-speed impacts, which can send those in the front seat forcefully into the person seated behind them.As the NHTSA advises that children should be seated in the back — where,according to experts, it is still safer for them overall — that creates a particular risk of injury in a rear-end crash. One study of thoseseated in the second rowof vehicles made in 1990 and later found that some 50 children die in rear-end crashes every year.Some activists have spent yearsurging the NHTSAto change the standard. Engineer Alan Cantor, for instance, petitioned the agency in 1989 and again in 2015, arguing that seat backs should provide “the same kind of protection to the user that a seat belt provides in a frontal impact.“Cantor toldFairWarning.orgin 2020 that the agency acknowledged it had seen his petition but had not moved forward with other action in response. (The NHTSA did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.)Jay-Fay Fraser.Courtesy of Michelle and Jason FraserThe Frasers have had to immerse themselves in all of these details. But it’s important work, they say.“I feel like I’m going back to high school government class to learn about how bills become laws,” mom Michelle says with a laugh.While she and Jason both say they could never have envisioned the path their lives took after the 2016 crash, they have a goal in sight — however far away.“I think car manufacturers are slow to change unless they’re pushed to change,” Jason says.“When things like this happen, your tendency is to say, ‘Why us?’ " Michelle says. “You know, you see things on television and you say, ‘Oh, those poor people.’ And all of a sudden, we were the ‘poor people.’ “She continues: “But I told Jason, ‘You know what? Why not us? We have family support, our love for each other is strong. This was a natural next step in our journey. Why not speak up? Somebody’s got to.”
From left: Jason (and Jay-Fay Fraser.Photo: Courtesy of Michelle and Jason Fraser
Before the Frasers’ Thanksgiving 2016 turned to tragedy, it began as a day of gratitude. The family of four — mom Michelle, dad Jason and their kids, Jay-Fay and Jace — had just finished serving meals for the homeless in a low-income Dallas neighborhood, an annual tradition, when they headed home.They say they took every standard precaution when getting in the car: Everyone was wearing their seat belts and 12-year-old Jay-Fay was seated behind her dad, who was driving.But when the family’s vehicle was rear-ended on the highway, the sudden force of the crash sent Jason slamming backward into his daughter.It was unexpected but unavoidable, he now knows: “When you get rear-ended past a certain rate, the front seats break.““They designed that, I think, in hopes to save the spine and neck of the person in the front seat,” Jason tells PEOPLE. “But what they have done … is kill kids in the back seat. Or maim them.“The impact sent Jason’s seat backward, collapsing and causing a 360-degree fracture around his daughter’s head.From left: Michelle, Jace, Jay-Fay and Jason Fraser.Courtesy of Michelle and Jason FraserJason was injured in the accident as well, suffering a concussion and spending a day in the hospital. But his daughter was much worse off.“She literally died on the side of the road, in front of us,” he says. “But she came back to life in the ER.“Jay-Fay was intubated and “clung to life” for a month and a half, according to her mom. From there, she recovered slowly.“We left on Thanksgiving Day and we didn’t come home again until May 5,” Michelle says. Years later, she still remembers how “it was very strange to come home and see the Thanksgiving decorations still out.“Jay-Fay has made some progress since the crash that nearly killed her, but her life little resembles what it was before. She receives in-home rehabilitation services and uses a robot to assist in her walking.“She went from an eight-time state champion gymnast and a competitive dancer all over the United States to having full life support to now, we basically run a therapy clinic and a hospital out of our house,” Jason says.Jay-Fay Fraser, before the accident.Courtesy of Michelle and Jason FraserThe couple says they have found themselves grappling with the “why” nearly every day — why had it happened to them, but also why it had happened at all.Those questions, they say, drive their quest for reforms.“The entire trunk was crunched in, but the fuselage of the car was intact. The car really performed per the safety standards that are out there, and that’s why we’re really on a mission,” Michelle says. “Because if that’s the definition of a car performing well, we need to change those standards.“She and Jason learned they weren’t alone.“I was in-patient and during that time I met several people in the ICU and in the in-patient rehab who had been in very similar situations,” Jason says. “I found a couple and had one come and find me who said both of their kids' heads had been cracked open. Now they’re in wheelchairs.““This light bulb went off in my head,” Jason continues. “I said, ‘This is happening not just to us. This is a problem with vehicles. This could be happening everywhere.’ “Indeed, aCBS News investigationpublished earlier this year “identified more than 100 people who were severely injured or killed in alleged seatback failures in the past 30 years.“From left: Jason, Jay-Fay, Michelle and Jace Fraser.Courtesy of Michelle and Jason FraserJason says he vowed to himself: “If and when they got through this, we want to be a light to help others. Maybe we can make some lemonade out of these lemons.“The couple was first introduced to representatives from the consumer advocacy group The Center for Auto Safety and began meeting with lawmakers to promote federal legislation that would update safety standards for seat backs.Those guidelines haven’t been updated for half a century, when the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) set them in 1967.Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the NHTSA referred PEOPLE the strength requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards No. 207, which governsseating systemsand No. 202a, which governshead restraints.“Safety is NHTSA’s top priority and we use the best available data to inform our safety decisions,” the spokesperson said, adding that the head restraint standard was “substantially revised in 2009.“The seat standards have not been revised recently, however. “Over the years, NHTSA has conducted significant work to assess whether the seat standard needs changed. NHTSA determined in 2004 that the available data did not support changing the standard,” the spokesperson added.The spokesperson said the agency has continued to research the issue in recent years and is evaluating a crash test dummy “specifically developed to test head and neck injuries, which are the most common in rear-end collisions, which could help us determine how much the front seat can be strengthened without causing more injuries to both front and backseat passengers.“Along with the Center for Auto Safety, the Frasers are now advocating for the passage of theModernizing Seat Back Safety Act, S. 1413, which was introduced in the Senate in April and would require the NHTSA to craft new safety standards to better protect back-seat passengers during rear-end collisions.Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts who is sponsoring the measure, said ina press releasethat it made sense to look into vehicle safety when asweeping infrastructure planwas being weighed in Congress.“Every year on average, over 36,000 people are killed and nearly three million more are injured in motor vehicle crashes,” Markey said. “These numbers reveal a public health crisis that we must not accept as inevitable. We can prevent these unnecessary tragedies with proven strategies and technologies … As Congress debates infrastructure and surface transportation reauthorization in the weeks ahead, I will fight for these bills and ensure that safety is at the forefront of everything we do. Upgrading our roads and highways also means upgrading safety.“Safety experts say current standards governing automobile seat backs were designed for vehicles built in the 1950s, when the seat backs were shorter and more flexible.But as the seat backs have grown gradually stronger, the standards governing them have remained the same. Experts say that, as a result, they aren’t built to withstand higher-speed impacts, which can send those in the front seat forcefully into the person seated behind them.As the NHTSA advises that children should be seated in the back — where,according to experts, it is still safer for them overall — that creates a particular risk of injury in a rear-end crash. One study of thoseseated in the second rowof vehicles made in 1990 and later found that some 50 children die in rear-end crashes every year.Some activists have spent yearsurging the NHTSAto change the standard. Engineer Alan Cantor, for instance, petitioned the agency in 1989 and again in 2015, arguing that seat backs should provide “the same kind of protection to the user that a seat belt provides in a frontal impact.“Cantor toldFairWarning.orgin 2020 that the agency acknowledged it had seen his petition but had not moved forward with other action in response. (The NHTSA did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.)Jay-Fay Fraser.Courtesy of Michelle and Jason FraserThe Frasers have had to immerse themselves in all of these details. But it’s important work, they say.“I feel like I’m going back to high school government class to learn about how bills become laws,” mom Michelle says with a laugh.While she and Jason both say they could never have envisioned the path their lives took after the 2016 crash, they have a goal in sight — however far away.“I think car manufacturers are slow to change unless they’re pushed to change,” Jason says.“When things like this happen, your tendency is to say, ‘Why us?’ " Michelle says. “You know, you see things on television and you say, ‘Oh, those poor people.’ And all of a sudden, we were the ‘poor people.’ “She continues: “But I told Jason, ‘You know what? Why not us? We have family support, our love for each other is strong. This was a natural next step in our journey. Why not speak up? Somebody’s got to.”
Before the Frasers’ Thanksgiving 2016 turned to tragedy, it began as a day of gratitude. The family of four — mom Michelle, dad Jason and their kids, Jay-Fay and Jace — had just finished serving meals for the homeless in a low-income Dallas neighborhood, an annual tradition, when they headed home.
They say they took every standard precaution when getting in the car: Everyone was wearing their seat belts and 12-year-old Jay-Fay was seated behind her dad, who was driving.
But when the family’s vehicle was rear-ended on the highway, the sudden force of the crash sent Jason slamming backward into his daughter.
It was unexpected but unavoidable, he now knows: “When you get rear-ended past a certain rate, the front seats break.”
“They designed that, I think, in hopes to save the spine and neck of the person in the front seat,” Jason tells PEOPLE. “But what they have done … is kill kids in the back seat. Or maim them.”
The impact sent Jason’s seat backward, collapsing and causing a 360-degree fracture around his daughter’s head.
From left: Michelle, Jace, Jay-Fay and Jason Fraser.Courtesy of Michelle and Jason Fraser
Jason was injured in the accident as well, suffering a concussion and spending a day in the hospital. But his daughter was much worse off.
“She literally died on the side of the road, in front of us,” he says. “But she came back to life in the ER.”
Jay-Fay was intubated and “clung to life” for a month and a half, according to her mom. From there, she recovered slowly.
“We left on Thanksgiving Day and we didn’t come home again until May 5,” Michelle says. Years later, she still remembers how “it was very strange to come home and see the Thanksgiving decorations still out.”
Jay-Fay has made some progress since the crash that nearly killed her, but her life little resembles what it was before. She receives in-home rehabilitation services and uses a robot to assist in her walking.
“She went from an eight-time state champion gymnast and a competitive dancer all over the United States to having full life support to now, we basically run a therapy clinic and a hospital out of our house,” Jason says.
Jay-Fay Fraser, before the accident.Courtesy of Michelle and Jason Fraser
The couple says they have found themselves grappling with the “why” nearly every day — why had it happened to them, but also why it had happened at all.
Those questions, they say, drive their quest for reforms.
“The entire trunk was crunched in, but the fuselage of the car was intact. The car really performed per the safety standards that are out there, and that’s why we’re really on a mission,” Michelle says. “Because if that’s the definition of a car performing well, we need to change those standards.”
She and Jason learned they weren’t alone.
“I was in-patient and during that time I met several people in the ICU and in the in-patient rehab who had been in very similar situations,” Jason says. “I found a couple and had one come and find me who said both of their kids' heads had been cracked open. Now they’re in wheelchairs.”
“This light bulb went off in my head,” Jason continues. “I said, ‘This is happening not just to us. This is a problem with vehicles. This could be happening everywhere.’ "
Indeed, aCBS News investigationpublished earlier this year “identified more than 100 people who were severely injured or killed in alleged seatback failures in the past 30 years.”
From left: Jason, Jay-Fay, Michelle and Jace Fraser.Courtesy of Michelle and Jason Fraser
Jason says he vowed to himself: “If and when they got through this, we want to be a light to help others. Maybe we can make some lemonade out of these lemons.”
The couple was first introduced to representatives from the consumer advocacy group The Center for Auto Safety and began meeting with lawmakers to promote federal legislation that would update safety standards for seat backs.
Those guidelines haven’t been updated for half a century, when the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) set them in 1967.
Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the NHTSA referred PEOPLE the strength requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards No. 207, which governsseating systemsand No. 202a, which governshead restraints.
“Safety is NHTSA’s top priority and we use the best available data to inform our safety decisions,” the spokesperson said, adding that the head restraint standard was “substantially revised in 2009.”
The seat standards have not been revised recently, however. “Over the years, NHTSA has conducted significant work to assess whether the seat standard needs changed. NHTSA determined in 2004 that the available data did not support changing the standard,” the spokesperson added.
The spokesperson said the agency has continued to research the issue in recent years and is evaluating a crash test dummy “specifically developed to test head and neck injuries, which are the most common in rear-end collisions, which could help us determine how much the front seat can be strengthened without causing more injuries to both front and backseat passengers.”
Along with the Center for Auto Safety, the Frasers are now advocating for the passage of theModernizing Seat Back Safety Act, S. 1413, which was introduced in the Senate in April and would require the NHTSA to craft new safety standards to better protect back-seat passengers during rear-end collisions.
Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts who is sponsoring the measure, said ina press releasethat it made sense to look into vehicle safety when asweeping infrastructure planwas being weighed in Congress.
“Every year on average, over 36,000 people are killed and nearly three million more are injured in motor vehicle crashes,” Markey said. “These numbers reveal a public health crisis that we must not accept as inevitable. We can prevent these unnecessary tragedies with proven strategies and technologies … As Congress debates infrastructure and surface transportation reauthorization in the weeks ahead, I will fight for these bills and ensure that safety is at the forefront of everything we do. Upgrading our roads and highways also means upgrading safety.”
Safety experts say current standards governing automobile seat backs were designed for vehicles built in the 1950s, when the seat backs were shorter and more flexible.
But as the seat backs have grown gradually stronger, the standards governing them have remained the same. Experts say that, as a result, they aren’t built to withstand higher-speed impacts, which can send those in the front seat forcefully into the person seated behind them.
As the NHTSA advises that children should be seated in the back — where,according to experts, it is still safer for them overall — that creates a particular risk of injury in a rear-end crash. One study of thoseseated in the second rowof vehicles made in 1990 and later found that some 50 children die in rear-end crashes every year.
Some activists have spent yearsurging the NHTSAto change the standard. Engineer Alan Cantor, for instance, petitioned the agency in 1989 and again in 2015, arguing that seat backs should provide “the same kind of protection to the user that a seat belt provides in a frontal impact.”
Cantor toldFairWarning.orgin 2020 that the agency acknowledged it had seen his petition but had not moved forward with other action in response. (The NHTSA did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.)
Jay-Fay Fraser.Courtesy of Michelle and Jason Fraser
The Frasers have had to immerse themselves in all of these details. But it’s important work, they say.
“I feel like I’m going back to high school government class to learn about how bills become laws,” mom Michelle says with a laugh.
While she and Jason both say they could never have envisioned the path their lives took after the 2016 crash, they have a goal in sight — however far away.
“I think car manufacturers are slow to change unless they’re pushed to change,” Jason says.
“When things like this happen, your tendency is to say, ‘Why us?’ " Michelle says. “You know, you see things on television and you say, ‘Oh, those poor people.’ And all of a sudden, we were the ‘poor people.’ "
She continues: “But I told Jason, ‘You know what? Why not us? We have family support, our love for each other is strong. This was a natural next step in our journey. Why not speak up? Somebody’s got to.”
source: people.com
