Trauma ward duty shapes auto safety leader's agenda

WASHINGTON - One Saturday many years ago, while working in an emergency room, Dr. Jeffrey Runge had to tell parents that their two children died in an auto accident because they were not wearing seat belts.

The next week, Runge treated two teenagers saved by seat belts when their vehicle plunged 30 feet into a construction pit.

Auto safety became a second calling for Runge, now head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

"The difference between those two Saturdays was the reason to do something," Runge said in an Associated Press interview.

Two years after becoming the agency's administrator, the 47-year-old physician remains invigorated about his mission.

"Every day is graduate school," Runge says, whether he is pushing for seat belt use or venting about the highway fatality rate: 42,815 deaths in 2002, or 117 per day.

"What do you think this department would do if an overloaded 747 was dropping out of the sky every day? We would probably ground the entire fleet and there would be no aircraft flying until we found out the problem," he says.

Runge has formed teams to focus on five priorities: increasing seat belt use, decreasing impaired driving, improving data collected on accidents and defects, preventing rollovers and reducing the amount of damage to small vehicles when they are hit by larger ones.

On Runge's watch the agency has released its first child seat ratings and seen child seat belt use climb to a record. Later this year, the agency will begin a data collection system to help spot defects more quickly.

Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers spokeswoman Gloria Bergquist, who represents 10 automakers, is struck by Runge's passion.

"He makes a very strong argument that this (fatality rate) is an outrage," she said. "We've become so inured to it that we start to accept this as a given, and it's not."

Runge (pronounced RUN-ghee), who grew up in Charleston, S.C., has made a career of saving lives. He has taught and worked at Carolinas Medical Center - North Carolina's busiest trauma center - since 1984.

Runge has done traffic safety research, focusing on alcohol-related accidents and prevention of brain injuries. His work caught the attention of a former NHTSA administrator, Dr. Ricardo Martinez, who called Runge in 1995 and asked him to become the agency's first medical fellow.

Runge spent 1996 meeting agency experts and poring over data. When he returned to the medical center in Charlotte, N.C., he established an injury prevention program that uses traffic and injury data to guide public policy.

Runge was back in the trauma center when he was contacted about the federal job.

"I had a person who I just resuscitated from congestive heart failure, I had another having a heart attack, I had a kid who had a seizure over here and I had a car crash coming in with two victims," Runge says. "I was like, "This is not a real good time.' "

He eventually had time to consider the offer and won unanimous Senate approval. He now lives in Virginia with his artist wife and teenage son. His daughter attends college in South Carolina.

Runge has been the subject of some controversy. At an auto conference in Detroit in January, he angered automakers when he said he "wouldn't buy my kid a two-star rollover vehicle if it was the last one on Earth."

Runge said the comment - which referred to the government's rollover ratings - was misinterpreted as a knock on sport utility vehicles.

"My whole point was that all vehicles are not created equal and consumers need to educate themselves on what to buy," he said.

Brian O'Neill, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said the rift has been repaired because automakers realize Runge is willing to compromise.

"The furor over (Runge's) remarks about SUVs and rollovers in part seems to have been driven by the view that he's a Republican administrator, therefore he should not be a critic of the auto industry," O'Neill said. "But he's a committed highway safety advocate first and a Republican second, and frankly, Detroit should want that. A politicized NHTSA is the worst thing."

Runge has been criticized by some safety advocates as well, particularly because he supports letting automakers adopt voluntary safety standards instead of requiring changes. In February, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., questioned Runge about that philosophy, recalling automakers' longtime reluctance to add features such as seat belts and air bags.

Runge said changes will come faster through voluntary action because the agency's rulemaking can take four years or more. He also said his agency is ill-equipped to make far-reaching changes because it gets only about $1 for every vehicle on U.S. roads.

Runge said he is determined to make vehicles safer. He often thinks about three teenagers he once treated. They were wearing seat belts, which helped limit their injuries when the compact car they were riding in was struck in the side by an SUV.

The SUV's passengers were thrown from the vehicle because they were not buckled. The driver of the compact car was killed instantly, her head resting against the much-higher front of the SUV.

"Here was an example of what America needs to know about," Runge said. "I've got a short amount of time to get the job done, and I will never forgive myself if I walk out of here and I have not done everything that I can do to save my fellow man."

AGE, BIRTH DATE: 47; Oct. 20, 1955, in Charlotte, N.C.

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