Ruth Consulting, LLC.
Unique Qualifications:
Ruth Consulting can assist in any automotive restraints related areas including safety belts, safety belt pretensioners, frontal airbags, side impact airbags and curtains, safety canopy for rollover, and other pyrotechnic restraint system controlled safety devices. However, Richard is uniquely qualified in Event Data Recorders and airbag system performance including deployment thresholds.
Unique qualifications in Event Data Recorders include serving on Ford's Event Data Recorder Policy Committee, being part of the Ford and Auto Alliance team responding to NHTSA's Part 563 rule, being Ford's primary interface with the Vetronix Corp (now owned by Bosch) who makes the equipment to read EDR's, serving as Ford's representative on tech SAE J1698 committee that developed a common EDR output format, serving on the ASTM forensic sciences committee developing EDR readout procedures, and presenting on EDR's at the 2004, 2007, and 2011 SAE toptecs on EDR's at the NTSB training academy. He personally helped debug many of the new releases from Ford to Vetronix to assure data integrity. His work on industry committees and with Vetronix/Bosch and suppliers that service other manufacturers give him unique insight in to the current state of the industry.
Mr. Ruth has authored over 10 publications on event data recorders, many through peer reviewed venues such as the SAE.
Professional Associations over time include the Society of Automotive Engineers, the National Association of Professional Accident Reconstructionists (NAPARS), the Illinois Association of Traffic Accident Investigators, the Midwest Association of Traffic Accident Investigators, and the Michigan Association of Traffic Accident Investigators.
Richard R. Ruth, P.E. retired in 2006 from Ford Motor Company after 33 years in a wide variety of product engineering and product planning positions, spending the last 10 years managing Ford Design Analysis Engineers that provide technical analysis to Ford's Office of the General Counsel in product liability lawsuits and Ford Product Development in field investigations. As a "working manager", he has personally handled many restraints related internal Ford field investigations, gathered appropriate technical documents for discovery, given corporate and expert depositions and trial testimony, and provided technical assistance to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), NTSB, NICB, law enforcement and third party inquiries.
He has subsequently worked as a private consultant for 10+ years, specializing in applying event data recorder information to crash reconstructions, teaching law enforcement and private reconstructionists on the proper use of EDR’s in crash reconstruction, and performing research in to EDR accuracy and publishing the results in peer reviewed scientific venues. He can perform general crash reconstruction but normally only takes cases where and EDR is involved; he does not do scene surveying or mapping. He also assists in assessing automobile restraint system performance in cases where a safety defect is alleged. Put Richard Ruth's insider's knowledge and perspective to work for you.