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“We’re really excited about the name change,” says Auto Glass Safety Council Marketing Committee chairperson Nik Frye. “We believe it more accurately reflects our true mission—auto glass safety in every respect.”

The organization’s name will now appear as follows: the Auto Glass Safety Council (formerly the AGRSS® Council). After December 31, 2012, it will simply be known as the Auto Glass Safety Council.

New logos for the Auto Glass Safety Council, along with its registration and certification programs, will be unveiled in the coming weeks.

This will include both meetings of the board of directors and all AGRSS® committees, including the Standards Committee.

The meetings will be held at the Crowne Plaza Ft. Myers, which is offering discounted rooms for $129 per night, plus tax. You can reserve your room by calling 239/482-2900, and mentioning you are with AGRSS®. Reservations must be made by January 28, 2012, in order to receive the discounted room rate.

A detailed committee meeting schedule will be made available to committee members in the coming weeks.

The Auto Glass Safety Council (formerly the AGRSS Council) is again serving as a co-sponsor of the event, along with AGRR™ magazine, the Independent Glass Association, National Glass Association and National Windshield Repair Association.

The Auto Glass Technician Olympics and the Walt Gorman Memorial Windshield Repair Olympics also will be held concurrently, along with the International Window Film Conference and Tint-Off™.

“We are very, very excited about this year’s event,” said Holly Biller. “I think all who attend will find Louisville is a first-class city full of great entertainment, shopping and fun. It’s a city you will be glad you visited.”

Biller said the extensive education, and, of course,the Exhibition/Extravaganza, will be held again. “We heartily invite everyone in the auto glass and window film industries to attend,” she said.

Hotel rooms for Auto Glass Week will be available at the nearby Louisville Marriott Downtown. Reservations can be made online by clicking here, or by calling the hotel at 800/266-9432 and asking for the Auto Glass Week group.

As in the past, several AGRSS® committees will hold meetings during the event. Stay tuned to www.agrss.org for further details as they come available.

The most significant change takes effect January 1, 2012, when all Auto Glass Safety Council-Registered companies will move from random audits to audits of every company during the validation period.

“The board voted to make this change because the companies that have been through audits have found it so helpful and thought all would benefit from going through the process,” says Auto Glass Safety Council president Debra Levy.

There is no change in cost for the program.

Levy says this also will benefit the consumers who utilize Auto Glass Safety Council-Registered companies for their auto glass replacement needs.

“Consumers now can choose to use an Auto Glass Safety Council-Registered Company with full confidence that the company has been or will be audited,” she adds.

In addition, the validation program will be adapted so that when deficiencies or non-compliances are found at an Auto Glass Safety Council-Registered business during an audit, validators will schedule a time to return to the business to ensure that these have been fixed. Those with uncorrected deficiencies will be removed as Auto Glass Safety Council-Registered Companies.

Lastly, the Auto Glass Safety CouncilBoard has announced that, though the latest version of the Standard (003-2011) will not be in effect until approved by ANSI, in 2012 validators will provide an informational checklist, created in accordance with the incoming Standard, to companies upon completion of a validation, so that they might be able to see how they have fared under the new Standard.

The Auto Glass Safety Council’s (formerly the AGRSS Council) board of directors has a new member, Mike Paley, owner of Freedom Glass, an AGRSS®-Registered Company in Midlothian, Va.

“Given the tremendous talent currently on the AGRSS® board of directors, I am very honored to have been chosen to join this board,” says Paley. “I’m also eager to gain some of the knowledge and insight that our board possesses. In exchange, I bring to the board my passion for our industry and perhaps my own perspective as someone who is still very close to the field.”

Paley has been in the industry since October 2004, when he opened Freedom Glass. Prior to that, Paley served as a service manager for Chesterfield Dodge in Midlothian, Va., where he supervised the day-to-day operations in the dealership’s service department.

Paley served in the U.S. Marine Corps for nine years, from 1977 to 1986, before being honorably discharged as a Gunnery Sergeant.

Paley’s company was the first ever to complete a successful AGRSS® third-party validation review.

1) The ANSI/AGRSS 002-2002 Automotive Glass Replacement Safety Standard has a requirement regarding communication of minimum drive-away time to the customer. The current Standard states, “The vehicle owner/operator shall be advised of the minimum proper drive-away time under the circumstances of the replacement.” This requirement will change in the revised Standard, which currently is undergoing review by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The requirement in the new Standard will be, “The vehicle owner/operator shall be notified prior to and after the installation process of the minimum drive-away time under the circumstances of the replacement.”

2) Record retention requirements have been clarified in the revised Standard. It will state, “Those engaged in automotive glass replacement shall establish and retain records of each auto glass replacement for a period of three years from the date the work was completed to demonstrate compliance with this Standard. Records shall include work orders and/or invoices and be legible, readily identifiable and be kept either electronically or in hard-copy.”

3) Training requirements for additional personnel have been added to the revised Standard. It will say, “Training with respect to the content and requirements of the current version of this Standard shall be required for all personnel directly involved in the automotive glass replacement process (examples: scheduling, purchasing, installing,customer service, quality control,management). Records of this training detailing content, date, participants and acknowledgement of the participant’s successful completion of the training and receipt of a printed copy of the current Standard shall be maintained.”

The changes to the Standard are intended to clarify it and to improve its effectiveness in achieving the mission of the Auto Glass Safety Council—the safe replacement of auto glass.

“Teen drivers are particularly vulnerable to distracted driving, which is why we are making an extra effort to ensure they understand the dangers,” said Transportation secretary Ray LaHood. “Thanks to thehelp of Regal Cinemas and Outcast, we’re reaching teens directly—whether they’re at the movies or filling up their tanks—to emphasize the importance of keeping their eyes on the road, their hands on the wheel, and their focus on driving at all times.”

The new PSA is designed to reach teenagers using imagery that relates to popular shorthand text messages such as “L8R” for “later” or “LOL” for “laugh out loud.”

“Today’s teenagers make no secret about the fact that they want to stay connected to their social networks and enjoy text messaging. That’s why it’s so important that we educate young drivers of the dangers of distracted driving and help them make smart decisions that will keep them safe during the holiday season and beyond,” says NHTSA administrator David Strickland.

“The most important thing is your glass,” said Fix. “You don’t think about your windshield until it’s cracked, and then [you] go, ‘Well, do I get it repaired? Do I get it replaced? How long can I go?’ If you do replace your windshield, the most important thing is that you use an Auto Glass Replacement Safety Standards (AGRSS®)-[Registered Company].”

Fix displayed an AGRSS® logo on the windshield of the vehicle, along with that of Glass America, who’s working with her on the effort, throughout the segment.

Click here to view the segment in full.

The safety recommendation specifically calls for the 50 states and the District of Columbia to ban the nonemergency use of portable electronic devices (other than those designed to support driving) for all drivers.

In addition, NTSB is calling for a targeted campaign to warn motorists about the dangers associated with the nonemergency use of portable electronic devices while driving.

The recommendation came as the result of an NTSB board meeting yesterday that looked at a specific 2010 multi-vehicle highway accident in Gray Summit, Mo., along with data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

“According to NHTSA, more than 3,000 people lost their lives last year in distraction-related accidents,” said NTSB Board chair Deborah A.P. Hersman. “It is time for all of us to stand up for safety by turning off electronic devices when driving. No call, no text, no update, is worth a human life.”

In the Gray Summit accident the NTSB reviewed, a pickup truck rear-ended a truck-tractor that had slowed due to an active construction zone; the pickup truck was then rear-ended by a school bus, and the school bus was hit by a second school bus that had been following; as a result of the accident two people died and 38 others were injured.

NTSB’s investigation revealed that the pickup driver sent and received 11 text messages in the 11 minutes preceding the accident. The last text was received moments before the pickup struck the truck-tractor, according to information from NTSB.

The safety board also referenced a Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study of commercial drivers that found that a safety-critical event is 163 times more likely if a driver is texting, e-mailing, or accessing the Internet in its recommendation.

NTSB also references data from the National Safety Council saying that drivers using cell phones “look but fail to see up to 50 percent of the information in their driving environment.”

“The data is clear; the time to act is now. How many more lives will be lost before we, as a society, change our attitudes about the deadliness of distractions?” Hersman said.

While the NTSB is calling for a ban on cell phone use by all drivers, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration recently banned the use of handheld cell phones by interstate truck and bus drivers. This ban takes effect January 3.