Mental Health Awareness in Automotive Repair with Margaret Light

In this episode of Automotive Repair News Today, Braxton Critcher interviews Margaret Light, a licensed marriage and family therapist with experience in mental health in the automotive repair industry. Margaret highlights the growing awareness of mental health issues in the field and emphasizes the importance of self-care. She discusses the intersection between work and personal life impacting mental well-being in automotive professionals. Margaret offers valuable advice on recognizing signs of mental health struggles, prioritizing self-care practices like nutrition, sleep, and social connections, and seeking therapy when needed. 

00:00 Mental health in the automotive repair industry importance.
04:51 Increased openness and shared experiences in the field.
08:17 56% stress, 43% anxiety, 41% low mood
12:16 Men's mental health sometimes manifests as anger.
14:29 Lack of sleep and loneliness impact health.
16:18 Assessment can lead to therapy or talking.

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Braxton Critcher [00:00:05]:
This is automotive repair news today. I'm Braxton Critcher. The average age of cars and light trucks in the US has reached a record 12.6 years in 2024, up by two months from 2023. Over 110 million vehicles, or nearly 38% of cars on the road today, are six to 14 years old, and that number is expected to rise to 40% by 2028. Good numbers for the repair industry is older cars equals more repairs. Two men, one from Washington state and another from Florida, are connected and are in big trouble. Pavel Turlac and Ryan Malaykin are charged for six counts of violating the Clean Air act. They tampered with pollution control software and diesel trucks.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:01]:
From August 2017 to November of 2023, Turlac and Millaikin allegedly modified diesel trucks admission control systems, disabling them to allow higher pollutant emissions. Millikan created and sold delete tune software to Turlac, who charged truck owners up to $3,500 to implement these illegal modifications. The indictment also claims that Turlac fraudulently obtained over $300,000 in Covid-19 relief funds by falsely certifying his business's eligibility. Wow. Nearly 10% of us Americans actively struggle with mental health, and that number is rising dramatically. But what about the automotive repair industry? We took a microscope look at mental health and the auto repair field with licensed therapist Margaret light. Here's what she had to say.

Margaret Light [00:01:58]:
The big change I have noticed in the field is folks are just more and more willing to talk about it. And what I hear when we actually do sit down and talk about it is suddenly all these folks come out of the woodwork and say like, yes, I've had that experience, or I've struggled with that for years, or, yeah, maybe I struggled with that as a kid, but as an adult, I just sort of ignore it. Or it's daily life for me. And sometimes it's even this phenomenon of, oh, I didn't even know that that wasn't everybody's experience like I thought. That's just how people were. And life was just this hard. I didn't even know there was something that could be done about that.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:38]:
You can watch the full interview with Margaret Light covering mental health in the automotive repair field on automotive repair news. Today's YouTube channel, advanced driver assistance systems, or ados, is becoming super popular. And as repair shops install more and more aftermarket parts for ados, it's crucial to ensure their functionality. However, information on aftermarket components affecting ados is limited. So SeMa garage created first of its kind project that tested the impact of aftermarket modifications on ados. Using a 2022 Chevrolet Silverado 1500, they evaluated larger tires, a two inch leveling kit, a 3.5 inch lift kit, and a six inch lift kit. For the most part, it tested really well. Results showed no significant ADAS performance variance across the modifications, and the vehicle met all NHTSA standards.

Braxton Critcher [00:03:43]:
However, some differences were observed. The six inch lift kit showed greater alert distance variability in lane departure warnings and later forward collision warnings, resulting in higher deceleration levels. Now, collisions were avoided in all cases. The industry will continue to learn more about ados and its impact, along with how aftermarket parts will align with their systems. The ADos market is expected to hit $59 billion by 2028. Emphasizing the importance of maintaining ados functionality with aftermarket modifications, the Federal Trade Commission recently issued a warning to the auto repair industry regarding its data privacy practices. In a May 14 blog post, the FTC's division of Privacy and Identity protection highlighted concerns about vehicle data privacy, particularly the sale of geolocation data. They compared it with mobile phone tracking.

Braxton Critcher [00:04:46]:
The FTC emphasized that companies should only use collected data for stated purposes and often should avoid collecting sensitive data altogether. This is the FTC's first comment on vehicle data privacy since 2018, and it follows automakers admissions to Congress that they release driver data upon request without a warrant. FTC blog posts serve as informal industry warnings, often based on public input and workshops. Looking for more news in the automotive repair industry? Check out automotive repair news today on your favorite social media and also other podcast platforms. If you know of news that needs to be shared as well, let me know via [e-mail]. that's Braxton Automotiverepairnews.com and check out our YouTube channel. Subscribe there for exclusive interviews, video form and thanks again for listening to automotive repair news today.