Transportation fatalities in the United States decreased by three percent in 2013 from 2012, according to preliminary figures released yesterday by the National Transportation Safety Board. Fatalities in all modes of transportation totaled 34,678 in 2013, compared with 35,796 in 2012. Deaths in marine, aviation, highway and pipeline transportation decreased, although there was a rise in rail deaths.
A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) go team is en route to the site of a fatal train accident that occurred last night north of New York City. NTSB rail investigator Michael Hiller is leading the team as investigator-in-charge.
As the popularity of e-cigarettes increases, the FAA wants airlines to ensure passengers don’t put their e-cigarettes in checked baggage, when they can pose a fire hazard in the cargo compartment.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it will add two cutting-edge automatic emergency braking systems to the recommended advanced safety features included under its New Car Assessment Program (NCAP).
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) yesterday issued a series of safety recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration calling for improvements in locating downed aircraft and ways to obtain critical flight data faster and without the need for immediate underwater retrieval.
Rail tank cars that carry crude oil, ethanol and other hazardous materials across the country must do it more safely. That's one of four new issues on the NTSB's Most Wanted List for 2015. Also new to the list of top 10 areas that need safety improvements are: Requiring that transportation operators be medically fit for duty; strengthening commercial trucking safety; and requiring pilots to strengthen procedural compliance.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) says that the annual minimum random controlled substances testing rates for employees in safety sensitive positions, including tractor-trailer and bus drivers, will remain at 50 percent through 2015.
The National Transportation Safety Board has issued a Safety Alert that focuses on the visibility of railroad signals. On railroads, light-emitting diode (LED) railroad signals may mask nearby incandescent signals, preventing incandescent signals from being visible to train crews.
In the most recent Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) crackdown on companies who violate hazardous materials regulations, seven U.S. companies are facing heavy fines for failing to label their hazmat shipments – and to train their employees on how to safely ship hazmat and how to respond if something goes wrong with it.
The U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has released the 2013 Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data that shows a 3.1 percent decrease from the previous year and a nearly 25 percent decline in overall highway deaths since 2004.