Transportation Safety

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The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a final rule that broadens the coverage of its icing certification standards. The updated standards require U.S. manufacturers to show that transport airplanes can operate safely in freezing drizzle or freezing rain, conditions that constitute the icing environment known as “supercooled large drops” (SLD).

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says it identified several recurring safety issues in its investigation of recent five Metro-North accidents. Among them: inadequate and ineffective track inspection and maintenance, extensive deferred maintenance issues, inadequate safety oversight, and deficiencies in passenger car crashworthiness, roadway worker protection procedures and organizational safety culture.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has determined that the May 28, 2013 train/truck collision, 15-car derailment, and subsequent explosion in Rosedale, Md. was caused by the truck driver’s failure to ensure that the tracks were clear before traversing an un-gated highway-rail grade crossing. Contributing to the accident was the truck driver’s distraction due to a phone conversation on a hands-free device at the time of the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB has determined that the pilot in a fatal 2013  plane crash in Thomson, Georgia lacked adequate system knowledge for the airplane he was flying. Consequently -- according to the NTSB’s report into the accident -- the pilot did not adhere to the airplane’s flight manual procedures for antiskid failure in flight and did not retract the lift dump -- a critical system to assist in stopping the aircraft -- immediately after making the decision to perform a go-around.

A 22-year-old man killed in a freeway crash near Detroit yesterday morning was found with a cell phone in his hand – suggesting that he may have been engaged in one of the five riskiest young driver behaviors at the time of the accident.

A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) go-team is en route to northwest, Arkansas to investigate a train crash that reportedly injured 44 people – five of them critically. News sources say a freight train collided with a stalled passenger train that it had been sent to assist.

Philadelphia is hoping that a $525,000 grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will help it reverse a three year trend of increased pedestrian fatalities. A total of 31 pedestrians were killed in motor vehicle crashes during 2012, representing 29 percent of the city's total traffic fatalities.

The Network of Employers for Traffic Safety (NETS) is calling on leaders of companies and organizations to emphasize road safety for all employees—not just those who drive company vehicles— as a core component of the organization’s safety culture.

Motor vehicle crashes – a leading cause of injury in the U.S. generally and consistently the leading cause of U.S. work-related fatalities – impose a “terrible public health burden and economic cost” on Americans, according to a "Vital Signs" bulletin just released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Dozens of residents in Saskatchewan, Canada were evacuated yesterday after a train carrying hazardous materials derailed, spilling petroleum distillate and bursting into flames. Petroleum distillates are used in diesel, kerosene, heating oil and jet fuel.