Transportation Safety

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A new study from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) finds that U.S. long-haul truck drivers were twice as likely to be obese compared to the adult working population, as well as more likely to smoke and suffer from other risk factors for chronic disease.

I'm a liar. There, I said it. I lie. I lie sometimes when I'm in a social situation and my line of work is questioned. If I know I’ll never see these folks again, I might just tell them that I'm a painter. “I paint houses” I might say.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has announced a proposed rule to establish a drug and alcohol clearinghouse for all national commercial driver’s license (CDL) holders. The agency said the clearinghouse would help improve roadway safety by making it easier to determine whether a truck or bus driver is prohibited from operating a commercial motor vehicle for failing to comply with federal drug and alcohol regulations, including mandatory testing.

A Dec. 2013 train derailment that killed four people and injured dozens of others has produced a flurry of safety recommendations by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is calling for the use of inward and outward facing audio and image recorders, among other things.

While pilots and co-pilots are prohibited from using cell phones and other personal electronic devices (PEDs) inflight, the jury is still out on whether passengers will get to wirelessly chat while en route to their destinations.

Transportation fatalities in the United States increased by three percent in 2012 from 2011, according to preliminary figures released recently by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last week today issued a final rule that reinforces that airline pilots cannot use PEDs for personal use in all operations.

Less than two months after a similar incident in North Dakota, a train carrying crude oil derailed yesterday in Pennsylvania, spilling an estimated 3-4,000 gallons of oil. Twenty-one tank cars of the 120-car Norfolk Southern Corp. train left the tracks at a turn near the Kiskiminetas River in Vandergrift, a small town in western Pennsylvania.

A captain’s “reckless decision to sail into the well-forecasted path of Hurricane Sandy” was the probable cause of the sinking of a ship off the North Carolina coast in October 2012, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a report released yesterday. The captain and one crewmember died in the accident. Three other crewmembers were seriously injured.

Incidents involving hazardous materials can devastate a company. For hazmat employees, they can result in serious injuries, or worse. They can also cause damage to a company’s reputation, equipment, property, product and the environment.