Jennifer Homendy nominated to chair NTSB

Well, this is not good:

President Joe Biden has nominated Jennifer Homendy to be chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for a term of three years. If approved by the U.S. Senate, Homendy will succeed Robert Sumwalt III. She has served as an NTSB member since August 2018. Homendy has more than 25 years of experience in transportation safety, including nearly two decades supporting the critical safety mission of the NTSB, according to a White House press release.

Homendy wants a nationwide all-ages bike helmet mandate, and was responsible for the helmet focus in the NTSB’s recent bike safety study.

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NTSB wants seatbelts in passenger trains

After a 2015 Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia, the NTSB issued the following safety recommendation. This recommendation was repeated for a 2017 Washington State derailment (where a Talgo went flying off a bridge):

Next thing you know they will be recommending air bags and crash helmets.

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A spot-on comment to the NTSB

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NTSB investigates a bicycle crash

The NTSB has taken the highly unusual step of actually investigating a bicycle crash:

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the Kalamazoo bicycle crash that killed five people and injured four.

Officials with the NTSB confirmed Friday the agency is investigating the crash, and said its team already is in Kalamazoo.

NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss said the team will look at all aspects of the incident, including how it happened and how the truck hit the bicyclists. He said the team will reconstruct the crash and find out if there are any safety issues that could be improved, from the vehicles involved to the road.

Weiss said the NTSB is investigating because the agency has taken an interest in the case, and not at the request of local authorities.

“This is such a singular event that we wanted to look at the issues behind it,” said Weiss, who acknowledged it’s unusual for the NTSB to investigate crashes involving bicycles.

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Vision Zero policy needed at the NTSB

When a celebrity crashes a plane, or is rear-ended by a truck, the NTSB will make a thorough investigation. But for the thousands of pedestrians and cyclists killed and injured each year, the NTSB has no interest in researching the cause of the collision.

A review of this year’s archive of accident recommendations shows the NTSB made dozens of recommendations for aviation, railroads, pipelines, and highways. But there is nothing related to non-motorized road users.

In fact, the last time the NTSB looked at a bike or ped issue was way back in the year 1972. Apparently, the NTSB believes the US has the most perfect infrastructure for bikes and peds.

When Congress created the NTSB, the purpose was to provide outside, independent guidance to transport planners. And since traffic engineers have such a huge blind spot for bikes and peds, one would think that a Vision-Zero policy would be the top high priority for the NTSB. Unfortunately, there is nobody at the agency, either at the staff or Board level, that seems to have any awareness of the issue.

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NTSB proposes turning Washington Metro into commuter-rail service

The National Troupe of Silly Bureaucrats (NTSB) wants to downgrade Washington Metro into a commuter-rail service. They are recommending that Metro be brought under FRA regulation:

Metro’s safety problems are so severe and persistent that federal officials should take a much stronger role in monitoring the subway system: reclassifying it as a commuter railroad so the transit agency can be subject to tougher regulations and penalties, the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday.

In an “urgent” recommendation to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, the safety board’s chairman, Christopher A. Hart, cited years of “repeated and ongoing deficiencies” in Metro and said the current oversight process, involving the Federal Transit Administration, is inadequate and bound to keep failing.

Hart urged Foxx to ask Congress for the authority to reclassify Metro as a commuter railroad, which would remove the subway from the FTA’s safety oversight and place it under the “robust inspection, oversight, regulatory, and enforcement authority” of the larger, more powerful Federal Railroad Administration.

As if Washington Metro didn’t have enough problems.

Once it becomes an FRA-regulated railroad, Metro would need waivers just to run lightweight equipment. Metro would have to deal with all the ridiculous operating rules, like mandatory brake-checks at the start of reach run. The costs would be staggering.

He [Hart] also mentioned the Aug. 6 derailment of a train — which was not carrying passengers — between the Federal Triangle and Smithsonian stations.

Right…because the FRA has done such a fantastic job of preventing derailments on MetroNorth and Amtrak.

The Federal Railroad Administration oversees “heavy” systems — freight and commuter lines, such as MARC and VRE, as well as Amtrak. But the closest system to an urban subway that the administration oversees is the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) line, a 14-mile rapid transit link between New Jersey and New York. About half of PATH’s tracks are underground.

In its recommendation, the NTSB uses PATH as the model for FRA regulation of Metro. But as I pointed out last year, FRA regulation of PATH has been an unmitigated disaster. FRA rules increase PATH operating costs by a factor of 3 — and haven’t done anything to improve safety.

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NTSB Adopts Safety Recommendations for Truck Blind Spots and Side Guards

Last year, the NTSB studied several safety issues with tractor trailer trucks. The NTSB proposed measures to reduce blind spots, and a requirements for side guards on new vehicles. The good news is that the NTSB has now officially adopted those safety measures.

The need for these safety measures is clear.  Bicyclists and pedestrians are particularly vulnerable to truck accidents. They are not visible to the driver up in the cab, and they have no external protection:

The NTSB analyzed data from vie states (Delaware, Mayland, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Utah) that linked hospital records with police reports under the auspices of NHTSA’s Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System (CODES). Data from these states showed that death rates of vulnerable road users involved in collisions with tractor-trailers were high: 152.8 per 1,000 involved pedestrians/cyclists and 119.5 per 1,000 motorcyclists. In comparison, death rates were 2.0 per 1,000 involved tractor-trailer occupants and 10.9 per 1,000 involved passenger vehicle occupants.

The NHTSA has 90 days to respond to the NTSB safety recommendation.

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Sideguards Could Protect Bicyclists, So Why Aren’t They Required?

A disproportionate number of fatal bicycle collisions involve large trucks. Blind spots and right-hook accidents at intersections are two main culprits. But another reason is the lack of wheel guards.

Wheel guards (also known as sideguards and underride guards) can protect bicyclists from getting dragged under the large wheels. It is one reason the UK and Europe have required their use by law since the 1980’s. Indeed, the Mayor of London wants to take the regulations further:

Fines of £200 will be imposed on lorry drivers whose vehicles are not fitted with basic safety equipment under measures to cut the number of cyclist deaths. The “safer lorry charge” will initially be levied on tipper trucks, cement mixers and refuse lorries without side guards to prevent cyclists being crushed under the rear wheels. Officials say it is likely to be extended to include additional front- and side-view mirrors and electronic sensors to pick up cyclists in the vehicles’ blind spots. The charge will initially be applied to the London region but will be extended to other cities if it saves lives.

The NHTSA has known about the problem for decades, but has done nothing to address the issue. The last major regulation was issued in 1998, but only applied to rear-guards. Rear-guards protect motorists (when they slam into the back of a truck) but don’t do anything for bike/ped safety. And even for motorists, the rear-guard protection doesn’t always help, because the Federal standard is so weak.

The good news: on June 17, 2013 the NTSB issued a safety recommendation for side underride protection, and other safety measures that would benefit bicyclists/peds:

Develop performance standards for visibility enhancement systems to compensate for blind spots in order to improve the ability of drivers of single-unit trucks with gross vehicle weight ratings over 10,000 pounds to detect vulnerable road users, including pedestrians and cyclists, in their travel paths.

Develop performance standards for side underride protection systems for single-unit trucks with gross vehicle weight ratings over 10,000 pounds.

To improve highway vehicle crash compatibility, develop performance standards for front underride protection systems for trucks with gross vehicle weight ratings over 10,000 pounds.

The NTSB report is open and awaiting formal response from the NHTSA.

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Why Does .05 BAC Make A Difference?

The NTSB is recommending that States lower blood-alcohol-content (BAC) to 0.05. The nationwide standard is currently 0.08. The US is one of the few countries to have 0.08 limit:

The United States, Canada and Iraq are among a small handful of countries that have set the BAC level at .08. Most countries in Europe, including Russia, most of South America and Australia, have set BAC levels at .05 to constitute drunken driving.

When Australia dropped its BAC level from .08 to .05, provinces reported a 5-18 percent drop in traffic fatalities.

Australia enacted the 0.05 law in 1991. The interesting thing is that a lot of the reduction in fatalities was from drivers having BAC in the greater than  .08 range:

A similar reduction was found in roadside random breath tests:

It should be noted that the law did not change at all for drivers with BAC .08 and higher. It was only for .05-.o8 levels that the law changed. The rationale from the NTSB is that there are biological reasons for reducing the BAC level to .05, but it is possible there are other factors that explain the reduction in fatalities.

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The Last Time the NTSB Made a Bike Infrastructure Recommendation was in 1972

Each year there are tens of thousands of fatalities on the nation’s highways. A disproportionate of those are non-motorized users — bicyclists and pedestrians. Given that the NTSB has made over 13,000 safety recommendations, you might think at least some of those would relate to the dismal state of our bicycle infrastructure, right?

A search of the NTSB online database finds hardly any mention of bike safety. I could find just a single report, which simply gives general guidance that the use of bicycles should be encouraged by the DOT and Dept. of Health. It was issued in 1972 — during the Nixon Administration.

I spent over an hour trying different keywords, but could find nothing else on bikes. On the other hand, I had no trouble at all finding reports on airplanes, trains, and automobiles.

It is ironic because the NTSB was specifically created by Congress to give outside, independent advice to highway planners. State and Federal transportation agencies have been so clueless about bike planning, you would think this would have been the one area where the NTSB outside “experts” provided guidance.

So for anyone at the NTSB who might be reading this, here are a few suggestion topics:

1. Incorporating Dutch cycle guidelines into highway design manuals
2. Design of car doors to reduce/eliminate bicycle “dooring” (perhaps an interlock system in the door latch that flashes the rear hazard lights for at least 3 seconds before opening the door).
3. Improve visibility from truck cabs, so as to reduce bikes/ped collisions.
4. Designing car bonnets to reduce pedestrian injury/fatality in a collision.

I am sure NTSB staff can think of some others — if they aren’t too busy worrying about airline baby seats.

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