NTSB Tag Archives — Georgia Injury Law Blog

Published on: October 31, 2021

NTSB Chief Calls for Focus on Overall Approach to Reducing Traffic Fatalities

The head of the National Transportation Safety Board says that focusing only on individual driver behavior or actions may not be sufficient to helping reduce the number of people killed in traffic accidents in Georgia and across the United States every year. She instead is calling for an approach that takes into account all of the different factors that contribute to the various driver behaviors resulting in accidents.

The National Transportation Safety Board is primarily an investigative authority which conducts investigations into air, road, land, and water accidents that involve mass fatalities or casualties. The Board advises or provides recommendations based on those investigations, and is not a regulatory authority. It cannot pass regulations based on its own recommendations. However, the Board’s recommendations are taken very seriously by state administrations, especially those that are looking at making their roads safer.

Jennifer Homendy, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board, was speaking in remarks to a conference of the Governors Highway Safety Association, and says that an overall approach to increasing traffic safety must take into consideration the fact that so many states have enforced higher speed limits than recommended. Speeding, for instance, continues to be a major killer on American roads, and we must evaluate whether the systems in place to date actually encourages drivers to speed. She points to states that have prohibited local authorities from setting their own lower speed limits for motorists. She also points to the responsibility of manufacturers who frequently design automobiles that are made to travel at more than 100 mph, or sell cars that have no installed speed limiters to prevent excessive speeds. Road design that encourages speeding could be just as much to blame as individuals who take advantage of these roads that are built for excessive speeds.

Published on: May 27, 2021

NTSB Recommendations to Reduce Traffic Accidents

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

Summer driving season will be upon us soon, and with more people out and taking road trips this summer, the number of automobile accidents is bound to increase. The National Transportation Safety Board last month released its list of transportation safety recommendations for 2021, and tackled critical areas like distracted driving, speeding and drunk driving.

Every year, the National Transportation Safety Board releases its much awaited Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements. In the recent 2021- 2022 list, the National Transportation Safety Board gave its recommendations on a number of critical traffic safety areas that are responsible for causing thousands of accidents every year.

As expected, and as on most of its annual lists, the National Transportation Safety Board calls on state and federal authorities to invest in the prevention of accidents caused by the use of alcohol and drugs. Accidents involving alcohol and drug- impaired driving are far too common, even in 2021. The Board has drastic recommendations for the prevention of drunk driving accidents and recommends that states, like Georgia, roll back their minimum blood alcohol concentration limits to 0.05%, and require all motorists convicted of drunk driving to have ignition interlock devices installed in their vehicles.

Published on: April 12, 2011

NTSB Calls for Use of Technology to Prevent Bus Accidents

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

Since the Bluffton University bus accident in Atlanta in 2007, Atlanta bus accident attorneys have been calling for greater use of technology to prevent bus accidents and reduce the severity of injuries.It certainly looks like we have been on the right track all along.The National Transportation Safety Board this week said that although technology that could prevent bus accidents exists, federal regulators have failed to act to implement their use. As an Atlanta injury lawyer, I applaud the NTSB’s criticism of federal regulators.

The National Transportation Safety Board comments came as Atlanta bus accident lawyers and bus safety advocates from around the country have been increasing calls for stronger bus safety regulations by the federal legislation.Those calls came in the aftermath of a deadly bus accident in New York in March that resulted in the wrongful death of 15 people.The bus, a low-budget carrier transferring passengers to a casino in Connecticut, was on its way back to Chinatown, when it skidded, flipped over, and crashed into a sign pole.The impact sliced the bus into two, killing 14 passengers almost immediately, while the last passenger died in the hospital a few days later.

This week, the National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersmann had stinging criticism for the bus industry, which that has lagged behind in providing safety to its passengers.Deriding the state of American bus safety, Hersmann said that her minivan came with more advanced safety features than most buses on American roads.

Published on: September 12, 2009

NTSB Bans Employees from Cell Phone Use While Driving

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

As Georgia personal injury lawyers, we have been waiting for our state to set an example in terms of stronger cell phone-and-driving laws. While neither Georgia nor any other state has stepped up to the task, the National Transportation Safety Board has moved to issue a ban on its employees using cell phones while driving.

Under the ban, NTSB employees will be forbidden from using handheld or hands-free cell phones while driving. With this, the NTSB becomes the first federal agency to have a complete ban on employees using cell phones behind the wheel. According to the NTSB chairwoman Debbie Hersman, there’s enough evidence that cell phone use while driving significantly increases the risk of auto accidents.

However across the country, laws banning cell phone use while driving, have been meager at best. Seven states and the District of Columbia ban only handheld cell phone use for motorists. In Georgia, school bus drivers are banned from using cell phones, but that’s about it. Our state’s cell phone laws are skeletal, but across the country, many of those states that have bans on handheld devices have seen mixed results from their laws. This has mainly been because in these states, the ban comes as a secondary enforcement, which makes the law harder to enforce.