In The News

Journalism Investigation Targets Adoption of NTSB Recommendations

What is being billed as "a major investigation into transportation safety in America," conducted by journalism students from 11 universities, says the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal panel charged with investigating accidents and proposing ways to prevent them, has essentially given up on 1,952 of its safety recommendations - one of every six it has made since 1967.

"Americans are exposed every day to risks in highway, air, rail and water travel that could be reduced if federal regulatory agencies and states moved faster to carry out recommendations made by the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates accidents and proposes ways to prevent them," starts the introductory piece to the package.

The investigation, which covers all areas of transportation, including trucking, was by students participating in the Carnegie-Knight Journalism Initiative in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity. It's being published this week by MSNBC.com and The Washington Post.

Some of the areas covered involving trucking include driver fatigue, inadequate DOT medical exams, and trucking companies that skirt safety rules by reincarnating under another name.

The 23-story multimedia package comes from News21, a journalism initiative funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation of Miami to promote in-depth and innovative journalism. The Center for Public Integrity is a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit investigative journalism organization.

The investigation found that federal agencies, states and transportation industries are taking longer than ever to act on NTSB recommendations. Over the past decade, the average number of years to implement recommendations went from 3.4 to 5.4 years.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood responded with an announcement that the Department of Transportation has already completed more NTSB safety recommendations in 2010 than in any of the last five years.

"Over the last 18 months, the Department has set an aggressive safety agenda, proactively taking on a number of critical safety issues, including distracted driving, pilot fatigue, and transit safety, as well as holding automakers accountable for vehicle defects," noted the DOT in a statement.

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