NTSB Takes Safety Message to North Carolina’s Catawba County Youth

By Nicholas Worrell

When I asked the audience at the Catawba County Branch of the North Carolina NAACP in Maiden if they could identify the leading cause of death in teens, they replied with silence.

After waiting in vain for an answer, I told them. “Motor vehicle crashes,” I said, and explained that teens are 1.6 times more likely to die in motor vehicle crashes than adults.

NTSB Safety Advocate Stephanie Shaw and I were invited to this November 13 meeting by the chapter’s youth director, Lacolia Mungro, whose experiences driving an 18wheeler have encouraged her to spread the message about the risks of distracted driving.

I told the audience that 35,092 people died on US roadways in 2015, which is more than 10 times the population of Maiden. That number is on track to be even higher this year, which has prompted the NTSB to include issues like distracted driving, impaired driving, and fatigue on our 2017–2018 Most Wanted List of transportation safety improvements. We emphasize outreach to teens because that demographic, overrepresented in highway crashes, has more to lose than older drivers, considering the years of life ahead of them and the milestones they have yet to experience, like graduation, job success, marriage, and raising children. Missing out on those life experiences is a stiff price to pay because of one bad choice made early in life.

We also seek out opportunities to speak to teens because they represent tomorrow’s road safety culture. It’s essential to instill safe driving practices in teens who have not yet accumulated a lifetime of unsafe driving habits.

In 2014, 40,650 crashes in North Carolina involved teenagers; 95 were killed and 10,491 were injured. As I told the group in Maiden, a properly worn seat belt is the greatest protection against injury and death in a vehicle accident. Of those 95 teens killed in 2014, 33 were not wearing seat belts.

“No call, no text, no update is worth a human life,” I told the audience. Then I encouraged them to join our advocacy efforts by buckling up and turning off their phones or putting them out of reach, because no one should have to miss out on life because of one bad decision made in youth.

Nicholas Worrell is the Chief of NTSB’s Safety Advocacy division

The NTSB’s Most Wanted List…and You

By Chairman Christopher A. Hart

Next year, the NTSB will mark its 50th year of working to improve transportation safety, and there is no doubt that over those 50 years, transportation safety has improved. Unfortunately, however,  last year marked the worst setback in highway fatalities since the NTSB was formed. From 2014-2015, highway deaths increased by 7.2 percent, the worst single-year percentage increase since 1966. Worse still, it is estimated that these deaths increased by 10.4 percent between the first half of 2015 and the first half of 2016.

This setback is a tragic reminder that safety is not a destination, but a journey, and our efforts to improve safety must never stop. It takes concerted and continuing efforts by industry, government, and private citizens to save lives.

This morning, the NTSB unveiled its Most Wanted List of transportation safety improvements for 2017-2018, our roadmap from lessons learned to lives saved in all modes of transportation. In no particular order, this list is as follows:

• Eliminate Distractions
• Reduce Fatigue-Related Accidents
• Prevent Loss of Control in Flight in General Aviation
• Improve Rail Transit Safety Oversight
• End Alcohol and Other Drug Impairment in Transportation
• Increase Implementation of Collision Avoidance Technologies
• Expand Recorder Use to Enhance Safety
• Require Medical Fitness
• Strengthen Occupant Protection
• Ensure the Safe Shipment of Hazardous Materials

Actions in these issue areas by government and industry can make transportation safer for all of us. But, as an individual, you do not have to wait for government or industry to act.

In many cases, you can take action now to make your own transportation safer. For example, you can and should commit to driving free of distractions, with enough rest, and without being impaired by alcohol or other drugs. You can also commit to protecting the passengers in your car – by using and requiring them to use the appropriate restraints. If you ride a motorcycle, you can commit to wearing a helmet that protects your face and head. Your own personal responsibility can also help you be safer in an airplane or any other mode of transportation.

Read through these issue areas and consider the actions that you (and your friends and family) can take.

Then join us, and spread the word because any person that you reach could potentially be a life that you save.

For more information on the 2017-2018 NTSB Most Wanted List visit www.ntsb.gov/mostwanted.