Introducing “I Am NTSB”

By Chairman Robert L. Sumwalt 

It gives me great pleasure to introduce a new video series, “I Am NTSB.”

As a Board Member and now as Chairman of the NTSB, I’m often called on to describe our transportation safety mission or our investigative process. It’s a never-ending source of inspiration to think that, just maybe, what we do on a given workday will save lives in the future.

But other people ask me a much simpler question. They ask me what it’s like to work at the NTSB.

For me, it’s a dream job. As an airline pilot, and even before, I got to know what the agency did, and I always wanted to be a part of it. But what I knew little about were the people at this agency. It’s my privilege to lead a top-notch staff with diverse backgrounds, skills, and viewpoints. I’m constantly astounded by their many thoughtful ways of looking at things.

That’s why we created this series of video profiles of our employees. Through these video vignettes, viewers will learn a little more about our people and hear how our employees view the NTSB. If you’re one of those people who wonders what it’s like to work here, this video series is for you.

And who knows? Working at the NTSB might be for you, too!

We’ll lead off with Jane Foster, an electronics engineer in our Office of Research and Engineering.

Alcohol Awareness Month

By Member T. Bella Dinh-Zarr, PhD, MPH

April is Alcohol Awareness Month. First introduced in 1987 by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc., this time is set aside to increase public awareness for alcohol-related issues and to encourage communities to focus on ways to address this public health problem. In 2016, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 10,497 people across the United States were killed by drivers with blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) of .08 g/dL or higher. That means that every 50 minutes, a person is killed in an alcohol-impaired crash in the United States.

At the NTSB, we find this tragic and unacceptable, because every one of these crashes is preventable.

Next week, the Lifesavers National Conference on Highway Safety Priorities will take place in San Antonio, Texas. More than 2,000 highway safety professionals from across the United States will gather to meet, learn, and share their proven-effective programs to increase the safety of America’s roadways, including implementing impaired driving prevention programs, improving enforcement strategies, and encouraging legislative changes. I’m especially excited to be attending the conference this year, not only because it’s being hosted in my home state, but also because I will be speaking on a panel focused on lowering the illegal BAC from .08 to .05 percent in states across our nation. A take-home message that I hope all Lifesavers attendees will remember is that a .05 BAC is a broad prevention strategy which deters even drivers with high BACs from getting behind the wheel.

Reducing drinking and driving deaths takes a comprehensive approach, and lowering the illegal BAC limit is just one part of the impaired-driving-prevention equation. Other important solutions can be found below, through our past blogs, safety recommendations, and efforts to address alcohol-impaired driving. With one-third of all traffic fatalities related to impaired driving, and more than 10,000 American lives lost every year, our work is far from over.

We have accomplished a great deal when it comes to reducing alcohol-impaired driving, but there is much more to be done to save lives and prevent injuries. The way I see it, the solution—this month and every month—is simple: if we separate drinking from driving, we will save lives.

Reaching Zero: Actions to Eliminate Substance-Impaired Driving Forum

Most Wanted List Progress Report: Highway Safety

This Super Bowl Sunday, Don’t Count on a Hail Mary

National Impaired Driving Prevention Month

How Employers Can Make our Roads Safer

Thank You for Your Service

Carrollton, Kentucky, 29 Years Later: So Much Work Still To Do

Alcohol Awareness Month—It’s Time to Separate Drinking from Driving

 

Episode 14- Dennis Jones

In this episode of Behind-the-Scene @NTSB, we have a great chat with the Managing Director of the NTSB, Dennis Jones. Dennis has been with the Agency for a few years and has held different positions from intern to aviation field investigator to supervisor to chief and now the Managing Director.

He shares with us his transportation journey and some highlights from his career at the NTSB.

Get the latest episode on Apple Podcasts , on Google Play, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast platform.

And find more ways to listen here: https://www.blubrry.com/behind_the_scene_ntsb/

Focus on Distracted Driving

By Chairman Robert Sumwalt

April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, a time set aside to raise awareness about the dangers surrounding distracted driving. We continue to see far too many crashes in all transportation modes involving cognitive, visual, and manual distraction. Almost every driver has a portable electronic device, and if those devices are used while a person is driving, they pose a significant risk—not only to that driver, but to the public, as well.

Although distraction has always had the potential to interfere with vehicle operation, new technologies have made it easier to become distracted, and therefore easier to become a risk to ourselves or others. William James wrote in 1892 that “All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.” Today, constant connectivity has become a mass of habits for many. But when it comes to driving, our eyes, minds, and hands should be on the driving task.

Distraction causes thousands of lives to be lost every year on our roads and it contributes to hundreds of thousands of injuries. We began calling for a ban on driver use of portable electronic devices in 2011. See the links below for some of the other steps we’ve taken to raise awareness about distracted driving and facilitate solutions.

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Videos

Events

Roundtable: Act to End Deadly Distractions

Roundtable: Disconnect from Deadly Distractions

Forum: Attentive Driving: Countermeasures to Distraction

Blogs

Act to End Distracted Driving: One Life at a Time

Act to End Deadly Distractions

Today’s Actions, Tomorrow’s Consequences

Addressing Dangers on the Roads: This is no April Fools!

Protect Your Business by Protecting Your Employees

Cognitive Distraction and the Hands-Free Device Myth

Deadly Addictions

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The ability to multitask is a myth. Humans cannot operate a vehicle while doing other things without risking the safety of themselves and those around them. Hands-free is not risk free—research shows a driver’s level of cognitive distraction is about equal for hands-free or hand-held communication.

Changing attitudes and behavior takes a sustained awareness effort, better laws, and high‑visibility enforcement of those laws. This combined approach has resulted in widespread seat belt use and gains against drunk driving. We’ve begun to make an impact on the distracted driving habit using these techniques, and you can do your part just by disconnecting for the drive.