Got Plans?

By Chris O’Neil, Chief, Media Relations Division

May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month

As a motorcyclist, I know there’s a lot that goes into being a safe rider. There’s training and experience that help build and sharpen our riding skills. There’s equipment designed to help us avoid crashes and equipment designed to protect us when things go wrong. There are awareness campaigns to remind us that distraction, impairment, and speed kill. And there are reports and safety recommendations, developed from our investigations, that often make headlines and create discussion within our community.

We recently completed our investigation of a fatal motorcycle and pickup truck crash that happened during the September 10, 2017, “Toy Run” group ride in Augusta, Maine. Unless you’re an avid NTSB report reader or live in Maine, this report likely didn’t catch your eye, and that’s unfortunate because the probable cause speaks to the foundation of every good ride—from your lone-wolf escape, to the Saturday pick-up ride, to the organized chapter ride—every good ride starts with a good plan.

About 3,000 motorcyclists gathered at the Augusta Civic Center to participate in the 36^th annual United Bikers of Maine Toy Run on the day of the crash. The intended route had the herd in staggered formation entering I-95 from exit 112B, traveling to exit 113, where they would leave the highway to proceed east on Route 3/202, then south on Route 32, to reach their final destination of Windsor Fairgrounds.

After entering I-95 and for reasons that could not be determined, a 2007 Harley-Davidson XL 1200 suddenly moved out of the right lane, traveled across the center lane, and entered the left lane in front of a 2008 Ford F250 pickup truck. The pickup truck driver attempted an evasive maneuver but collided with the motorcycle, losing control of the vehicle, due in part to the truck having “collected” the Harley. The truck veered to the right, traveling across the center and right lanes and striking four other motorcycles. The truck and the 2007 Harley traveled through the guardrail, where the truck came to rest on its passenger side and the Harley on its right side in a ditch beside the pickup. Two motorcyclists died as a result of the crash. One motorcyclist and the pickup truck passenger suffered serious injuries, while the driver and four other motorcyclists suffered minor injuries. The motorcyclists involved in the crash were not United Bikers of Maine members, and the motorcyclist who died was not wearing a helmet as required.

Figure 1: NTSB diagram, adapted from Maine State Police diagram, detailing the initial stages of the crash sequence

We determined that the probable cause of the crash was the motorcycle operator’s unsafe maneuver in moving in front of the pickup truck. Contributing to this crash was the failure of the city of Augusta Police Department and the Toy Run event organizer, United Bikers of Maine, to identify and mitigate the risks associated with routing a group ride onto an interstate without providing supplemental traffic control or state police oversight.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time we addressed route planning for special events on streets and highways. In 2012, we investigated a crash in Midland, Texas, involving a parade float and freight train, where the city of Midland and the parade organizer failed to identify and mitigate the risks associated with routing a parade through a highway-railroad grade crossing.

In the case of the Maine motorcycle crash, we found that the event organizers and local authorities similarly failed in planning and communication. We concluded that appropriate risk assessment, involving all stakeholders, most likely would have resulted in the rerouting of the Toy Run event, so that it did not involve the interstate. Had the route remained unchanged, effective traffic control countermeasures could have been applied to increase safety. We also determined that using secondary roadways with lower speed limits for the event route, or at least providing additional oversight, including a traffic plan, and imposing adequate temporary traffic control countermeasures, would have been far more likely to result in a safe event.

Figure 2: NTSB diagram, adapted from Maine State Police diagram, detailing the final rest positions of the crash involved vehicles.

Right about now you’re likely asking, “So how does this apply to me? My pick-up ride is about one percent of the 3,000-rider event in Maine.” Valid point. Your lone-wolf ride or pick-up ride doesn’t require coordination with local or state authorities. But your ride—just like an event ride—requires planning for safety. You need to plan your rides to “identify and mitigate the risks” associated with them.

I tend to ride a lot by myself, and although I allow myself to “explore” the countryside of the region, I at least let someone know what general area I plan to be in, when I plan to return, and if I’m planning any stops along the way. If I do a detailed turn-by-turn route plan, I’ll share that too, noting allowances for the occasional missed turn.

If I lead a pick-up ride, I do a safety brief before we go kickstands up, detailing the route, communications, hand signals, what to do if we get separated, and what to do if someone has an emergency. I try not to take my friends on roads I’ve not traveled, so I can communicate to them what to expect and highlight any potential hazards or unusual road conditions. I check weather, traffic, and other relevant environmental factors to ensure good situational awareness.

To some readers, I’m sure this sounds like overpreparation. I disagree. The moments spent going over a plan help trigger all the other safety behaviors we need to employ to keep ourselves safe on our rides.

There is a wise saying related to planning: “Nobody plans to fail, but many fail to plan.” Applying good planning principals to your rides will help you keep safety at the forefront of your activities, and is one more way to mitigate the risks we face every time we saddle up.

The Golden Spike at 150

By Member Jennifer Homendy

The ceremony for the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869; completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. At center left, Samuel S. Montague, Central Pacific Railroad, shakes hands with Grenville M. Dodge, Union Pacific Railroad (center right). (Source: Wikimedia)

On May 10, 1869, 150 years ago today, a golden spike was driven home at Promontory Summit, in what was then the Utah Territory, by Central Pacific Railroad President Leland Stanford. This momentous event joined the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads, completing the first transcontinental railroad, just 7 years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act authorizing land grants and government financing to US railroads for the purpose of joining the east and the west.

As we know, the project was a tremendous success, but it certainly had its challenges.

In 1863, another act established the gauge for the project at 4 ft., 8½ inches (which became the standard gauge). At the time, gauges varied among railways in the United States. The goal of the transcontinental railroad was to ensure that two railroads met in Utah and were “interoperable” when it came time to begin service. A small difference in width would mean no transcontinental railroad: passengers and freight would have to be offloaded to a new train when incompatible rails met, creating a bottleneck affecting thousands of miles of track.

It wouldn’t have inspired confidence in the transcontinental railroad if the four final spikes couldn’t be driven in because the railroad gauges didn’t match!

Leland Stanford, the man who drove the golden spike, went on to found Stanford University. He could not imagine the contributions to transportation that his namesake university would make, including those to the global positioning system used in positive train control (PTC) systems.

Just as the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads worked to ensure their track was seamless, today’s railroads are focused on implementing PTC by ensuring interoperability among many systems­—passenger, commuter, and freight trains must be able to seamlessly communicate and operate across all railroad networks.

PTC isn’t new. The NTSB has been urging railroads to implement it, in some form, since 1970, 1 year after the United States met President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to land a man on the moon. Since then, the NTSB has investigated 152 PTC-preventable accidents that resulted in more than 300 fatalities and 6,700 injuries. PTC remains on our Most Wanted List of transportation safety improvements.

Seven years passed between when Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act in 1862 to when the golden spike was driven home at Promontory Summit. Eight years passed from JFK’s speech to Congress about a moonshot in 1961 to Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the gray dust of the lunar surface. PTC was mandated by Congress in the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008. It has now been more than 10 years since the act was signed into law.

Today’s golden spike celebration might well feature photos of two locomotives posed head-to-head, as they were for the original golden spike celebration 150 years ago. Perhaps that would also be a fitting image to promote PTC, which, among other safety benefits, would automatically stop trains in time to prevent train-to-train collisions.

As we commemorate 1869’s golden spike, the NTSB continues to await implementation of fully operational PTC, which is long overdue. Let’s end the wait and start planning our own commemoration of the day we finally made all rail travel exponentially safer.

 

Global Road Safety Week

By Nicholas Worrell, Chief, Safety Advocacy Division

Around the world, about 1.25 million people lose their lives every year in motor vehicle crashes. That’s roughly the entire population of Dallas, Texas. Others—20–50 million—are injured or disabled. That’s about the equivalent of injuring everybody in a medium-sized country, like Spain (46 million) or Ukraine (44 million).

May is Global Youth Traffic Safety Month (GYTSM), and May 6–12, 2019, marks the Fifth United Nations Global Road Safety Week. These events draw attention to the need for stronger road safety leadership to help achieve a set of global goals. International governments have set an ambitious goal to reduce by half the number of deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents globally by 2020.

On behalf of the NTSB, during this GYTSM, I’ll join with advocates and road safety experts from around the world to launch action through the ongoing campaign “Save Lives—#SpeakUp.” The campaign “provides an opportunity for civil society to generate demands for strong leadership for road safety, especially around concrete, evidence‑based interventions.” From May 8 to 10, I’ll also have the opportunity to speak to an audience of public transportation agencies from throughout the Caribbean region, as well as road transportation professionals and academics from around the world, at the 8^th annual Caribbean Regional Congress of the International Road Federation in Georgetown, Guyana. As a Caribbean native, I am especially looking forward to discussing the NTSB’s lessons learned, recommendations, and advocacy efforts with professionals there.

One of the big messages I hope to get across is that ending road crashes and their resulting injuries and fatalities worldwide will require a cultural shift, and that shift must begin with young people, who are more likely to die in a motor vehicle crash than any other age group. More people between the ages of 15 and 29 lose their lives in crashes than from HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and homicide combined. GYTSM is a time to encourage this demographic to take the mantel and fight to change those statistics.

To learn more about our work in support of Global Youth Traffic Safety Month read some of our past NTSB blog posts https://safetycompass.wordpress.com/?s=global+youth+traffic+safety+month.

Would you like to add your voice to the conversation happening this week around Global Road Safety Week?  Join the Youth For Road Safety global youth Twitter chat on Friday, May 10, 2019, from 15:00–16:00 GMT (10:00–11:00 EST), follow @Yours_YforRS and use the hashtag #SpeakUpForRoadSafety.