Hersman Urges Tougher Action by FMCSA During Farewell Address as NTSB Chairman
This story appears in the April 28 print edition of Transport Topics.
WASHINGTON — The outgoing chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board urged the top federal truck-safety agency to ensure that fleets that do not follow hours-of-service rules are penalized and eventually shut down.
During her farewell address here at the National Press Club on April 21, Deborah Hersman said the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration had improved its safety data collection of trucking and bus companies but has struggled to act on that information.
Hersman said she lamented that FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro and agency personnel had issued favorable reviews of commercial vehicle operators shortly before those companies were involved in major highway accidents.
“We have to get the poor operators off the road before the crashes and not after,” Hersman said. “It’s the bad companies that are not following the rules. . . . They’re actually creating unfair competition for the companies that do.”
Hersman’s last day with NTSB was scheduled for April 25. She has agreed to become CEO of the National Safety Council, an Illinois-based, nonprofit safety organization. Jeff Woodbury, the chairman of the council’s board of directors, said Hersman’s experience at NTSB “made her the ideal candidate” to take the organization into the future.
Christopher Hart, vice chairman at NTSB since 2009 and a member of the board from 1990 to 1993, will serve as acting chairman after Hersman leaves. From 1993 to 2009, he held appointments with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration.
During her speech, Hersman also praised new aviation safety regulations, called for greater scrutiny of the freight rail industry and suggested that Congress boost NTSB’s budget, noting that recent accidents involving derailed oil tankers had stretched the agency’s resources. The major investigations in spite of the automatic sequestration cuts and other budget freezes have left her board low on funds, she said.
Her valedictory message was similar to the one she gave at an editorial forum with Transport Topics earlier this year, when she urged Ferro and FMCSA to act on worrisome safety information more quickly. NTSB also asked the Department of Transportation to audit FMCSA’s performance.
The Senate confirmed Hersman last fall to a two-year reappointment as the board’s leader. She was first appointed to the board in 2004, after she served as a Capitol Hill staffer in the House and Senate.
During her tenure at the NTSB, Hersman led in-depth investigations of high-profile accidents, such as the Skagit River Bridge collapse on Interstate 5 in Washington state and the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash in San Francisco, both last year, and recent rail accidents around the country.
NTSB also has been involved in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 airliner in the Indian Ocean. It serves as the official U.S. representative in the international search because the plane was an American-made Boeing 777.
Associate News Editor Jonathan S. Reiskin contributed to this report.
