Last year Americans changed their driving habits, driving less and slowing down to conserve fuel. These conditions did contribute to improved highway safety, but the progressive approach of the trucking industry also had a great effect on the safety of all motorists.

“While the downturn in the economy clearly impacted freight volumes and the overall number of miles logged by truck drivers, we believe that the sustained efforts of the industry, law enforcement, government and safety groups are paying off,” said Rose McMurray, acting deputy administrator at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Reduced traffic congestion is a goal of ATA and would improve highway safety, but the idea of shifting freight from trucks to rail is simply propaganda. Trucking companies use intermodal rail whenever feasible, but shifting large amounts of freight from truck to rail is not practical, nor would it be beneficial for the U.S. economy. Today, 80 percent of communities do not even have access to rail lines. Trucks and railroads serve two very different markets. While railroads haul heavy, bulk materials, businesses choose trucks to deliver nearly 100 percent of consumer goods because they offer an unparalleled combination of speed and reliability at a competitive price. Trucks make it possible for businesses to operate precise just-in-time inventory systems to ensure that there’s always food, clothing and medicine on the shelves when you need it.

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America's freight railroads make safety — of employees, customers, and the communities they serve — their top priority. And they have the track record to prove it:  2008 saw both the lowest train accident rate and the lowest employee injury rate in history. But safety is a job that is never done. That’s why railroads are constantly researching, developing and implementing new safety-enhancing technologies. 

Enormous public safety benefits can also be derived by shifting freight from already-gridlocked highways and moving it on the rails. Shifting just 10 percent of the long-distance freight moved by truck today to freight trains instead is like taking almost 163,000 trucks off our roads.  This not only saves money in terms of highway maintenance costs, but it also has the potential to reduce accidents.

The Department of Transportation predicts freight demand to increase 88 percent by 2035 and a healthy freight rail system is best positioned to deliver public benefits in the form of congestion relief, reduced highway maintenance costs, greenhouse gas emission reductions and economic stimulus. 

A focus on safety involves a one-dimensional analysis. This can be a useful exercise, but runs the risk of generating policies that harm other reasonable objectives of transportation – economic growth comes to mind. In this sense it is similar to other popular, one dimensional objectives such as the recent emphasis on reducing greenhouse gases or energy use.

I am certainly not against saving lives, nor against reducing GHG or energy use. Such objectives have practical as well as political value. Such “what if” analysis can provide interesting and useful results. We just need to be aware of unintended consequences.  For example, lower speed limits will likely reduce the severity of highway accidents, but what impact does this have on access to jobs and labor and on the timely delivery of goods?

To date safety has been looked at on a mode specific basis. One result is widely different levels of spending on safety across modes. One sign of serious intend in addressing safety would be to look at the relative effectiveness of these different modal programs and then to reallocate funds to those programs that appear to have the greatest return per life saved or accidents reduced.

I hope we can all agree that transportation-related deaths and injuries are equally tragic, whether the collision involves a truck, car, train, bus, bike, or pedestrian.  Thus, to answer the original question--what can be done to improve safety across ALL modes?--I am hoping we can agree that safety dollars should flow to programs and projects that can demonstrate the greatest safety improvement --i.e. reduction in fatalities and injuries--at the lowest cost, regardless of mode.

It is fitting and encouraging that Chairman Oberstar's House bill has elevated and strengthened safety as one of its pillar programs.  These funds should be disbursed on a competitive basis, using a full cost-benefit analysis as the grounds for award decisions. 

Some form of cost-benefit analysis ought to pay a much more prominent role in the next transportation bill, in general,  as we seek to extract more "performance" from the billions of dollars we spend.  Any economist and common-sense will tell you, however, that one ought to account for all costs and all benefits where possible in order to reach the most cost-effective decision.

So, in making safety funding decisions, non-safety benefits as well as additional costs of an action should be integrated into the decision criteria.  For example, if two projects show reduction of the same number of deaths and injuries, but one project has no additional co-benefits and the other has several--be they reduced auto congestion, reduced air pollution, or better service to underserved areas--the latter project ought to score higher.

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Americans Must be able to Travel Safely

Ensuring that Americans can travel safely to wherever they need to go is a critical national priority. Regardless of whether they are a driver, pedestrian, transit user or bicyclist, all Americans should have safe transportation choices

There are a number of steps that the public sector should take to help improve safety for older Americans and people of all generations:

• Adopt Complete Streets Policies. Adopting a Complete Streets approach would ensure that adults, children, and persons with mobility impairments could travel safely and conveniently on streets that are currently inaccessible to them for a variety of reasons, such as missing and inadequate sidewalks or crosswalks. The federal government can direct states and Metropolitan Planning Organizations to adopt Complete Streets policies and require that they be applied to all federally funded transportation projects. Local governments can—and many already have—adopted this approach to the design and construction of their local streets.

• Older Driver and Pedestrian Design Guidelines. The Federal Highway Administration Highway Design Handbook for Older Drivers and Pedestrians guidelines needs to be updated and funds allocated to accommodate the dramatic rise in older drivers who often have challenges with reading road signs and seeing traffic signals. By 2025, 64 million people will be over the age of 65, with a quarter of all drivers over the age of 65 by 2030. The number of older non-drivers will be approximately 14 million by 2025. Federal, state, and local policymakers must adopt policies that have been proven to reduce accidents and deaths. For instance, intersections are one of the most deadly places for older drivers and pedestrians alike, but protected left-turn lanes help drivers navigate safely, and traffic-signal timing that allows more time for pedestrians to cross lowers the risk of accidents. Importantly, these benefits are shared by drives of all ages.

• Enhance Safety for Non-Driving Options. As Americans rapidly age, investment in non-driving options will prove key to transportation safety for all Americans. For example, increasing public funding would allow local governments to replace old rail cars with new safer models. Increased funding is also needed to replace the aging fleet of Section 5310 vehicles that transport older adults and persons with disabilities and to provide operating assistance to help maintain those vehicles. Public policymakers have underfunded maintenance for many years. To ensure safe transportation choices for all Americans, Congress must invest in public transportation and older driver programs. Americans’ health and safety depend on it.

These are only some of the steps that can be taken to improve safety across all forms of transportation. Finding the public funding to pay for these projects will be difficult, but Americans deserve a transportation network that is designed to protect their safety as they travel.

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 How right Steve is to point to the need to save lives by improving the licensing arrangements for drivers. Has he considered taking a lesson from maritime transport, and placing on insurers the responsibilities for testing and licensing the drivers they insure, and also the vehicles themselves?

In October 2007 Maryland’s Office of Legislative Audits determined that Maryland’s MVA was not implementing the state’s Ignition Interlock program, which requires those convicted of drunken driving to have their vehicles equipped with devices which prevent them starting if excessive alcohol levels are detected. Can one envisage an insurance company, with millions of dollars at risk from accidents, failing to enforce such an important program?

Some might object that insurer licensing would give excessive power to the insurance companies, which would try to maximize their profits by insuring only the lowest risks. But, so long as there is competition between insurance companies, applicants turned down by one insurer could go to another, and policies would tend to be granted whenever risks were covered by premiums.

Furthermore, in a competitive market, insurers would be encouraged to improve testing methods, and to make special arrangements to reduce accident risks in special situations, e.g. to insist on ignition interlocks for alcoholics and requiring the use of devices to prevent elderly and long-distance drivers falling asleep at the wheel.

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An obvious way to improve transportation safety in all modes would be to adopt the recommendations of the agency charged with it – the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The agency investigates accidents, determines the cause, and makes recommendations to prevent recurrence. The NTSB has no regulatory authority; its “teeth” are the power of moral suasion and public opinion.

To highlight the critical safety issues, through the years the NTSB has developed the “Most Wanted” List of safety improvements in the various transportation areas, and has directed these recommendations to the appropriate regulators – i.e., FAA, Coast Guard, Pipeline, etc. While the NTSB has a good record of having its recommendations adopted, the majority of these “most wanted” recommendations have not been implemented, or the regulations are proceeding at a glacial rate. Some solutions involve technology; others address behavior, training, resource management – all areas where improvements can lead to enhanced safety.

In the field of aviation, the FAA has earned an unsatisfactory response for all 6 of the areas on the Most Wanted List. For example, to improve runway safety and prevent runway incursions or collisions, the NTSB has recommended that FAA require specific air traffic control clearances for each runway crossing, and require installation of technology to alert the cockpit, as well as the control tower, of potential collisions. To address another critical aviation safety issue, the NTSB directed the FAA to revise aircraft design and certification for flight in icing conditions.

For highway safety, the NTSB has recommended that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration prevent medically unqualified drivers from operating commercial vehicles. This would require tracking, oversight, enforcement and reporting improvements. For the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the recommendations are for enhanced vehicle safety technology, and standards to prevent motor coach and school bus passengers from being thrown out of seats or ejected when a collision occurs.

Human fatigue is a factor that affects all transportation modes and the NTSB has repeatedly recommended that working hour limits be set for flight crews, aviation mechanics, mariners and pipeline and air traffic controllers. This hasn’t happened, although I will point out that the new FAA Administrator, Randy Babbitt, has addressed this issue early in his tenure and has the background and the will to do something about it. It is not easy to do, but it is necessary.

There must also be non-punitive ways for transportation personnel to report incidents to regulators so that information may be used to address problem areas and prevent accidents. An accumulation of data about problems or incidents can lead to action to address a deficiency before it becomes an accident.

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Nothing is more important to transportation workers than the safety of our roads, bridges, transit and rail systems, and ports. Not only are airplanes, buses, trains and vessels our members’ workplaces, we have a responsibility for passengers. We know that our transportation systems simply cannot function unless they are safe and secure. 

There is no question that more can and must be done to increase safety in all modes of transportation. TTD and our unions have an aggressive agenda to meet this objective. Providing front-line transportation workers with the tools they need to operate safely – whether it is the right training, adequate rest or the best technology – is absolutely critical. And the federal government needs to provide aggressive oversight to make sure safety rules are being followed and outsourcing does not negatively affect safety. 

Workers need to perform their job functions safely and in compliance with government rules. It sounds simple enough. But too often employers cut corners on training programs or resist training mandates from the federal government and then claim “human error” when workers make a mistake. The amazing events surrounding the Hudson River landing reinforce a point we have always known: when workers have the right training and support, tragedies can be avoided. You may be surprised to learn that nearly eight years after 9/11, adequate security training for flight attendants is still not mandatory. Security training for transit and rail workers was made mandatory in the 9/11 Commission bill passed in 2007 – that took six years to accomplish. Why does it need to be mandatory? The reality is that when cash is tight, unless you make these things required, they often don’t get done.

Fatigue is another serious problem that must be addressed. Many transportation systems are asking their people to do more with less and the result is often a tired workforce. If you go to work tired at a desk job, you may be less productive. But for safety-sensitive transportation workers, fatigue can have life and death consequences. For many transportation workers, hours of service rules need to be examined and revised to reflect the challenges and responsibilities that employees juggle every day. 

Technologies exist that can help workers do their jobs better, safer and more efficiently. Positive train control is a collision avoidance system that is now being implemented because of the rail safety bill passed into law last year. And while the NTSB is still investigating the recent and tragic WMATA accident, it’s clear that equipment upgrades are vital for safe operation. The swift implementation of Next-Gen will modernize our air traffic control system with new technologies that increase efficiency, expand capacity, and enhance safety.

Better oversight is critical and we are confident that the new Obama Administration will prove to be a tough regulator.  As our transportation network expands, we need more inspectors to make sure the work is being done right. We are currently advocating for more aircraft maintenance inspectors, especially since the majority of this work is outsourced – much of it overseas. Before the rail safety reauthorization last year, each FRA inspector was responsible for inspecting 500 miles of track – the equivalent of the entire Northeast Corridor.

Whether they are large reauthorization bills or small changes, workers want to be partners in making safety a top priority. From the front lines, our workers have important contributions to make. We will continue to help make their voices heard. 

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If we are to improve safety significantly we have to better ingrain it in our culture especially when it comes to driving.  I believe it is still true that someone in each of the modes at USDOT still receives some sort of communication when someone dies and/or there is a serious incident involving transportation (all except with autos on highways, unless involving a truck, hazmat, transit, or an intercity bus).  It certainly focuses the mind when you are notified a pipeline has ruptured, a train has derailed or an aircraft has been lost.

Our number one focus should be on reducing road fatalities.  Pete Ruane hits the infrastructure issue.  But the main problem is one Bob Crandall identifies: we have laws on speeding, drunk and distracted driving and we don't do near enough to enforce them nor convince states with weaker laws to strengthen them and recognize that with freedom comes responsibility.  We focus on the operator in our non-auto modes, but we are strangely indifferent to the quality of driving and the responsibilities that come with it. 

Moreover, compared to other nations (e.g., Netherlands) it is much easier in the U.S. to obtain and retain a driver's license  and driver education is still generally very poor.  Imagine if we provided the same scrutiny to auto accidents we do to those involved with pipeline SCADA systems, transit, and aircraft operators--obviously impractical for 40,000 incidents, but it is symbolic of our overall attitude.

Let's hope our commendable record in aviation holds, but let's reinforce that hope with the same diligence in the future that brought us the industry's enviable safety record.  Jim May has the right attitude and the new FAA Administrator is right to target crew rest and examine related industry practices.  And, no doubt a number of safety officials will examine the two airbus accidents to ensure we are learning what we can from those. 

Steve Van Beek

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Everybody loves safety, of course. The more difficult questions arise when evaluating which kinds of travel are safer than others. The fact that our country suffers a Korean war worth of driving fatalities every year partly reflects how dependent our country is on cars and trucks for travel. Especially on a per-trip basis, auto travel is very dangerous.

A recent study in the Journal of Planning Literature shows that all driving isn't equally dangerous and some kinds of road improvement that increase the speed of traffic flow also make driving more lethal.

The article, titled  "The Built Environment and Traffic Safety: A Review of Empirical Evidence" is authored by Reid Ewing at University of Maryland and Eric Dumbaugh at Texas A&M University

Here is the abstract:

The article reaches two conclusions counter to accepted transportation engineering theory. First, the traffic environments of dense urban areas appear to be safer than the lower-volume environments of the suburbs. The reason is that many fewer miles are driven on a per capita basis, and the driving that is done is at lower speeds that are less likely to produce fatal crashes. Second,at least in dense urban areas, less-"forgiving" design treatments—such as narrow lanes, traffic-calming measures, and street trees close to the roadway—appear to enhance a roadway's safety performance when compared to more conventional roadway designs. The reason for this apparent anomaly may be that less-forgiving designs provide drivers with clear information on safe and appropriate operating speeds.

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Roadway safety is perennially cited as a key area of policy focus. With the tens of thousands of deaths that occur on our roadways every year—and our continued ranking at or near the bottom of international comparisons for roadway safety—our safety record is widely considered unacceptable.

It is wholly appropriate for the federal government to strive for broad and ambitious safety goals. NHTSA has incentive programs and links funding to goals such as increased use of set belts. States have responded to these federal incentives and as a result, 49 states now require vehicle occupants to wear them. In 1984 Congress gave the U.S. DOT the authority to withhold up to 5 percent of federal highway funding from states that did not adopt a minimum 21-year-old drinking age. And in 2003, the nation adopted a blood alcohol level standard to attempt to deal with the problem of drunk driving.

But due, in part, to the fact that we are currently witnessing the largest sustained drops in driving that this nation has ever seen, the latest data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that not only has the overall number of traffic fatalities declined to its lowest total amount since 1961, the fatality rate of deaths per 100 million VMT was 1.27, the lowest on record. The number of people injured is at its lowest point since NHTSA began collecting injury data. (The number of people injured increased only for bicyclists).

So to tie together the last two week's conversations, the implication is that if roadway safety is an important policy goal, reducing VMT is a potential strategy since roadway deaths and injuries decline as VMT goes down.

There is no reason why the United States should not build on this and make roadway safety a top priority. As Neal Peirce pointed out recently, several major industrialized countries, such as the Netherlands and the U.K., have already done so. Sweden's heroic Vision Zero, states that in the long run, no person should be killed or seriously injured as a consequence of road traffic.

Their strategy, however, is not simply widening or straightening roads but calming them.

The Director of Traffic Safety for the Swedish DOT, Dr. Claes Tingvall, says that just a 1% increase in spending can reduce fatalities by 90%. He writes: "One of the first myths we have to kill is that safety costs money." Fixes such as better sight lines, intelligent road design and advanced traffic management, traffic calming and public education all play their part in eliminating fatalities, and ensuring that the remaining crashes don’t result in serious injury.

A recent Brookings report found that Germany – a country very politically and economically similar to our own – has a much safer roadway network due to better and more extensive cycling and walking infrastructure, better motorist training, traffic calming of most residential neighborhoods, and traffic priority for non-motorized transportation.

Let's see an aggressive and audacious safety goal for the U.S. that goes beyond traditional approaches.

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The recent aviation accidents, both involving Airbus aircraft, have yet again focused media attention on flying, with some blogs speculating that Airbus may be in for extraordinary scrutiny and hard times. A similar fixation continues with regards to the Colgan Air crash earlier this year. The media loves an aviation mishap.

I decided to look at the overall safety record of long-haul aircraft since the emergence of jet airplanes and the result was striking. The table shows the percentage of airframes that have been destroyed thus far for the aircraft noted. Important to remember is that a destroyed airframe does not imply fatalities or even serious injury. The single B777 destroyed was the BA short landing at Heathrow which involved serious angst for those involved but no physical harm.

This is an astounding record that should be the envy of every mode of transport and shows that constant improvement is not only possible but also achievable. Furthermore, unlike ferry sinkings or bus mishaps which recur with numbing regularity, each aviation incident is rigorously examined and, if necessary, corrections are mandated for all operators.

Loss of life for any reason is a tragic and unfortunate occurrence—made all the more problematic if it could have been foreseen and prevented. But in the main, aviation has established a marvelous track record and the lessons of investigation and prevention should be adopted by other modes.

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While we’ve made great strides in highway safety, all motorists have a stake in making our nation’s highways safer. In 2008, the number of traffic fatalities reached its lowest level since 1961, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The number of people killed in motor vehicle crashes in the United States declined 9.7 percent, from 41,259 in 2007 to 37,261 in 2008. Further, truck-involved crash fatalities in 2008 declined 12 percent, dropping from 4,822 in 2007 to 4,229. This encouraging trend should act as a catalyst for highway users to focus on greater improvements.

Faced with high fuel prices and a faltering economy, Americans changed their driving habits last year, driving less and slowing down to conserve fuel. This helped improve safety conditions on our highways because speeding and traveling too fast for conditions top the list of unsafe driving behaviors. Along with changes in driving habits, improvements in highway safety also correlate with promoting best practices and increasing awareness.

For example, ATA encouraged changes to regulations that reduced overall time truck drivers can work in a day. While operating under these hours-of-service (HOS) rules for the last five years, the trucking industry’s safety performance dramatically improved. Large truck crash, injury and fatality rates have reached their lowest point since the U.S. Department of Transportation began recording these statistics.

In addition to HOS rules, ATA introduced an 18-point highway safety agenda that focuses on three areas to further improve safety on our nation’s highways: improve the safety of commercial and passenger drivers, improve the safety of our vehicles, and improve motor carrier performance.

This progressive agenda supports speed governing all class 7 and 8 trucks at 65 mph or below and setting a national speed limit for all motor vehicles at 65 mph. Also, the agenda supports policies that reduce or eliminate driver distractions caused by electronics such as cell phones and GPS devices. Moreover, ATA’s safety agenda supports exploring incentives and penalties that will motivate states to pass primary safety belt laws. Data suggest the trucking industry’s focus on encouraging safety belt use is working; figures from the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s Roadcheck 2009 indicate that safety belt usage among commercial vehicle drivers rose 22 percent over last year. ATA commends the states of Arkansas, Florida, Minnesota and Wisconsin for passing primary enforcement laws this year.

In addition, ATA supports increased national standards for commercial driver’s licenses, making testing uniform across the nation; creating a national clearinghouse for positive alcohol and drug test results, providing trucking companies access to a driver’s history of failed tests and test refusals; and improved crash worthiness standards for newly manufactured class 7 and 8 trucks.

These policies and the accelerated deployment of advanced safety systems for commercial vehicles will help improve safety within the industry. Fleet owners cite high costs as the primary impediment to adoption of technologies such as brake wear monitoring systems, stability control and roll stability systems, lane departure warning systems with blind spot detection, and collision warning systems with adaptive cruise control. Providing tax incentives to make such systems more affordable will help increase their use and reduce crashes, injuries and deaths. Congress is considering legislation to provide these incentives, and ATA encourages Congress to increase the caps on these tax credits.

All highway users must continue promoting best practices and improve standards. Implementing ATA’s safety polices will go a long way toward accomplishing that goal.

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“Virginia adopted a ‘fix it first’ policy in 2004 for its highways, bridges, ports, airports and transit systems.  While implementation of this policy represents an ongoing challenge, it has resulted in several innovative approaches.  For example, we are able to quantify the highway maintenance savings for every truck taken off the highway and put onto freight rail.  We invest in freight rail for this reason. We also have implemented performance standards for our interstate and primary pavements—sometimes at the expense of new construction.  We invest in these critical, heavily traveled corridors.

Looking ahead, we know that we do not have adequate funding to replace or repair all of our structurally deficient bridges.  And while Virginia, Maryland and DC have made historic commitments to the regional Metrorail system, we know that keeping our major transit systems in a state of good repair will exceed available resources.

These types of approaches can serve our needs at the local, state and national levels, even as we seek new federally-funded infrastructure like port or high speed rail improvements to improve our global competitiveness.”

Travel safety in the United States seems, like so many things, to be primarily a political issue.

Jim May’s earlier response to this question sets out, in some detail, the approach taken by the FAA and the airline industry to increase safety in airline travel. The intensity and integrity of those efforts have yielded ever better aviation safety statistics, and in the years ahead, there is every reason to believe that the public’s unwillingness to accept large numbers of injuries and fatalities in aviation will sustain a continuing effort by the industry to operate at ever higher levels of safety.

By contrast, we make little effort to maximize highway safety because we are unwilling to enforce the rules we have collectively agreed to.   Every local newspaper is full of stories about people who drive after repetitive DWI violations, people who drive without bothering to secure a license to do so, and people who drive carelessly or at high speeds despite having been previously ticketed for doing so. If the folks doing those things were taken off the road, we’d all be lots safer.

Pete Ruan's  earlier response notes that recent studies suggest that adverse road conditions are a major cause of motor vehicle accidents. While personal experience leads to some doubt as to the relative contribution of speed, alcohol and road conditions, there is little doubt we have done a poor job of maintaining and improving our roads. Thus, it is clear that Congress should not defer a new transportation bill and should get on with the task of raising and providing adequate highway funding.  Even under optimum conditions,however, doing the necessary work will take  many years.

Conversely, imposing dramatically heavier penalties for speeding and driving while under the influence of alcohol would save lives, energy  and money immediately. Unfortunately, controlling speed and penalizing folks for breaking the rules are not widely popular, and thus don’t get done. 

As the old saying goes, “we reap what we sow”. Our roads are not as safe as they should be primarily because we don’t want them to be – we’d rather drive too fast, drink when we want to, and  do without seat belts. 

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More than half of U.S. highway fatalities are related to deficient roadway conditions – a substantially more lethal factor than drunk driving, speeding or non-use of safety belts, according a landmark study just released by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE).

The 22,000 fatalities attributed to a poor roadway environment cost America $217 billion annually. This dwarfs the costs of other safety factors, including $130 billion for alcohol, $97 billion for speeding, or $60 billion for failing to wear a safety belt. The report shows roadway-related crashes impose $20 billion in medical costs; $46 billion in productivity costs; $52 billion in property damage and other resource costs; and $99 billion in quality of life costs.

To put $217 billion figure in context, it is more than three-and-one-half times the amount of money government at all levels is investing annually in roadway capital improvements – $59 billion, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

Read the full report here.

The PIRE study makes one thing clear. Inaction kills.

If we really want to improve safety on the nation’s transportation infrastructure, let’s not delay action on the federal highway and transit authorization bill for 18 months. Congress and the President should work together this year to enact legislation that provides significant new funding for roadway safety improvements and targets those investments where they are most needed.

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There is nothing more important to the airline industry than the safety of our passengers and crews. The airlines and their employees, complemented by many other professionals, have achieved an extraordinary safety record. They accomplish this not only by analyzing past events and determining what went wrong but, as we see more and more, by rigorous analysis of the massive amount of data the industry collects to identify potential problems and take corrective action before there is a chance of a fatal error.

This type of disciplined, analytical approach to improving safety performance is basic to the culture of a safety-guided industry. The Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST), for example, brings together stakeholders to improve safety performance by applying data-driven analyses to spot issues before accidents occur and to establish safety priorities. Increasing reliance on two industry-led safety programs, the Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP), which encourages voluntary reporting of safety issues and events that come to the attention of employees, and the Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) program, which involves the collection and analysis of data recorded during flight to improve safety, have also added immeasurably to our knowledge. This empirical approach, coupled with the expertise and commitment of our front-line employees, provides the underpinning for industry wide safety efforts. CAST was recently awarded the prestigious Collier Trophy by the National Aeronautic Association for its contributions to safety.

Recent accidents involving regional aviation have prompted a renewed look at how to best assure a single level of safety across the industry. Consideration is now being given to both the proper role of the Federal Aviation Administration as safety regulator and how the major carriers can most effectively mentor their regional partners without complicating the regulatory process. The Air Transport Association and its member airlines have been active participants in these discussions and will remain very active players in the various rulemaking activities related to these issues.

The airlines, our employees and unions, the manufacturing community and the FAA, all have critical roles to play in the ongoing effort to improve safety performance. We are proud of our record and the role that we play and we are committed to our forward-looking safety agenda.

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