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OPENING STATEMENT |
Good morning and welcome. My name is Debbie Hersman and it is my privilege to serve as the Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. This morning, I am joined by my fellow Board members: Vice Chairman Chris Hart, Member Robert Sumwalt, Member Mark Rosekind, and Member Earl Weener.
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the boardroom of the National Transportation Safety Board. This morning, the Board meets in open session as required by the Government in the Sunshine Act. While this is a public meeting, only the Board members and NTSB staff participate in today's discussions.
Three weeks ago, the staff presented to the Board the report we are considering today: the June 2009 fatal highway collision involving a 2008 Volvo truck-tractor semitrailer and 6 passenger vehicles on Interstate 44 near Miami, Oklahoma.
Our purpose today is to consider the Safety Board's investigation report on this accident. While the NTSB Board Members have had the opportunity to read the accident report and meet with staff, today is the first time that the members of the Board are meeting together to discuss it. Staff has prepared five presentations, each of which will be followed by a round of questions from the Board members. We will then consider the report's conclusions, probable cause determination, and proposed safety recommendations.
It is possible that some or all of the parts of the report may be modified or revised to reflect today's discussions and any proposed amendments. This is because these are the Board's actual deliberations over the documents. That is the purpose of the Sunshine Act -- to provide the public with a window into the decision making process. Approximately 30 minutes after we conclude, copies of the abstract of this report will be available from the NTSB Public Affairs office and on the NTSB's website.
On behalf of my fellow Board members and the entire NTSB staff, I offer our deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims of this accident. Ten occupants in passenger vehicles lost their lives; and 6 others, including the truck driver, were injured. Nothing can replace the loss of a loved one or repair the trauma of a life-changing injury. But we do have the opportunity – and the obligation – to take every step possible to ensure that the lessons of this tragedy are well-learned, and that the circumstances are not repeated.
Before proceeding with the report, on behalf of our team, I would like to express our appreciation to the various groups and individuals who helped with the Safety Board's investigation, including the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, and numerous emergency response agencies. We appreciate your support of our investigation.
On a hot afternoon, on June 26, 2009, on an open stretch of highway, not far from Miami, Oklahoma, a Ford Focus drifted out of its lane and sideswiped a tractor-trailer parked on the right shoulder of Interstate 44. This minor accident set the stage for the deadly accident we are discussing today.
As traffic began to slow and stop, the accident created a queue of cars extending approximately 1,500 feet.
Meanwhile, a 76-year old driver operating a 40,000 pound Volvo truck-tractor semitrailer was travelling on the same stretch of highway. The driver had been on duty and driving since 3:00 a.m. With the cruise control engaged and driving at a speed of about 69 mph, the truck driver did not react to the traffic queue; and, without slowing or applying his breaks, he collided with the stopped cars, killing 10 and injuring 5 others.
This morning, we will talk about why this accident happened and how we can keep it from being repeated.
One issue we will discuss is fatigue. The Safety Board has long recognized the dangers of fatigue in transportation. The science shows that fatigue makes us less alert and slower to react and we become less vigilant and process information more slowly. Fatigue is something we've all experienced – hectic work schedules, busy family lives, and new technology – like cell phones and the 24/7 news cycle – make getting a good night's sleep and keeping a regular schedule a real challenge.
In this accident, the driver had a maximum opportunity of 5 hours for sleep before he began his 3:00 a.m. shift; that was about 3-4 hours less than what he typically gets. He drove on a shift work schedule – which means he drove his truck at night when his body is programmed for sleep and opposite to his body's normal circadian rhythm. Further, he had just returned to work after a few days off, so he would have been trying to fall asleep 2 hours earlier than usual, and falling asleep could have been a problem. And the accident occurred at 1:19 in the afternoon – a time when most of us have that afternoon dip in alertness and performance. Fatigue can be created by multiple factors, and in this accident, too little sleep, the driver's shift work schedule, and mild sleep apnea all played a role.
The good news is that fatigue is something we know a lot about and have tools to address. Several of our recommendations in this report specifically address fatigue – including the need for fatigue education and implementing meaningful fatigue management programs. Using these tools will help drivers be more alert and better-rested, which can help prevent accidents. I thank my colleague, Member Rosekind, for his attention and expertise on this issue.
Another issue we will discuss is technology. The Safety Board has long advocated technology as a redundancy to human failures. Since 2001, the NTSB has recommended that vehicles be equipped with adaptive cruise control and collision warning systems. These issues are so important to the Board that we placed recommendations regarding ACC and CWS, in both passenger and commercial vehicles, on our Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements in 2007. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, along with its partners – the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and the Research and Innovative Technology Administration – has been working on this important initiative but progress is slow. While the preliminary results of the testing on advanced safety systems are encouraging, rulemaking is needed to ensure uniformity of system performance standards (such as obstacle detection, timing of alerts, and human factors guidelines. This technology could help avoid or lessen the severity of an accident.
Accident prevention, however, is only part of the solution. We must also take advantage of technologies that can help us learn from our experiences and help change design, procedures, or behaviors – technologies like event data recorders and video recorders that provide valuable data on the status of the vehicle and the driver's actions during the accident sequence.
And when these actions aren't enough and there is a crash, we need to make it more survivable. If you consider the size and structural incompatibility between an 80,000 pound or even a 40,000 pound tractor-trailer and a 2,600 pound passenger sedan, it's not difficult to imagine why, under the accident circumstances, the tractor-trailer overrode 4 of the 6 passenger cars, or why 4 of the cars that were struck had only minimal survivable space, or why, despite the catastrophic damage to many other vehicles on the road, the damage to the truck was so minimal that the driver's air bag never deployed. We describe this incompatibility between heavy trucks and cars as aggressivity for that very reason.
Commercial trucks like the accident truck can be 30 times heavier than passenger vehicles, they sit higher off the ground and are much larger and stiffer in design. Add to this, a speed of nearly 70 mph, and no braking action, and we make survivability improbable, if not impossible.
But that is how we viewed “car accidents” a generation or two ago – as non-survivable. Cars weren't equipped with seat belts, and when they were, they weren't used by occupants. No longer. We've designed safety into cars – with crash cages, seat belt pretensioners, front air bags, side air bags, and crush zones to absorb energy. And as the fatality statistics have demonstrated, these innovations have greatly improved survivability, and we continue to see lower fatality rates on the nation's highways every year. But what safety improvements, particularly design changes, have we made for trucks in the past 40 years? Ironically, we've designed cars to be more forgiving to a pedestrian struck in a collision, but what about heavy trucks involved in collisions with passenger vehicles? On this particular turnpike, the average daily traffic count showed that approximately 35% of the traffic was commercial traffic. That mix of traffic doesn't bode well for passenger car occupants if truck drivers are working tired and big trucks continue to be incompatible with passenger vehicles in collisions.
