About the Proposed NTSB Ban On Cell Phones/Texting While Driving

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has proposed a nationwide ban on cell phone usage while driving, including a ban on calling, texting, or emailing while driving in an effort to reduce fatalities and injuries resulting from distracted drivers. The proposal would include a ban on hands-free devices.

It's the latter bit that caught some folks by surprise.

The NTSB recommendation is unlikely to cause states to immediately ban driver cell phone use, nor should they necessarily. Currently, no state has taken that hard a line, and only nine prohibit talking on a handheld cellphone while driving. A majority prohibit texting while driving. And many have restrictions on cellphone use for certain drivers — those with restricted (novice) licenses and school bus operators chief among them.


Maryland is already among the most restrictive of states in this arena. It's against the law to talk on a phone while driving, and this year the General Assembly expanded its ban on texting to include reading them and not just writing them.

The next logical step for Annapolis is not to ban cellphone use by drivers entirely but to make the existing prohibitions a primary offense rather than a secondary one. Currently, police can ticket someone for breaking the state's cellphone restrictions only if the driver has been pulled over for some other violation.

The arguments against primary enforcement — just like those against restricting cellphone use by drivers in general — are familiar but unconvincing. Most drivers, they will argue, can talk and drive responsibly just fine. And if the state must ban distractions, what about eating, smoking, changing radio stations, applying makeup, lecturing the kids or the dozens of other behaviors drivers might engage in that the law could never even anticipate?

All reasonable points, but they don't negate the growing evidence that cellphone use while driving is increasingly a contributing factor in accidents. The consequences of that behavior, while less severe than drinking and driving, are alarming: More than 3,000 people lose their lives each year in distraction-related crashes.

This is a list of the current statutory provisions across the country that limit cell phone and other devices while driving. California is the only state that prohibits all cell phone use, including hands free devices, but that's only for drivers under the age of 18. No state has restrictions as severe as what the NTSB recommends.

But the NTSB recommendations raise a far more troubling issue. The fact is that it's all too easy to get distracted while driving. Cell phones that aren't hands free are a distraction that can and should get limited. I'm much less convinced about hands free, although restrictions on novice drivers should be encouraged.

The NTSB doesn't take a position on the ergonomics of key components in cars - like incomprehensible and minuscule buttons for AC/radios and the touch/lcd screens. In some instances, they may be just as, or more, distracting than cell phones. That's something that the manufacturers need to look at, but the NTSB doesn't address this in their recommendations.

I would support a nationwide cell phone ban that requires hands free phone capabilities, but it seems a bit of a stretch to say that hands free should also be banned.

You get to a point of diminishing returns on enforcement - limited money that can be spent elsewhere (like making it safer for pedestrians to cross streets at crosswalks).

FAA Needs To Take Action on Bombardier CRJ-200 Landing Gear Malfunctions

Just days after a Delta CRJ-200 made an emergency landing at JFK airport in New York City when its landing gear didn't properly deploy, another CRJ-200, operated by Skywest Airlines made a similar landing in Milwaukee.

This is far from an isolated event for the CRJ-200 series aircraft. There have been several documented instances where the CRJ-200 landing gear didn't deploy properly, requiring pilots to make emergency landings. In fact, there have been six documented instances in the past two years on the Bombardier CRJ-200 aircraft, as compared to two instances for all other aircraft combined.

It would appear that there is some kind of engineering or design defect causing a problem with deploying all landing gear as it should. Corrective actions are necessary here.

The NTSB is investigating the incidents, and it may be time for the FAA to require checks of all landing gear components on board the planes before one of these emergency landing incidents results in fatalities.

Hudson River Air Collision Renews Calls For Increased Regulation

The air collision between a tourist helicopter and a private plane killing nine people has once again sparked a debate over the regulation of low flying aircraft in and around New York City.

The last time this debate occurred was in the aftermath of the death of Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle whose plane crashed into a high rise apartment building, killing Lidle and his instructor.

This crash occurred over the Hudson River near Hoboken, and nine people were killed in all. Seven people have so far been recovered from the waters of the Hudson River, and the NYPD and emergency personnel continue searching the murky waters for the other two victims, along with the Piper Cub airplane. The helicopter was recovered yesterday, and it's hoped that the aircraft can give clues as to why the crash occurred.

Many in the industry and critics content that this was an accident waiting to happen. They're right as the air above the Hudson is a heavily trafficked corridor for tour operators flying tourists around New York Harbor to see the sights, including the Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero.

Normally, aircraft flying below 1,100 feet are not required to make contact with New York regional air traffic controllers, and it's possible that this crash may require additional regulation of aircraft flying in the area.

"We're playing a game of Russian roulette . . . There are 25,000 helicopter trips a year, and no one has to talk to anyone," said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

He said that at the very least, pilots should be required to use the frequency and also talk to air-traffic controllers, regardless of their altitude.

Small planes and helicopters also should be required to have traffic collision avoidance systems, or TCAS, which notify pilots of approaching aircraft, Stringer said. They cost from $10,000 to $30,000 apiece.

The Hudson, which is less than three-quarters of a mile wide, serves as an air highway for helicopters, police patrols and small planes.

"That's not a lot of space," said Ray Adams, president of the air-traffic controllers union at Newark Airport. "And it's not unusual at all for us to have 10 to 20 aircraft between the George Washington Bridge and the Statue of Liberty."

Pilots can fly over the Hudson without permission if they stay below 1,100 feet so they don't interfere with jets flying to and from the city's three major airports.

But Dan Rose, a lawyer and pilot who has flown the Hudson, said helicopters should be separated from fixed-wing aircraft to avoid a repeat of Saturday's disaster.

Helicopters should be limited to 500 feet and fixed-wing craft to 1,100, he said.

It's a good idea for someone to manage the airspace, but the air traffic controllers in the region are already overtaxed with the commercial aircraft flying into the three major regional airports - and whose aircraft routinely fly over or near the Hudson at a much higher level.

In addition to the eminently sensible idea of separating fixed wing and helicopter flights by altitude, they should probably institute a corridor on each side of the Hudson to account for North- and South-bound traffic. This way, helicopters and fixed wing aircraft are segregated and the flow managed in a better way, improving safety on the ground and in the air.

The problem is that we still don't know the precise reason why the Piper Cub was in this particular airspace and why there was no communication between the helicopter and the plane.

UPDATE:
Reports indicate that the Piper Cub may have been located under the Hudson River.

UPDATE:

 

The photo shows ongoing efforts by a Coast Guard ship and a NYPD boat in the vicinity of where the plane and helicopter crashed. It was taken from Battery Park City using my Canon Rebel XTi with the Tamron 28-300mm XR Di VC (image stabilizer).

Scary Video Of Southwest Air Flight

Here's video taken by a passenger who was on board a Southwest Airlines airplane when part of the fuselage ripped open, tearing a hole in the roof of the cabin.

A Southwest Airlines 737 aircraft that originated in Nashville made an emergency landing in Charleston after the passenger cabin became depressurized because a hole appeared in the fuselage.

Central West Virginia Regional Airport Authority spokesman Brian Belcher said Flight 2294 was diverted to Yeager Airport and landed shortly after 6:30 p.m. Monday. There were 126 passengers and five crew members on board.

John Benson of Knoxville was on Flight 2294 with his two sons. Benson was planning on taking his sons to New York by way of Baltimore. What was supposed to be a nice family trip, quickly turned into one of the most frightening experiences of his life.

"Literally the whole top of the plane ripped off," Benson said.

Thankfully, no one was injured when the failure occurred at altitude causing a depressurization of the cabin.

It will be interesting to see why the fuselage suffered the failure. Metal fatigue is likely to be faulted. Watch for investigations to focus on maintenance and for the FAA and NTSB to recommend additional checks to look for failures in this area.

Questions Persist Following Boston Metro Crash

Over the weekend, a Boston Metro trolley crashed into another trolley, injuring nearly 50 people and totaled three trolley cars. Word came out that the driver of the vehicle that crashed admitted to text messaging at the time of the accident and had a troublesome record, including multiple tickets and one accident, in which a death occurred (although none of the tickets or the accident would have precluded Quinn from obtaining the job).

Normally, that would be the end of the query, but there's much more to this story, as Jules Crittenden points out. Apparently the driver, Aiden Quinn, was transgendered and originally applied for the job under the name Georgia Quinn.

Never mind the texting, the three speeding tickets and one accident in recent years and the relative youth at 24. Should people who deny fundamental biological facts and claim to be of the opposite gender be entrusted with large public conveyances that carry dozens of commuters? Would it be discriminatory to question their judgment and stability? Should the NTSB be looking at possible medical issues, such as any effect hormone treatments for example might have on behavior, perception and judgment?

Transgender trolley driver/texting crash background at Boston Herald. Discussion of MBTA hiring criteria Boston Globe looks at the youth and driving record issues, mentions the transgender aspect but does not take it into consideration.

The NTSB will definitely examine the medical records and see if the treatment plan (including hormone therapy) may have put lives in jeopardy by causing impairment of judgment. It's in this context that the transgender question will be addressed; I don't expect it to evaluate the question of whether transgendered persons should be allowed to drive or operate mass transit vehicles.