Welcome to the Fast Lane: The Official Blog of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation

FMCSA Administrator Hill Shares Safety Message From NASCAR’s Rusty Wallace

This year, Rusty Wallace has been helping us get the word to commercial motor vehicle drivers on the lifesaving importance of wearing safety belts.   A poster and a TV and radio announcement can be downloaded here.

I have asked Rusty to contribute a message specifically for “The Fastlane.” Here’s Rusty in his own words:

Hi everyone, NASCAR Champion Rusty Wallace here, reminding you to always be ready and be buckled. 

Buckling your safety belt only takes a few seconds, but it can save lives and prevent life-changing injuries to you, to your loved ones and to others.

Trust me, I know this first hand.  After flipping down the backstretch at Daytona over 20 times in 1993 and then over 30 times at Talladega the same season, there is no way that I’d be alive to write this today if I didn’t make it a point to buckle up each and every time I get into a vehicle.

Like many of you, our race car transporter drivers are on the road for hundreds of thousands of miles each year and we insist on them being buckled up every single time they get on the road.  As professional drivers, they have to remember that their safety belt not only helps them during a crash, but helps them to avoid a crash, by keeping them in position, behind the wheel and in control.

Look, it’s pretty simple to me; if you don’t buckle up behind the wheel, you’re endangering both yourself and everyone around you.  There‘s no reason not to wear your safety belt. 

In 2006, 805 occupants of large trucks were killed in crashes. If you don’t wear your safety belt, you’re increasing your chances of becoming one of them, it’s that simple.  It’s as black and white as this: if you don’t want to die, wear your safety belt.  Period.

-Rusty

In Case You Missed It

I want to bring two items from the Washington Post to your attention—an article on traffic on Washington-area roads, and an editorial supporting our proposal to auction airline takeoff slots at New York City’s congested airports.

Today’s Post features a front page story on the cost of congestion to the Washington, DC region. The article explains very well the negative effects congestion has not only on quality of life, but on local businesses as well. Our proposal to refocus, reform and renew the nation’s surface transportation system would give communities like Washington the flexibility and resources they need to battle the kind of congestion so vividly described in this article. You can read more about the proposal here.

And this weekend, the Post editorialized in favor of our plan to auction peak takeoff slots in New York airports. Our proposal will keep airfares competitive and service robust at these three busy, and capped, airports by giving airlines a chance to enter the market or expand their current operations. Indeed, in markets like Philadelphia where new airlines have entered the market, the average fare dropped by 25 percent in less than one year. The Post wrote our plan is a “good idea,” and agreed that a preferred takeoff slot is a “commodity that belongs to you, the taxpayer,” and that “airlines should no longer get it free.”

The story and the editorial give further credence to our argument that the way we pay for transportation is at least as important as how much we pay. We can choose to pay for our transportation systems through wasted time, unreliability, pollution, higher taxes and ineffective spending strategies, or we can choose to pay directly and transparently. The latter will usher in a new era of high speed, high tech and clean mobility, while the former will simply produce more economic loss and a declining quality of life.

-Secretary Peters

New Motorcycle Safety Rules

As an avid motorcyclist myself, and as the Secretary of the agency charged with road safety, I’m deeply concerned that the pastime I love has such a troubling safety record. Yearly increases in motorcycle fatalities and injuries have plagued the nation for nearly a decade. Yet we’ve seen a rise in the use of so-called “novelty” helmets, which aren’t safety-test or certified, and which do little to protect riders during an accident.

I’m a rider and I’ve been in a crash where I laid down my bike on the blacktop and my helmet took the impact of the crash.  The safety-tested and certified helmet I was wearing, which is battered and bruised and will never be used again, sits in my office as a reminder that it could have been my head that suffered those blows.

The simple lesson is this:  If you’re a rider like me, you’ve got to take responsibility for wearing the right gear, including a DOT certified helmet, so you don’t end up as a brain injury patient.

That’s why today, we’re proposing new safety rules to make it harder for vendors to sell unsafe novelty helmets or for riders to get away with wearing them. Our ultimate goal is to make it easier for riders to know in advance whether the helmet they buy will keep them safe.

We are proposing to do that by requiring manufacturers to place a larger, tamper-proof DOT label on the back of certified helmets that have been through a range of safety tests.  That’s because we’ve seen many cases of people putting fake DOT stickers on novelty helmets that don’t pass muster on safety.  Trust me, I’ve seen the cross section of one of these novelty helmets and you don’t want to be relying on one to protect you in an accident. 

Importantly, our proposal would also strengthen the tests helmets must go through to receive DOT certification, including updated tests on how the helmets hold up during impact, whether objects can penetrate the helmet and how well the helmet stays in place during a crash.

There’s a good reason for the safety changes we’re proposing today.    In fact, fatalities have more than doubled since 1997--increasing by 144 percent.  Motorcycles account for about 3 percent of the vehicles on the road, but they represent 13 percent of all crashes. Yet new data indicate that nearly one in five motorcycle riders in states with helmet laws wear a non-compliant helmet.

Ultimately, safety begins with the riders themselves.  Riders must do more to protect themselves by taking personal responsibility for their own safety, including wearing a DOT certified helmet.

You know, the good news is that more Americans than ever are experiencing the freedom of the open road through motorcycling.  It’s a great feeling to gear up for what might be a quick commute or a longer pleasure ride, to feel the wind in your face and see the blacktop stretching into the distance before you. That’s why I love it and that’s why I ride.  So to all those riders who love it as much as I do, I say gear up and ride safe. 

-Secretary Peters

Learning from Innovators in Action

The Reason Foundation has just come out with a new publication that provides valuable insight into how creative leaders across the nation are tackling traffic and infrastructure problems. Even as we encourage the debate on reforming, refocusing, and renewing surface transportation policy in America, these Innovators in Action are demonstrating better and more sustainable ways to fund, build, and operate infrastructure. In their own words, leaders like the late Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Rick Williamson, Texas Governor Rick Perry, and King County (WA) Executive Ron Sims talk about the fresh approaches they’re using to build roads, replace bridges, and expand transit.

You can find their thought-provoking contributions by clicking on the links below:

• Texas Gov. Rick Perry:  Extensive Challenges Call for Visionary Solutions
• Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson:  Reflections of a Texas Transportation Trailblazer
• King County Executive Ron Sims:  New Tools for Driving Change

Full Report:  2008 Innovators in Action

• Press Release

--Secretary Peters

In Case You Missed It: Star Telegram Editorial on DOT Aircraft Inspection Efforts

As the guardians of the most complex air traffic system in the world, Secretary Peters and the Department are continually finding ways to better our nation’s aviation system.  As this editorial in the Fort Worth Star Telegram notes, we are committed to long term reform of the inspection system, and safety will always be our number one priority.

-Deputy Secretary Barrett