In March, the Senate received testimony from the Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board about some transportation related dangers that you should know about. In this episode, hear testimony about those dangers, including those posed by airborne tourism companies, electric vehicles, and self driving technology. You will also hear a stunning NTSB finding about a likely profit-prioritization decision of railroad company Norfolk Southern, which unnecessarily lead to the poisoning of East Palestine, OH. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPalSupport Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode)Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.comSend Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-BrineySend Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.comUse your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536. Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! View the show notes on our website at https://congressionaldish.com/cd293-ntsb-transportation-safety-warnings Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD274: Norfolk Southern Train Derailment in East Palestine CD251: BIF: Driving Dangers Sustained CD240: BIF The Infrastructure BILL Traffic Fatalities “Crash*Stats: Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2023,” [Report No. DOT HS 813 561]. National Center for Statistics and Analysis. April 2024. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Helicopter Crashes “Failure of FAA to Implement NTSB Recommendations Contributed to Fatal Air Tour Helicopter Crash, NTSB Says.” May 10, 2022. National Transportation Safety Board. “Collision into Terrain Safari Aviation Inc. Airbus AS350 B2, N985SA.” n.d. National Transportation Safety Board. Audio Sources National Transportation Safety Board Investigations Report March 6, 2024 Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation Witnesses: Jennifer Homendy, Chair, National Transportation Safety Board Clips 1:17:00 Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO): I did have some questions. I know that Senator Fisher mentioned some of this earlier as relates to electric vehicles. The weight of some of these vehicles, including, I know you mentioned the battery alone can be the weight of a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla, and so there's certainly safety issues there. It relates to guardrails and other vehicles on the road. You would agree with that, right? Jennifer Homendy: Yes. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO): There's also issues, I wanna talk about our infrastructure too. The weight of these vehicles, the strain that it can have on parking garages, roads, and bridges. The amount of money that will be expended to either reinforce or repair. Who is looking at this? Because we have a mandate for auto manufacturers to produce 50% of their fleet to be electric vehicles by 2030. I know there's a new rule in the works to have that number increased. I don't know if it's 65% or 75% by 2032, that's being considered. So it seems to me we're entering this phase as it relates to these mandates for electric vehicles and all of these repercussions, all of these ancillary concerns, I don't know who's addressing it, so I'm asking you, are you guys looking at this? Who is looking at this? Because this seems to be a disaster on the horizon for the American people and our infrastructure, but I don't hear a lot of talk about it. Jennifer Homendy: Thank you, Senator. I have raised this consistently over the past year and a half, starting with a transportation research board where I raised concerns with respect to increasing size and weight of all vehicles, but particularly the weight of electric vehicles that we really needed to look at the safety impact, not just on crashes, but to our infrastructure as well, and protecting people. The whole reason why we have a guardrail is to protect people when there is a crash. Yet it wouldn't withstand some of the crashes with some of these high weights of heavy vehicles, including heavy electric vehicles as was demonstrated by the University of Nebraska. Somebody needs to take action here. We have repeatedly flagged it. It is within the Department of Transportation's purview to do that, and I encourage them strongly to get ahead of it. We're behind right now. 1:23:20 Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO): As it relates to first responders who are responding to crashes that lithium batteries are involved with, what is your take on the safety for our first responders as they're responding to these EV crashes? Jennifer Homendy: It's a significant danger. We issued a report just a few years ago raising concerns regarding a number of crashes that we investigated involving electric vehicles and the risk to emergency responders from stranded energy inside the battery and components and the significant potential for shock. We also raised concerns with...
