After almost 35 years, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is ending its annual Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements.
The last official last edition of the list was issued in 2023 and, like the 2022 edition, was a repeat of the 2021 list.
This list was the NTSB’s safety advocacy focus since its creation in 1990.
”The Most Wanted List has served the NTSB well as an advocacy tool, especially in the days before social media, but our advocacy efforts must advance,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said in a news release. “Freed from the structure of a formal list, the NTSB can more nimbly advocate for our recommendations and emerging safety issues.”
NTSB’s Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements has improved safety in various areas, according to the board. Those areas include:
- regulations requiring full implementation of positive train control of all railroads and subsequent 100% implementation
- implementation of safety recommendations on fuel tank inerting systems and enactment of the FAA final rule related to the topic
- occupant protection improvements in all modes of transportation, including safety laws requiring specialized car seats for children in passenger vehicles, crashworthiness improvements in helicopter fuel tanks and seat belt laws covering all vehicles that have them, and
- implementation of alcohol-impaired boating laws, requirements for personal flotation devices and requirements for boater education.
Other safety improvements the list helped bring to fruition include those on:
- human fatigue
- runway safety
- alcohol and drug impairment
- shipment of hazardous materials
- rail tank car safety, and
- pipeline leak detection and mitigation.
An archive of the topics on each edition of the list going back to 1990 can be found here.
