NTSB nat trans NHTSA highway safety
The Trump administration, however, has accelerated domestic fossil fuel production and sought to reverse most of the curbs on greenhouse gas emissions adopted under President Barack Obama. Last year theNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration published an analysis predicting that global temperature rise could reach 4 degrees Celsius, or 7 degrees Fahrenheit, by 2100 under the government’s current trajectory.
wapo
AN 3 26
The White House was a revolving door during Donald Trump's first presidency, which found him clashing with many of his appointees and announcing their firings on social media. Firings of administration officials, however, haven't been nearly as common during Trump's second term, as he has made a point of surrounding himself with MAGA loyalists. But on Thursday, March 5, the news broke that Trump was firing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and nominating Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma).
Noem wasn't the only one who was fired that week. CBS News reported that Todd Inman had been fired the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
In a statement to CBS News, Inman said he learned he was being fired on March 6. And details on possible reasons why he was fired emerged on March 9.
"To date," Inman told CBS News on March 8, "I have not received any reason for this termination."
But CBS News' Jennifer Jacobs, on March 9, tweeted, "NEWS: White House is citing use of alcohol on the job, harassment of staff, misuse of govt resources as reasons Todd Inman removed from National Transportation Safety Board, per @CBSNews @emmacnicholso . Inman was the NTSB's initial on-scene spokesman at midair collision in D.C. He said Sunday he hadn't been given reason for dismissal."
Inman served in the U.S. Department of Transportation during Trump's first presidency, reporting to then-Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao (who is married to former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell).
Inman, on March 8, referenced the aviation disasters that occurred during his time on the NTSB.
Inman told CBS News, "Having been the member on scene for two of the largest aviation incidents in the past two decades, working with all of the impacted families and first responders has made me appreciate how the original mission of the NTSB is more crucial now than ever before. Witnessing these horrible accidents have undoubtedly taken a toll on me and my family and has changed my perspective in a positive way on how we regulate safety for the traveling public."
Inman's firing is generating a lot of comments on X.
Inside Elections' Nathan Gonzales tweeted, "Kind of interesting reasoning in light of news about another Cabinet official."
Business consultant John Hochroth posted, "Are they firing him because he did these things, or because he didn't do enough of them?"
X user Jocelyn Johnson remarked, "Real reason for his dismissal: he refused to blame DEI for the crash."
Another X user, Piper Holmes, wrote, "So basically we’ll never know why he was fired. (It's not like this administration is ever truthful)."
mer 2001, twenty-six states had set their BAC limits at .08. According to the Insurance Information Institute, 16,068 people were killed in 2000 in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes, a 1.8 percent increase over 1999, and alcohol continues to be a factor in 38 percent of all traffic fatalities. Proponents of .08 BAC laws believe that these statistics demonstrate the need for stronger deterrence and prevention measures to continue the progress being made against drunk driving. MADD contends that the level of intoxication permitted by states with .10 BAC laws allows for dangerously impaired driving, and that adopting the .08 BAC limit in every state will save over 500 lives each year. Explains MADD, “The vast majority of drivers, even experienced drinkers, are significantly impaired at .08 with regard to critical driving tasks such as braking, steering, changing lanes, divided attention tasks, and judgement. . . . If every state adopted a .08 BAC . . . law, hundreds of lives would be saved every year, with thousands of injuries prevented and millions of dollars saved.” An April 1999 study of all fifty states conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) confirmed MADD’s assertions. It compared states with .08 BAC laws to states with .10 BAC laws before and after the laws were passed. The study found that states that passed .08 BAC laws reduced the involvement of drunk drivers in fatalities by 8 percent. It also estimated that 274 lives had been saved in states that had passed .08 BAC laws and that if all fifty states enacted .08 BAC laws, 590 lives could be saved each year. Supporters of .08 BAC also value the det
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not dangerously impaired after reaching .08 BAC and that the overwhelming majority of alcohol-related fatalities are caused by drivers with BAC levels much higher than .08. Supporters of this view, ranging from trade associations for the alcohol, bar, and restaurant industries to individuals concerned with protecting civil liberties, assert that instead of preventing drunk driving fatalities, .08 BAC laws result in the arrest of responsible social drinkers. Argues Eric Peters, a nationally syndicated automotive columnist, “Studies . . . have found that most alcohol-related crashes involve motorists with BAC levels of 0.12 or higher. These ‘super drunk’ motorists are the ones doing the damage—yet the social drinker is taking most of the flack. The majority of drivers arrested for ‘driving under the influence’ . . . were not driving erratically or giving any evidence of impairment.”
By wasting time arresting harmless motorists, police enforcement of .08 BAC does little to solve the problem of chronic drunk drivers with high BACs. MADD’s founder Candy Lightner, who left the organization in the mid-1980s and went to work as a lobbyist against .08 BAC laws for the American Beverage Institute in 1994,agrees with Peters. She has said that “police ought to be concentrating their resources on arresting drunk drivers—not those drivers who happen to have been drinking. I worry that the movement I helped create has lost direction.”
Civil libertarians are troubled by the fact that .08 BAC laws establish an arbitrary level at which a driver is presumed to be drunk—particularly since that level is one that many people reach after consuming two or three drinks. These critics point out that many factors affect a person’s reaction to alcohol, including their weight, metabolism, and how much they have had to eat. In addition, driver impairment is not solely caused by the consumption of alcohol. Explains Jim Holt, a philosophy and public policy writer for the Wall Street Journal, “Drivers talking on cell phones ... have the same accident rate as drivers with a blood alcohol level of 0.10%. . . . Elderly drivers are more deadly still. . . . Clearly there are many ‘impaired’ drivers on the road who present a far greater peril than do drivers with a blood alcohol level between 0.08% and 0.10%.” For these reasons, drivers with .08 BACs should be punished only if they cause an actual accident or commit traffic violations like speeding or running a red light, according to Holt.