Transportation Event Recorder Data: Balancing Federal Public Policy and Privacy Rights

The public interest in gathering data from event recorders can be harmonized with the ownership rights which railroads have in such data. If railroad safety is to be advanced in our nation, data available from event recorders on trains involved in major accidents must be provided to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Railroad Administration. Railroad safety is enhanced through analysis of valid event recorder data. Existing law governing the production of event recorder data should be clarified, however, to facilitate a railroad's immediate use of event recorder data and to minimize service delays. Railroads are sometimes prevented from retrieving event recorder data immediately following an accident because federal investigators believe they are authorized to order railroads not to touch anything involved in the accident, including event recorder data, until they arrive. Existing law allows NTSB to conduct investigations without interfering with railroad operations. The same law instructs NTSB to conduct investigations in any manner designed to preserve all evidence to the maximum extent feasible, and mandates the cooperation of railroads. NTSB's contradictory regulations lead to frequent misunderstandings between railroads and NTSB during the response to many major accidents. This article briefly discusses this issue as it relates to event recorder data, and recommends clarification in NTSB regulations.

• Record URL:
  http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/1999/rp9901.pdf
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  National Transportation Safety Board

  490 L'Enfant Plaza, SW
  Washington, DC  United States  20594

  International Transportation Safety Association

  Apeldoorn,   Netherlands 
• Authors:
  • Evans, Gregory L
• Conference:
  • Transportation Recording: 2000 and Beyond. International Symposium on Transportation Recorders
  • Location: Arlington VA, United States
  • Date: 1999-5-3 to 1999-5-5
• Publication Date: 1999

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Pagination: 4p
• Monograph Title: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Transportation Recorders. Transportation Recording: 2000 and Beyond, May 3-5, 1999, Arlington, Virginia

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash data; Crash investigation; Data analysis; Event data recorders; Federal government agencies; Intergovernmental relations; Laws; Legal rights; Policy; Privacy; Railroad crashes; Railroad safety; Regulations
• Identifier Terms: U.S. Federal Railroad Administration; U.S. National Transportation Safety Board
• Subject Areas: Law; Policy; Railroads; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01088046
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jan 30 2008 11:55AM