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“DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1997” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Transportation was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1257-E1258 on July 11, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT,
1997
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speech of
HON. WILLIAM J. COYNE
of pennsylvania
in the house of representatives
Thursday, June 27, 1996
The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 3675) making appropriations for the Department of Transportation and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1997, and for other purposes:
Mr. COYNE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the work of the House Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee in crafting a fiscal year 1997 Appropriations Committee Report that includes a directive to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA] to more vigorously promote bicycle safety and training. The subcommittee's report included a specific mention of the important field of human factors research relating to bicycle safety measures. To this end, I wish to draw attention to the ground-breaking research underway at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, PA, in collaboration with the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
As I stated in testimony before the House Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee in February, there are over 580,000 bicycle injuries each year in the United States. Of this amount there are approximately 800 fatalities and between 20,000 and 50,000 bicycle injuries serious enough to require hospitalization or rehabilitation. Children between the ages of 5 and 14 are the most common victims of bicycle injury head trauma since they spend a lot of time riding bicycles and often lack on-road bicycle experience. Greater efforts are necessary to insure that children are trained to be safe bicyclists and that the bicycles they ride are appropriate for their ages and abilities.
Safe operation of a bicycle arguably requires more skill, knowledge, physical ability, coordination, and judgment than the operation of a motor vehicle. Taking into consideration the multiple factors necessary for bicycling--motor skills, strength, coordination, vision, hearing, personality, intelligence, neurologic development, experience, and training--more extensive human factors research directed toward answering several key questions is needed: At what stage of development is a child able to perform the necessary tasks and make the proper judgments to safely operate a bicycle? What are the characteristics that differentiate safe from unsafe bicyclists? Can we train children to be safer bicyclists? Should bicycle designs vary depending on the skill and maturation of the child bicycle rider?
As the subcommittee noted in its fiscal year 1997 report, a recent national bicycling and walking study resulted in a recommendation to reduce the number of bicyclists and pedestrians killed or injured by 10 percent. I am pleased to say that the cooperative efforts of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Mellon University will involve the use of state-of-the-art technology and will result in: First, effective prevention programs to reduce traumatic injuries and deaths; second, the introduction of virtual reality as a new means of studying trauma; and, third, the development of new approaches and products for trauma prevention, a national issue, that will provide scientific, intellectual and financial benefits to the Nation.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the effort of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, to pursue in the near future a partnership with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to address the critically important issue of preventing bicycle accidents--especially those involving children. I am pleased that the committee favorably responded to the efforts of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University in urging the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to collaborate with institutes that are conducting human factors research relating to bicycle safety. I believe that the pioneering research to be undertaken by Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon responds to the committee's recommendation and will provide significant benefits to the administration's ongoing work in bicycle safety.
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