事情发生的经过: After an unusually in-depth stakeholder meeting with industry representatives, officials at the Department of 运输 (DOT) ordered the removal of scientific research and science-based recommendations from an agency report. The DOT report had examined the research on truck collusions and had provided recommendations on how to regulate trucks to reduce the risk of death for pedestrians and cyclists hit by trucks.
为什么重要: When agency officials overstep their boundaries and delete scientific evidence from a report, they are placing politics above science and undermining the scientific research generated by agency researchers. Without the best available science to guide DOT decisionmaking on the safety of commercial trucks, 在这个过程中，公众的安全受到了威胁.
In 2018, officials at the Department of 运输 (DOT) required that agency researchers 删除617888九五至尊娱乐语言 from a report that examined how to reduce fatalities when pedestrians and cyclists are hit by commercial trucks. 具体地说, 交通部的报告建议这样做, 基于617888九五至尊娱乐, the DOT should issue federal regulations that required trucks to install a safety device called a side guard. 侧护是由塑料制成的装置, 铝, or steel that hang between the truck’s front and rear wheels and prevent pedestrians and cyclists from tumbling beneath the vehicles and getting crushed. 虽然它们在美国并没有被广泛使用, side guards are required to be installed on trucks in dozens of countries.
在一个非常不寻常的过程中, DOT officials met repeatedly with representatives from the nation’s largest trade group for trucking companies, 美国卡车运输协会, 讨论未发表的研究. The industry group repeatedly pressured DOT officials to alter the scientific report. 在其中一次会议之后, 2018年12月, the DOT official who was overseeing the report process emailed the DOT researchers and 写了以下内容, “PLEASE delete any mention of a recommendation to develop … any regulation. An industry standard is acceptable, but no mention of ‘regulation.负责监督这个项目的交通部主管, Quon关颖珊, stated the department’s deference to the trucking industry ultimately contributed to his retirement in 2019.
类似的担忧也出现在另一种， 较重的侧护板 that is designed to prevent cars and other passenger vehicles from getting wedged beneath large commercial trucks during roadway collisions. 几十年来,, federal regulators have ignored credible scientific research to install these 较重的侧护板s and the trucking industry has repeatedly lobbied the federal government against regulating the installation of these safety devices.
另外, a career official from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 从交通部报告中删除了侧边防护的关键语言. 基于行业分析, the NHTSA official argued that side guards would cost too much and would not save many lives. DOT researchers responded by carrying out their own analysis and found that side guards had the potential to save the lives of up to 52 people every year, 远远超过行业分析得出的结论.
由于交通部和国家公路交通安全管理局官员的干涉, the final version of the DOT report was about half the length of the original document produced by the agency researchers and contained no recommendations at all. 由于这种干扰, the best available scientific evidence was not able to be released in the DOT report and therefore could not be used to save people’s lives.