Written by admin on Feb 1st, 2008 | Filed under:
Everyday Average Douchebags
Let the driver beware. According to an msnbc.com analysis of newly released records from the National Bridge Inventory which include inspections through 2006, several failures were noted in federal oversight of the system designed to ensure the safety of travelers crossing the nation’s bridges:
· The Federal Highway Administration has allowed states to take advantage of a loophole in federal regulations, delaying bridge inspections to every four years instead of the two years normally required. While most states don’t use this loophole, calling it unsafe, others drive a truck through it: Nationally, 30,000 bridges are listed on the delayed-inspection schedules, including 10,000 in Illinois alone and more than 3,000 on interstate highways.
· Bridges in poor condition have been allowed on these delayed timetables in violation of federal guidelines. Although federal and state officials are bound by law to closely monitor the schedules, their own records show thousands of bridges on delayed-inspection schedules — despite being too decayed, too long or too heavily traveled to qualify.
· “Fracture-critical” bridges (like the Minneapolis bridge that collapsed in August killing 13 people), which could collapse if one part fails, have remained on delayed-inspection schedules in violation of federal regulations. The records show 622 of these vulnerable bridges on four-year timetables.
· Even after the deadly collapse in Minneapolis, the haphazard system of inspections continued, with federal authorities choosing not to require re-inspection of more than 18,000 fracture-critical bridges. In a survey of every state by msnbc.com, only five states and the District of Columbia said they began to recheck all their fracture-critical bridges. The rest checked only the few hundred bridges of the particular deck-truss design used in Minneapolis.
· Federal agencies that own bridges have some of the worst records for on-time inspections. Nearly 3,000 bridges owned by U.S. government agencies went more than two years between checkups.
Needless to say, I won’t be taking a scenic drive through Illinois anytime soon.