WASHINGTON – Safety investigators were told the pilot in the worst U.S. air crash in more than seven years had trouble learning a critical computer system of the plane he was flying.

National Transportation Safety Board records released Tuesday say investigators were told by one training instructor that Flight 3407′s captain “was slow learning” the Dash 8-Q400 Bombardier, a twin-engine turboprop. But it said that pilot Marvin Renslow’s abilities “picked up at the end.”

The training instructor said Renslow struggled to learn the Dash 8′s flight management system, a critical computer.

On Feb. 12, Flight 3407 experienced an aerodynamic stall on approach to Buffalo in icy conditions and plunged into a house, killing all 49 people aboard and one man on the ground.

WASHINGTON – Six-year-old Joshua Woods was singing Christmas songs on Dec. 8, 2005, when a runaway plane at Chicago’s Midway Airport crashed through a fence and collided with his family’s car, killing the boy. The tragedy underscores what the government says is an urgent safety problem.

Eleven major airports are struggling to meet federal requirements that runways be surrounded by safety areas that give runaway planes extra room to stop, according to a new report from the Transportation Department’s inspector general. The airports account for nearly one quarter of the nation’s air passenger travel.

All the airports have been working for years to come up with solutions, but often there’s no place to send runaway planes because the airports are hemmed in by highways, water, buildings or other obstructions.

The airports are located in Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, N.C., Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco and Washington. Midway made safety improvements two years after Woods’ death.

Between 1997 and 2007, 75 aircraft overran or veered off runways, resulting in nearly 200 injuries and 12 deaths, the report said. In just three of the accidents cited in the report, 80 injuries and Woods’ death could have been prevented if safety improvements to runways made after the accidents had been in place beforehand, report said.

Safety areas typically are 1,000 feet long and 500 feet wide at each end of a runway, plus 250 feet along both sides of the runway.

The Federal Aviation Administration has allowed some airports that don’t have enough room for full-size safety areas to install crunchable concrete beds called “engineered material arresting systems” at the ends of runways. The beds are designed to stop or slow planes, not unlike the way gravel-covered ramps on highways stop runaway trucks.

The beds are typically about 600 feet long instead of 1,000 feet, saving space. Beds at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport have already halted three runaway planes. But even that requires more room than is feasible at some airports.

The report said some of the 11 airports may not be able to meet a congressional deadline of 2015 to put runway safety areas in place. Putting safety areas in place can require filling in wetlands, requiring environmental reviews that can take as long as 12 years to complete. Community opposition to airport expansion because of noise concerns has also been a factor.

“Until these challenges and problems are addressed, aircraft will remain vulnerable to damage and, what is more important, their passengers remain at risk of potential injury from flights that undershoot, overrun or veer off a runway lacking a standard (runway safety area),” the report said. “Improvements need to be made at the 11 large airports sooner rather than later.”

The FAA has already spent $2 billion helping hundreds of airports put runway safety areas in place, said Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the agency. In addition to the roughly $300 million budgeted annually for the program, the economic stimulus plan pushed by President Barack Obama contains millions of extra dollars, she said.

“We’re working with all these airports to see if we can do all these things as quickly as possible,” Brown said.

Chris Oswald, vice president for safety and technical operations at the Airports Council International-North America, which represents airports in the United States and Canada, said runway safety areas are one of the most difficult problems facing urban airports.

“You are talking about very significant geographic impediments to expanding runway safety areas,” Oswald said.

Reagan National Airport outside Washington, for example, is sandwiched between the Potomac River and the George Washington Parkway. The airport has been reluctant to install a crunchable concrete bed because periodic flooding could damage the system, the report said.

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ON THE WEB

Transportation Department’s inspector general: www.oig.dot.gov/

Federal Aviation Administration: www.faa.gov/

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MAJOR AIRPORTS

Eleven major airports face significant hurdles to meeting federal standards for safety areas around runways, according to a report by the Transportation Department’s Office of Inspector General.

• Baltimore Washington International-Thurgood Marshall Airport. Safety areas around all four of the airport’s runways need to be improved. The airport is working on the issue in connection with development of a long-range master plan.

• Boston Logan International Airport. The safety area around one runway is inadequate. Constrained by Boston Harbor and urban development, the airport has installed a smaller than standard crunchable concrete pad designed to slow or halt runaway planes as an interim measure. Airport officials are studying extending the runway by filling in part of the harbor and then adding a full-size pad.

• Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, N.C. Two runway safety areas are inadequate. The airport is installing a crunchable pad, but it is waiting for the project’s completion before deciding what to do about the other runway, which is constrained by a parkway and railroad tracks.

• Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood Airport in Florida. Three runway safety areas are inadequate, but they are constrained by canals, an interstate highway and railroad tracks. One runway has been improved with a partial and a full crunchable pad, but there are still some safety concerns. There are plans to extend a second runway; the third runway may be decommissioned.

• John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Three runway safety areas are inadequate. The airport is constrained by Jamaica Bay, roads and wetlands. One runway safety area project is under way. Improvements to the other two runway safety areas have to be done in turns so as not to increase congestion at the airport. Together, the projects may take more than seven years to complete.

• LaGuardia Airport in New York. Two runway safety areas are inadequate. Partial crunchable pads have been installed, but final improvements, including extending runway decks over Flushing Bay, present engineering challenges and could take more than eight years to complete.

• Los Angeles International Airport. Two runway safety areas are inadequate, but are constrained by roads, urban development and environmentally sensitive areas. Improvements have been delayed by legal battles involving the airport’s master plan.

• Philadelphia International Airport. Two runway safety areas are inadequate. The airport is constrained by two rivers, an interstate highway, a dredge disposal site and an industrial area. A draft environmental review is expected this year on one improvement project, but the airport still needs to reach an agreement on how to mitigate damage to wetlands to move forward on the second runway safety area.

• Phoenix Sky Harbor International. One runway safety area is inadequate. The airport is bordered by a river and urban development. The city is working on a plan to install a complete runway safety area.

• Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C. All three of the airport’s runway safety areas are inadequate. The airport is constrained by a parkway and the Potomac River. The airport plans to improve one runway safety area by extending the runway. It has not yet decided how to improve the other two safety areas.

• San Francisco International Airport. All four of the airport’s runway safety areas are inadequate. The airport is constrained by San Francisco Bay and a highway. The airport is still studying the problem, but tentative plans call for reducing landing distances on two runways. It may be impracticable to bring up the two other runways to federal standards.

Air Traffic Control Specialist Patrick Harten (right), is all smiles as US Airways flight 1549 Capt. Chesley B Sullenberger III (left) and First Officer Jeffrey B. Skiles, center, arrive on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday to testify before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Harten was the air traffic controller who was in contact with US Airways 1549 as it landed in the Hudson River.

WASHINGTON – The air traffic controller who handled Flight 1549 thought ditching in the Hudson River amounted to a death sentence for all aboard. Now the veteran pilot who pulled off the feat safely says harsh pay cuts are driving experienced pilots from the cockpit.

“People don’t survive landings on the Hudson River,” 10-year veteran controller Patrick Harten told the House aviation subcommittee Tuesday in his first public description of how he tried to land the jetliner that lost power in both jets when it hit Canada geese after takeoff from New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

“I thought it was his own death sentence,” Harten said of the moment when US Airways pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger radioed that he was going into the river. Defying the odds, Sullenberger delicately glided the Airbus A320 down in one piece and all 155 people aboard survived the Jan. 15 water landing.

Sullenberger, a 58-year-old who joined a US Airways predecessor in 1980, and his copilot, Jeffrey B. Skiles, told the panel that experienced pilots are quitting because of deep cuts in their pay and benefits.

Skiles said unless federal laws are revised to improve labor-management relations “experienced crews in the cockpit will be a thing of the past.” Sullenberger added that without experienced pilots “we will see negative consequences to the flying public.”

Harten, the 35-year-old controller, riveted the hearing with his account of the 3.5 minutes during which he spoke with the crippled jetliner after the bird strike at an altitude of 2,750 feet.

When Sullenberger said he couldn’t make it either back to LaGuardia or to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and would ditch in the river that separates New York and New Jersey, Harten testified, “I believed at that moment I was going to be the last person to talk to anyone on that plane alive.”

But Sullenberger safely glided the jetliner into the water near ferry boats that picked the passengers off the plane’s wings before it sank in icy waters.

Harten, who has spent his entire career at the radar facility in Westbury, N.Y., that handles air traffic within 40 miles of three major airports, struggled vainly to help guide the airliner to a landing strip.

In lightning-quick decisions, Harten communicated with 14 people after the bird strike to divert other airplanes and advise controllers elsewhere to hold aircraft and clear runways for 1549.

First, Harten tried to return the plane to LaGuardia, asking the airport’s tower to clear runway 13. But Sullenberger calmly reported: “We’re unable.”

Then Harten offered another LaGuardia runway. Again, Sullenberger reported, “Unable.” He said he might be able to make Teterboro.

But when Harten directed Sullenberger to turn toward Teterboro, the pilot responded: “We can’t do it …. We’re going to be in the Hudson.”

“I asked him to repeat himself even though I heard him just fine,” said Harten. “I simply could not wrap my mind around those words.”

At that moment, Harten said he lost radio contact with flight and was certain it “had gone down.”

“During the emergency itself, I was hyper-focused,” Harten said. “I had no choice but to think and act quickly and remain calm. But when it was over it hit me hard.”

Harten was replaced at the radarscope after the plane went down. Isolated down the hall, Harten thought the worst had happened. “It felt like hours” before he learned everyone survived.

Afterward, Harten told his wife, “I felt like I had been hit by a bus.”

Sullenberger testified that his pay has been cut 40 percent in recent years and his pension has been terminated and replaced with a promise “worth pennies on the dollar” from the federally created Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. These cuts followed a wave of airline bankruptcies after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks compounded by the current recession, he said.

He said the problems began with deregulation of the industry in the 1970s. Then “the bankruptcies were used by some as a fishing expedition to get what they could not get in normal times,” Sullenberger said of the airlines.

The reduced compensation has placed “pilots and their families in an untenable financial situation,” Sullenberger said. “I do not know a single professional airline pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps.”

Sullenberger himself has started a consulting business to help make ends meet. Skiles added, “For the last six years, I have worked seven days a week between my two jobs just to maintain a middle class standard of living.”

Investigators have found remains of Canada geese in both engines of Flight 1549.

Sullenberger and Skiles said bird strikes are common but this one was exceptional in knocking out both engines. This “was a bigger bird than I’ve ever hit before,” Skiles said.

The bird problem has been growing. Since 1990, the number of Canada geese that live year-round in the country rather than migrating has grown from 1 million to 3.9 million, John E. Ostrom, chairman of the Bird Strike Committee-USA, testified.

Mark Reis, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport managing director, said radar being testing at his airport can detect birds but the ability to process the information quickly enough to help pilots won’t come “any time soon.”

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ON THE WEB

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee: transportation.house.gov

By Joan Lowy, Michael J. Sniffen

NTSB inspectors examine the wreckage of US Airways Flight 1549 as it sits on a barge at Weeks Marina in Jersey City, N.J. on Monday.

WASHINGTON – The US Airways jetliner that crashed into New York’s Hudson River last week experienced an engine compressor failure two days earlier, federal safety investigators said Monday.

National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson said the board’s examination of the Airbus 320′s maintenance records show “there was an entry in the aircraft’s maintenance log that indicates a compressor stall occurred on Jan. 13.” The compressor, or fan, draws air into the engine.

He said the flight had a different pilot that day, and the board planned to interview that pilot to learn more about the incident.

NTSB investigators so far have not uncovered “any anomalies or malfunctions with Flight 1549 from the time it left the gate at LaGuardia Airport on Jan. 15 to the point the pilot reported a birdstrike and loss of engine power,” Knudson said. Pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger was able to glide to plane to an emergency river landing and there were no fatalities.

CNN reported Monday that passengers on the Flight 1549 that left LaGuardia Airport on Jan. 13 reported hearing loud bangs followed by an announcement from the pilot that the aircraft was either returning to LaGuardia or going to try to land — there were differing accounts of the pilot’s statements.

However, passengers said that a short time later the situation appeared to return to normal and the flight continued on to Charlotte, N.C., CNN said.

It’s not unusual for a flight to continue on to its destination after a compressor stall if the engine returns to normal functioning.

The probe into the crash-landing of the US Airways jetliner will take a year, and the lessons learned from the spectacular accident will last much longer, Robert Benzon, a senior NTSB investigator, said.

“I think this one is going to be studied for decades,” said Benzon, chief investigator on the case.

Benzon said the fact that all 155 people aboard the plane survived removes the guilt and finger-pointing that sometimes accompany aviation accidents. He said lessons learned from the successful ditching into the Hudson River could improve air safety.

“In one like this, I think there’s potential for a lot of good to come out of it, long-term good,” he said.

The airliner was at a New Jersey salvage yard Monday, where it was being guarded by company workers, federal investigators and New York City police.

“I was surprised at how intact the plane was,” said James Marchioni, a manager at Weeks Marine in Jersey City, N.J. “There were some bottom panels that were damaged. Other than that, it looked pretty good.”

Marchioni said the NTSB estimated it would take “a week or two” to disassemble the plane so the parts can be shipped to an undisclosed location for closer examination.

The search for the plane’s missing left engine was suspended until Tuesday because ice floes in the river made it too dangerous to put divers or special sonar equipment in the water.

Sullenberger has been lauded for safely landing the plane in the frigid river after both engines shutdown less than two minutes after takeoff.

President-elect Barack Obama said Monday he had spoken with the California pilot, who told him, “Me and my crew, we were just doing our job.’

“And it made me think, if everybody did their job — whatever that job was — as well as that pilot did his job, we’d be in pretty good shape,” Obama said. Sullenberger, his crew and family were invited by Obama to attend Tuesday’s inauguration.

The five-member crew, including three flight attendants, has been besieged for media interviews. The crew and the airline released separate statements Monday pleading for privacy.

The crew said they “wish to offer their sincere thanks and appreciation for the overwhelming support, praise and well wishes they have received from the public around the world since the events of last Thursday.”

They said they are willing to do media interviews “when the time is right.”

The airline said it was “extremely proud of the professional crew of Flight 1549,” but said that it and union leaders would “determine when media interviews are appropriate.”

The crew did speak with the NTSB, and Benzon said investigators would spend much time analyzing the crew’s choices.

Associated Press writers Larry Neumeister in New York, Ben Feller in Washington and Wayne Parry in New Jersey contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON – A 50 percent increase in gasoline and diesel fuel taxes is being urged by a federal commission to finance highway construction and repair until the government devises another way for motorists to pay for using public roads.

The National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing, a 15-member panel created by Congress, is the second group in a year to call for higher fuel taxes.

With motorists driving less and buying less fuel, the current 18.4 cents a gallon gas tax and 24.4 cents a gallon diesel tax fail to raise enough to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs.

In a report expected in late January, members of the infrastructure financing commission say they will urge Congress to raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon and the diesel fuel tax by 12 to 15 cents a gallon. At the same time, the commission will recommend tying the fuel tax rates to inflation.

The commission will also recommend that states raise their fuel taxes and make greater use of toll roads and fees for rush-hour driving.

A tax increase on this order would be politically treacherous for Democratic leaders in Congress — a gas tax hike was one of the reasons they lost control of the House and Senate in the 1994 elections. President-elect Barack Obama has expressed concern about raising gas taxes in the current economic climate. But commission members said the government must find the money somewhere.

“I’m not excited about a gas tax increase, but the reality is our current gas tax doesn’t pay for upkeep of the system we have now,” said Adrian Moore, vice president of the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank in Los Angeles, and a member of the highway revenue commission. “We can either let the roads go to hell or we can pay more.”

The dilemma for Congress is that highway and transit programs are dependent for revenue on fuel taxes that are not sustainable. Many Americans are driving less and switching to more fuel-efficient cars and trucks, and a shift to new fuels and technologies like plug-in hybrid electric cars will further erode gasoline sales.

According to a draft of the financing commission’s recommendations, the nation needs to move to a new system that taxes motorists according to how much they use roads.

“Most if not all of the commissioners have a strong belief and commitment that we need a fundamental transformation of the current system,” said commission chairman Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a technology policy think tank in Washington.

A study by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies estimated that the annual gap between revenues and the investment needed to improve highway and transit systems was about $105 billion in 2007, and will increase to $134 billion in 2017 under current trends.

Projected shortfalls in revenue led the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, in a report issued in January 2008, to call for an increase of as much as 40 cents a gallon in the gas tax, phased in over five years.

Charles Whittington, chairman of the American Trucking Associations, which supports a fuel tax increase as long as the money goes to highway projects, said Congress may decide to disguise a fuel tax hike as a surcharge to combat climate change.

Transportation is responsible for about a third of all U.S. carbon emissions created by burning fossil fuels. Traffic congestion wastes an estimated 2.9 billion gallons of fuel a year. Less congestion would reduce greenhouse gases and dependence on foreign oil.

“Instead of calling it a gas tax, call it a carbon tax,” Whittington said. “As long as we label it as something else we may have the momentum and acceptance to move forward.”

Bottlenecks around the nation cost the trucking industry about 243 million lost truck hours and about $7.8 billion per year, according to the commission.

The financing commission thinks the long-term solution is a mileage-based revenue system. While details have not been worked out, such a system would mean equipping every car and truck with a device that uses global positioning satellites and transponders to record how many miles the vehicle has been driven, the type of roads and time of day. Creation and installation of such a system would take about 10 years.

Moore said commission members were initially concerned that using technology to track driving might violate drivers’ privacy, but they’ve been assured that such a system could be designed to prevent vehicles from being “tracked in some big brotherish way.”

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On the Web

financecommission.dot.gov/index.htm

A 50 percent increase in gasoline and diesel fuel taxes is being urged by a federal commissiion to finance highway construction and repair until a government devises another way for motorists to pay for using public roads.

WASHINGTON – Motorists are driving less and buying less gasoline, which means fuel taxes aren’t raising enough money to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs.

A federal commission created by Congress to find a way to make up the growing revenue shortfall in the program that funds highway repairs and construction is talking about increasing federal gas and diesel taxes.

A roughly 50 percent increase in gasoline and diesel fuel taxes is being urged by the commission until the government devises another way for motorists to pay for using public roads.

The 15-member National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing is the second group in a year to call for increasing the current 18.4 cents a gallon federal tax on gasoline and the 24.4 cents a gallon tax on diesel. State fuel taxes vary from state to state.

In a report expected in late January, members of the infrastructure financing commission say they will urge Congress to raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon and the diesel tax by about 12 cents to 15 cents a gallon. At the same time, the commission will recommend tying the fuel tax rates to inflation.

The commission will also recommend that states raise their fuel taxes and make greater use of toll roads and fees for rush-hour driving.

Although the cost of gasoline has dropped dramatically in recent months, such tax increases could be politically treacherous for Democratic leaders in Congress. A gas tax hike was one of the reasons they lost control of the House and Senate in the 1994 elections. President-elect Barack Obama has expressed concern about raising fuel taxes in the current economic climate.

But commission members said the government must find more road and bridge building money somewhere.

“I’m not excited about a gas tax increase, but the reality is our current gas tax doesn’t pay for upkeep of the system we have now,” said Adrian Moore, vice president of the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank in Los Angeles, and a member of the highway revenue commission. “We can either let the roads go to hell or we can pay more.”

The dilemma for Congress is that highway and transit programs are dependent for revenue on fuel taxes that are not sustainable. Many Americans are driving less and switching to more fuel-efficient cars and trucks, and a shift to new fuels and technologies like plug-in hybrid electric cars will further erode gasoline sales.

According to a draft of the financing commission’s recommendations, the nation needs to move to a new system that taxes motorists according to how much they use roads. While details have not been worked out, such a system would mean equipping every car and truck with a device that uses global positioning satellites and transponders to record how many miles the vehicle has been driven, and perhaps the type of roads and time of day.

“Most if not all of the commissioners have a strong belief and commitment that we need a fundamental transformation of the current system,” said commission chairman Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a technology policy think tank in Washington.

A study by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies estimated that the annual gap between revenues and the investment needed to improve highway and transit systems was about $105 billion in 2007, and will increase to $134 billion in 2017 under current trends.

Projected shortfalls in revenue led the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, in a report issued in January 2008, to call for an increase of as much as 40 cents a gallon in the gas tax, phased in over five years.

Charles Whittington, chairman of the American Trucking Associations, which supports a fuel tax increase as long as the money goes to highway projects, said Congress may decide to disguise a fuel tax hike as a surcharge to combat climate change.

Transportation is responsible for about a third of all U.S. carbon emissions created by burning fossil fuels. Traffic congestion wastes an estimated 2.9 billion gallons of fuel a year. Less congestion would reduce greenhouse gases and dependence on foreign oil.

“Instead of calling it a gas tax, call it a carbon tax,” Whittington said.

Bottlenecks around the nation cost the trucking industry about 243 million lost truck hours and about $7.8 billion per year, according to the commission.

For the latest traffic incidents, today’s lowest fuel prices, and traffic camera views of Interstate 10, see the Citizen’s Traffic Cams page.

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ON THE WEB

financecommission.dot.gov

WASHINGTON – Federal regulators are taking steps to get medically unfit truck and bus drivers off the road after being accused for years of dragging their feet on the issue.

Under a rule approved by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, states will be required to merge commercial truck and bus drivers’ licenses with drivers’ medical examination certificates into a single electronic record.

Linking the two will make it easier to check whether drivers have met medical requirements to operate commercial vehicles. States will have three years to comply.

The administration has also proposed creating a registry of medical examiners qualified to award certificates to drivers. Examiners who fail to meet minimum standards could be barred from issuing fitness-to-drive certificates.

“These actions will support and strengthen our continuing commitment to ensure that only medically qualified individuals are allowed to operate an interstate truck or bus. Safety is our paramount responsibility,” John Hill, head of the motor carrier safety administration, said in a statement.

Agency officials were severely chastised at a House hearing earlier this year for going years without addressing the problem of medically unfit drivers despite repeated warnings from Congress.

The rule finalized on Monday addresses some of a series of recommendations made by the National Transportation Safety Board in 2001 in response to a motorcoach accident two years earlier in New Orleans that killed 22.

In the New Orleans accident, NTSB said the bus driver, 46-year-old Frank Bedell, suffered life-threatening kidney and heart conditions but still held a valid commercial license and certificate saying he was fit to drive. A passenger recounted seeing the driver slumped in his seat moments before the crash.

Tractor-trailer and bus drivers have suffered seizures, heart attacks or unconscious spells while behind the wheel. Such illnesses have been a critical factor in thousands of serious truck accidents.

Many commercial vehicle drivers whose serious medical conditions are known to their employers, health care providers and others are never reported to motor vehicle licensing authorities, NTSB says.

A Government Accountability Office study earlier this year found hundreds of thousands of drivers operating trucks and buses even though they had qualified for federal medical disability payments.

A separate study by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee found that fabricating medical certificates required to operate commercial trucks and buses was so easy there was little incentive for drivers to obtain a legitimate document.

“Because so few attempts are made to authenticate a certificate, there is little risk that a driver will be caught if he or she forges or adulterates a certificate,” the study said.

One Ohio doctor contacted by the committee said forgery of medical certificates is so commonplace “no one gets alarmed by it anymore.”

WASHINGTON – Roll back the clock to 1961: John F. Kennedy was inaugurated president. The Peace Corps was founded. The Dow Jones industrials hit 734. Gasoline reached 31 cents a gallon.

And the number of people killed in U.S. traffic accidents that year topped 36,200.

This year, gasoline climbed over $4 a gallon, and the traffic death toll — according to one study — appears headed to the lowest levels since Kennedy moved into the White House.

The number is being pulled down by a change in Americans’ driving habits, which is fueled largely by record high gasoline prices, according to the Transportation Research Institute at the University of Michigan.

The institute’s study — which covers 12 months ending in April — found that as gas prices rose, driving and fatalities declined. The surprise, said Professor Michael Sivak, author of the study, was the huge decline in fatalities in March and April as gasoline prices surged above $3.20 a gallon.

Over the previous 10 months, monthly fatalities declined an average of 4.2 percent compared to the previous year. Then, Sivak’s data shows, fatalities dropped 22.1 percent in March and 17.9 percent in April of this year — numbers that did not show up in a recent federal report that tracked a drop in traffic deaths through the end of 2007.

The declines found by Sivak suggest that motorists reached what he calls a “tipping point” and have begun significantly changing their behavior — altering not only how much they drive, but where, when and how they drive. Sivak said early data for May and June show similar trends.

“There is something more than just the reduction in driving that has to be brought in as an explanation for the huge drop in fatalities,” Sivak said.

If the pattern continues for the rest of this year, it would lead to “an unheard of improvement” in motor vehicle fatalities, said Sivak, who used data from the National Safety Council, National Center for Health Statistics and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Sivak predicts that highway deaths this year will drop below 37,000 for the first time since 1961 if the March and April trends continue. The government motor vehicle death count for 1961 totaled 36,285. The number of highway deaths peaked in 1972 at 55,600, then generally declined over the next two decades. For the past several years, the number has hovered above 42,000 a year.

NHTSA reported last week that motor vehicle deaths in the United States totaled 41,059 last year, the lowest level in more than a decade. And the Federal Highway Administration said Americans drove 12.2 billion fewer miles in June than a year earlier, the biggest monthly decrease in a downward trend that began in November.

Experts who have studied motor vehicle fatality trends said one reason for the dramatic decline is that people are reducing their nonessential driving first, which is often leisure driving at night or on weekends. That also happens to be riskier than daylight commuting on congested highways at lower speeds.

Teenage and elderly drivers — who also have higher accident rates — are more likely to feel the pinch of higher gas prices, and thus may be cutting back more than other drivers. Federal data also shows that driving declines have been more dramatic on rural roads, which have higher accident rates than urban highways.

And, some drivers are simply trying to save on gas by slowing down, which also decreases risk. “It could be that the safety benefits of driving slower are proportionately greater than the fuel economy benefits,” Sivak said.

The steepness of the fatality decline underscores a point several experts have made recently — that raising the price of gas is more effective than almost any other means of reducing fatalities.

“It’s really very interesting that with all these efforts that have gone into building safer highways, safer cars, better enforcement … this really dramatic change we’re seeing is due to economics, to the price of gasoline,” said Paul Fischbeck, director of Center for the Study and Improvement of Regulation at Carnegie Mellon University.

The impact of high gas prices appears to extend well beyond traffic fatalities, also reshaping the way in which Americans travel and where they choose to live. Public transit, from trains to buses, is enjoying a revival. Amtrak, the passenger rail service that once struggled to attract riders, is now so popular it may soon not have enough trains to meet demand.

The increased cost of commuting to work by car is making close-in urban neighborhoods more attractive, accelerating a shift away from suburbs on the fringes of metropolitan areas — neighborhoods that have already been battered by the mortgage credit crisis.

“This is really the first time since the 1970s that people are thinking about driving and about what is the cost of an individual trip,” said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wachovia.

Christopher B. Leinberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert on metropolitan development trends, predicts that in many metropolitan areas fringe suburbs will become tomorrow’s slums, while walkable neighborhoods close to employment and city amenities become more desirable because of a variety of demographic changes that have been under way for several years.

High gasoline prices that drive up the cost of commuting by car “will just accelerate that,” Leinberger said.

WASHINGTON – Healthful kids meals at top restaurant chains are slim pickings, according to a report by a nonprofit public health group.

Nearly every possible combination of the children’s meals at KFC, Sonic, Taco Bell, Jack in the Box and Chick-fil-A are too high in calories, said the report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which looked into the nutritional quality of kids meals at 13 major restaurant chains.

The center found 93 percent of 1,474 possible choices at the 13 chains exceed 430 calories – one-third the total amount the National Institute of Medicine recommends ages 4 to 8 should consume in a day.

For example, Chili’s Bar and Grill has 700 possible kids meal combinations, but 658 – or 94 percent – of those are too high in calories. One Chili’s meal composed of country-fried chicken crispers, cinnamon apples and chocolate milk contained 1,020 calories, while another including cheese pizza, homestyle fries, and lemonade contained 1,000 calories. Burger King has a “Big Kids” meal with a double cheeseburger, fries, and chocolate milk at 910 calories, and Sonic has a “Wacky Pack” with 830 calories worth of grilled cheese, fries and a slushie.

While there are some healthful choices on restaurant menus, “parents have to navigate a minefield of calories, fat and salt to find them,” the report stated.

Subway’s kids meals came out the best among the chains examined in the report. Only 6 of 18 “Fresh Fit for Kids” meals – which include a minisub, juice box and one of several healthful side items such as apple slices, raisins or yogurt – exceed the 430-calorie threshold. But Subway is the only chain that doesn’t offer soft drinks with kids meals, thus lowering the calorie count.

The report notes that eating out now accounts for a third of children’s daily caloric intake, twice the amount consumed away from home 30 years ago.

“Parents want to feed their children healthy meals, but America’s chain restaurants are setting parents up to fail,” CSPI nutrition policy director Margo G. Wootan said in a statement. “McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, and other chains are conditioning kids to expect burgers, fried chicken, pizza, french fries, macaroni and cheese, and soda in various combination at almost every lunch and dinner.”

The report also found that 45 percent of child meals exceed recommendations for saturated and trans fat, which can raise blood cholesterol levels and increase the risk of heart disease, and 86 percent of child meals are high in sodium.

Christi Woodworth, a spokeswoman for Sonic, said the chain is looking into adding a variety of healthy side items, and plans to introduce string cheese at 90 calories each in September.

KFC released a statement saying the chain is “proud to offer a variety of kids meals for those looking for lower calorie, lower fat options.” The statement noted that the report’s calculations include baked Cheetos and a biscuit, sides that are no longer offered.

Jack in the Box spokeswoman Kathleen Anthony said while kids meals are not a “significant part of our business,” parents do have several healthy items they can select for their children, such as applesauce and reduced-fat milk.

Calls over the weekend to other restaurant chains in the report were not immediately returned.

The report recommends restaurants:

• Reformulate their menu items to reduce calories, saturated and trans fat, and salt, and add more healthy items such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

• Make fruit or vegetables and low-fat milk or water the default sides instead of french fries and soda for kids meals.

• Provide nutrition on menus and menu boards. New York and San Francisco are among the cities and localities that have adopted menu labeling policies.

Other restaurant chains included in the report are Wendy’s, Dairy Queen, Arby’s and Denny’s.

Six leading restaurant chains – Applebee’s, TGIFriday’s, Outback Steakhouse, Olive Garden, Red Lobster and IHOP – weren’t included in the report, the center said, because they do not disclose nutrition information about their meals even when asked.

Springsteen performs in Hartford, Conn., in February 2008.

Rock star Bruce Springsteen endorsed Democratic Sen. Barack Obama for president Wednesday, saying “he speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years.”

In a letter addressed to friends and fans posted his Web site, Springsteen said he believes Obama is the best candidate to undo “the terrible damage done over the past eight years.”

“He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next president,” the letter said. “He speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that’s interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where ‘…nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.’ ”

The bard of New Jersey is known for his lyrics about the struggles of working-class Americans, particularly in the economically ravaged factory towns of the Northeast.

Springsteen and his E Street band were part of the Vote for Change tour, a coalition of musicians opposed to the re-election of President Bush in 2004. He wrote the anti-war ballad “Devils and Dust” about Iraq.

President Reagan used Springsteen’s then-popular song “Born in the USA” at campaign rallies in 1984 until he was asked by Springsteen, who supported Democrat Walter Mondale, to stop. The song about a Vietnam veteran’s hard times was often misinterpreted as a patriotic call to arms.

Springsteen did not directly mention Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama’s rival for the Democratic nomination, in his letter, but appeared to take issue with her recent criticisms of comments made by Obama about working-class voters in small towns in Pennsylvania and controversial statements by his pastor.

“Critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships,” Springsteen wrote. “While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man’s life and vision … often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment.”

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ON THE WEB

Springsteen’s website: www.brucespringsteen.net/news