Sen. Charles Schumer is urging federal safety officials to raise standards for stretch limousines.
U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer is urging the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to immediately upgrade safety standards on stretch limos and other aftermarket altered motor coaches to better protect passengers and make the vehicles more crash resistant. Schumer’s call comes in the wake of a tragic limo crash on Long Island that killed four innocent young women and injured others. Currently, there are significant gaps in the safety standards required for stretch limos and other similar aftermarket altered motor coaches. Schumer will point out those gaps, specifically. He will push the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to issue new rules on stretch limos in order to make them safer. Currently, the NHTSA does not treat all limos equally. Finally, Schumer will specifically urge the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to begin investigating stretch limo crashes on the ground to determine what might have gone wrong and start making recommendations for safety improvements.
(C) 2015 Associated Press contributed to this report.