McCaskill plans to introduce legislation concerning duck boats

In a speech on the Senate floor today about last week’s tragedy at Table Rock Lake, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill announced that she will introduce legislation requiring past recommendations made by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to increase safety of amphibious vehicles like duck boats to be put into law, helping to improve the safety of passengers.

“We’ve had more than 40 deaths associated with duck boats since 1999, yet there has been little done to address the inherent dangers of these amphibious vehicles,” McCaskill said. “The NTSB recommendations following the 1999 incident in Arkansas were pretty straightforward, but unfortunately nothing happened. So I’m in the early stages of drafting legislation, with input from NTSB and the Coast Guard, to require that the design issues with amphibious passenger vessels be addressed—and that boats that are not compliant be taken out of service until they can be compliant. These recommendations are reasonable and commonsense.”