We all hate these cameras when we get caught. But we know why they’re there. Just drive up the state’s many gorgeous and winding mountains. Cars break the 75-mile per hour limit – even to turn a curve, or when passing by a construction site.

The National Transportation Safety Board, the bodyguard of America’s transit, has pointed out for decades that high speeds can result in death. Shocker. Here’s one of many studies, in case you want details.

The Daily Show’s Olivia Munn just did a hysterical interview with AZ State Rep Carl Seel about it. He supports SB 1070. (For anyone who hasn’t read the news this year, that’s the controversial law requiring police to arrest anyone who they suspect doesn’t have immigration papers.)

But Seel draws the line with speed cameras. They are the eyes of Big Brother, invading our privacy.

Munn crinkled her brow, “So speeding is probable cause to check immigration status. But speeding is not probable cause to give you a ticket for…speeding?”

Precisely.

Arizona’s hurting for money, so it can’t afford to put cops on the highways to replace the cameras. Hopefully it can afford the stationary that officers use to write up accidents after people have gotten hurt.

But board member Robert Sumwalt, the only one to speak at the press conference, spent more time telling local media that NTSB still has few answers and it will be a long time before some of their most pressing questions are answered.

Thirty-seven people were thrown into the Delaware River Wednesday afternoon when a barge collided with the amphibious duck boat they were on. Thirty-five people were immediately rescued.

The U.S. Coast Guard suspended the search for the two missing people on Thursday night.

When a television reporter asked Sumwalt what he thought about tourists getting mixed up in an accident involving the industry side of the marine sector, Sumwalt’s only response was “It’s tragic.”

At the time of the collision, the duck boat was at a halt on the river, waiting for assistance after a reported engine fire disabled the engine. A tugboat was pulling the barge.

NTSB is taking the lead on the investigation and questions are being deferred to board member Robert Sumwalt and lead investigator Tom Roth-rothy, who are in Philadelphia supervising the investigation team.

Sumwalt said that NTSB expects to have investigators on the scene for seven to 10 days total, meaning they could depart as early as the end of next week.

Investigators will take all of the data and information collected and bring it back to Washington, D.C., where NTSB is headquartered. It will likely take several months to put all the pieces together and determine everything that went wrong Wednesday afternoon.

While on the scene, investigators will be gathering all kinds of information and data on the actual boats involved, their operating procedures, their crew members and their emergency preparedness and response. That will come form actual inspections of the boats, records and equipment and extensive interviews with passengers, crew and first responders and rescuers.

For local coverage of the accident, you can check out the Philadelphia Daily News and Philadelphia Inquirer at www.philly.com. Thursday’s main story on the accident focuses on confusion about why the tug boat was unaware of the duck boat’s presence.

Keep checking back for more updates and some photos of the accident site. Contact reporter Ariel Zirulnick at ariel.zirulnick@news21.com if you have any leads.

Thirty-five of the 37 people on board were rescued. Two are still unaccounted for. The Duck boat is at the bottom of the Delaware River.

The Duck boat was stopped in the shipping channel because of an engine fire that prompted the crew to cease operations, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. They were waiting for a rescue boat to come get them.

The National Transportation Safety Board has launched an investigation into the accident. Board member Robert Sumwalt will be on the scene, holding regular press conferences.

Keep checking back on the blog for more information as it becomes available and follow reporter Ariel Zirulnick on Twitter at @ariel_news21. If you know anything about this accident or know people who were involved, please contact her at ariel.zirulnick@news21.com.

But it wasn’t always that way. Before a 2003 accident on the Andrew J. Barberi ferry that left 11 dead and 70 injured, the Staten Island ferry’s operations and safety practices left much to be desired, said some regular commuters.

Since that accident, when the person piloting the boat passed out and allowed the boat to ram a maintenance pier on Staten Island, many improvements have been made.

Today there are more crew making rounds on the boat, loudspeaker announcements are regular and clear and inspection officials regularly make appearances, said Tami Kelly, a Staten Island resident who has used the ferry to commute to her job in Manhattan for 15 years.

Without that accident, many unsafe practices, such as a lack of barriers preventing people from falling overboard or an allowance of smoking onboard, might never have changed, said Norman Serafin, a Staten Island resident who has been riding the ferry to work since 1983.

Although the accident highlighted many safety failings in the system, it didn’t cause Staten Islanders to have second thoughts about using one of their most important modes of transportation.

“If you live on Staten Island, this is what you do,” Kelly said. “It’s part of our DNA.”

The 2003 accident spurred the National Transportation Safety Board to make a recommendation that passenger ferries implement a safety management system, which is essentially a checklist of safety and operational items that must be in order for a boat to run safely.

That recommendation was added to the Most Wanted List in February.

Check back later this month for a closer look at what safety management systems could accomplish for the marine industry.

The CBC reports that the pilot might have landed too far down the runway for the breaks to stop the plane before reportedly losing the front wheel and sliding on to the grass. Weather might also have been a factor, as light rain had been reported since late morning. The NTSB is sending a team to help assist the Transportation Safety Board of Canada with its investigation.

The exact factors which caused this runway accident are unlikely to come to light for months when an investigation is finalized. But what is clear today is that this incident will be added to the year’s growing tally of runway safety accidents and incidents, what aviation safety experts call runway incursions. Technically this incident was a runway excursion, when a plane leaves the runway during takeoff or landing, and this is the type of runway-related incident that makes up about 97 percent of all runway safety accidents according to a 2009 Flight Safety Foundation study. 

The problem of runway excursions is so substantial that the NTSB added a recommendation to it’s Most Wanted List of transportation safety improvements in 2007, as soon as it was issued. The NTSB wants the FAA to require all pilots to calculate an arrival landing distance assessment before every landing based on actual conditions expected at the time of landing, a la the rain at Ottawa’s airport today.

Evidence suggests that as air traffic grows, the number of runway incursions grow exponentially. As air traffic is expected to grow by an estimated 3 percent annually over the next few years. Suffice it to say this has experts, the Air Line Pilots Union, and the NTSB worried about runway accidents.  

Are you a pilot with a story to tell about an incursion? What do you think about the NTSB’s recommendation? Want to sound off on this issue? Leave us a comment or email Richard.Duchon@News21.com. And check out the other interesting stories we’re working on below.