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24 NCHRP LRD 83 APPENDIX AâSURVEY LETTER AND QUESTIONS May 1, 2019 Dear State DOT representative: The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) has initiated a legal research study on the topic of liability neutral lan- guage used within technical and non-technical publications, manuals, asset management plans and internal and external communications such as e-mail and social media posts. In the legal system, transportation engineering and non-engineering documents can be used by litigants and courts as evidence which bears upon or identifies the standard of care or duties of transportation agencies. Parker Corporate Enterprises, under the Transportation Research Boardâs Cooperative Research Program, is conducting this Project. The enclosed survey has also been sent to other state transportation agencies. We realize that you receive many inquiries like this and that they take up a lot of your time, but the success of this project depends on your input. Therefore, we sincerely appreciate your efforts in sharing your experience with others who can benefit from it. The survey requests information from your agency which will assist with the study. Your counsel or risk management staff will likely be able to provide the most accurate responses to the survey. Results will be reviewed and compiled for the publication of a research docu- ment which is tentatively titled âGuidelines for Drafting Liability Neutral Transportation Engineering Documents.â Please contact Terri Parker, at parkercorp269@gmail.com or 417-839-5119 with questions or to return this survey. If your responses are too voluminous to attach, phone interviews or other means of collecting this information can be arranged. Additionally, this survey can be distributed in other formats for ease of responses. Thank you again for your assistance with this project. Terri Parker Parker Corporate Enterprises
NCHRP LRD 83 25 SURVEY Name and Title _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Name of Agency ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Physical and E-mail Address ____________________________________________________________________________________ Phone Number _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Does the agency have an internal engineering or policy guide(s)? Is the policy directed to the public or to an internal audience? What is it called? How frequently is it updated or reviewed? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Please provide the web citation if available. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Does the agency have any written guidance for its employees on writing standards such as a requirement for neutral or fact-based writing and communications? If so, please identify and provide. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Does the agency provide media training for its employees? If so, please provide a copy of the training. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Does the agency have a list of words or phrases that should or should not be used in technical or non-technical writing? Or a style guide? If so, please provide it or the citation to it or a pdf. How is the material disseminated? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Has the agency been involved in litigation where the agencyâs engineering policies or emails or social media posts were analyzed by the parties to provide an indication of negligence or failure to comply with industry standards? For instance, the agency has a maintenance policy of âno loose gravelâ on a road but has been sued for allowing loose gravel to remain a day or two after a chip and seal project. Or what if the agency directs its engineering staff to provide a clear zone on particular types of highways but does not outline a clear methodology for obtaining a clear zone? If your agency has been involved in litigation relating to an alleged failure to follow generally accepted guidelines or its own policy, please provide details of the cases or citations to appellate cases. Also, please provide contact information for counsel that worked on the case. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Does the agency provide formal or informal training for technical and other writers? If so, please identify or provide a copy of the training ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ If available, please provide examples of asset management reports, manuals, studies, research documents or other documents that il- lustrate the use of non-neutral language. Thank You!
