In The News

Claybrook stepping down as Public Citizen president

Joan Claybrook, longtime safety advocate and frequent bane of the trucking industry, has announced that she is stepping down as president of Public Citizen on Jan. 31, 2009.


In her 27-year tenure, Claybrook said in a statement, among other things, the expansion of dangerous triple-trailer trucks was stopped, limiting their operation to about a dozen, mostly western, states.


In recent years, the group has battled the new hours of service rules and the Bush Administration's pilot cross-border trucking program with Mexico in the courts, and has pushed for mandatory on board electronic recorders in trucks.


Claybrook will remain on the board and is helping in the search for her replacement.

"
I have led Public Citizen through many tumultuous times in our nation since 1982 and am leaving it now a strong and vibrant organization with a budget many times larger than I found it," she said. When Claybrook took over as president, Public Citizen had a budget of $1.5 million and a staff of fewer than 50 people. The group's budget has grown to around $13.5 million and it employs around 90 people.


Claybrook was previously the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration during the Carter administration.


"As the winds of change sweep the nation and Washington, D.C., with promises for new policies to help the public, it is a good time for me to move on to other adventures," Claybrook said, but did not say what those adventures might be.