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FMCSA eyes other in-truck distractions
June 25, 2010
| by: Jill Dunn
After a final texting rule is issued this fall, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will develop another rule on other in-truck distractions, such as CB radios and dispatch systems.
The agency will examine “the full range of other in-vehicle distractions,” Rose McMurray, FMCSA chief safety officer, told the National Association of Small Trucking Companies earlier in June. The goal is for a proposal that “reduces risk, but doesn’t unnecessarily affect the legitimate needs for communication with and by the driver.”
The agency has asked its Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee for ways to combat distracted driving, which the committee will report at its August meeting.
The FMCSA will address other high-risk driver distractions in a notice-and-comment rulemaking following the final texting rule, the MCSAC stated. The committee also has reported the agency is developing a notice of proposed rulemaking (NRPM), to be published later this year, limiting cell use by certain commercial motor vehicle operators in interstate commerce.
The FMCSA published regulatory guidance in the Federal Register Jan. 27, clarifying interstate truck and bus driver violators of the texting ban carries could receive a maximum penalty of $2,750. On April 1, it followed with a NPRM explicitly prohibiting texting and providing disqualification penalties.
Presently, the FMCSA is developing a NPRM to limit wireless telephone use by certain CMV interstate operators, which it will publish later this year.
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This is absolutely insane, next they are going to say you can’t drink a soda while driving, or what if your nose itches, by all means they need a law against scratching it. I tell you what FMCSA, why don’t you tell us what brand and color of truck that we can legally purchase, pick our clothes for us and implant chips in our eyelids to make sure we are sleeping when we are supposed to, you are no longer a Safety Administration, you have become the gestapo and you should be treated as such and get no cooperation from any of us drivers when it comes to this matter, you want to ban all electronic communication in a truck except for tracking equipment. I’m done, you can have my damn truck you pathetic fools in the offices can drive the trucks and do it the way that you want it regulated, but don’t you dare complain when you can’t pay your bills or make any type of profit.
There is a lot of talk about no cellphone anything while driving. The intentions may be good. But how about just enforcing the current distracted driving laws. This would include people reading books, newspapers and company memos name a few. Then there breathe people that think their vehicle is a dressing room, including shaving and putting on make-up. Maybe I shouldn’t bringup the people that have computers mounted so they can use them while driving. With all this why single out the cell phone. If lawmakers are serious about safety they should address the whole issue of distracted driving.
[...] texting for a couple years now, after it was CBs and Qualcomm units and cell phones, and now DOT is reportedly eyeing other in-cab distractions for potential regulation beginning later this year. Then there was that rash of ugly outcomes after haulers either choked on or were otherwise [...]