DOT Bans Truck, Bus Operators from Texting While Driving

This story appears in the Feb. 1 print edition of Transport Topics.

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood last week issued an order immediately forbidding commercial drivers from texting on handheld mobile devices and instituting steep fines for violators.

“I directed the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration . . . to use its existing authority to prohibit commercial truck and bus drivers from texting while driving using any handheld cell phone or other device that takes a driver’s attention off the road,” LaHood said during a Jan. 26 press conference here.

He called the step the “latest in a series of actions [the Department of Transportation] is taking to curb distracted driving and help our roads become much safer.”

LaHood said drivers found to be using a handheld device to read or send a text message will be subject to fines of as much as $2,750.

“Today, we are sending a strong message: We don’t merely expect you to share the road responsibly with other travelers; we will require you to do so,” he said.

After LaHood spoke, Bill Graves, president of American Trucking Associations, said at the press conference that “to promote highway safety and further improve the trucking industry’s continually improving safety record and that of all commercial vehicles, ATA supports DOT’s action to ban the use of handheld wireless devices by commercial drivers to send or receive text messages while driving.”

Also during the press conference, LaHood and FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro said they intended to address other types of electronic devices in a separate rule.

Ferro told reporters that an upcoming rule on driver distraction was being developed to “meet the clear expectations and very aggressive timeline [LaHood] set.”

“In the months ahead,” LaHood said, “we’ll propose additional legal remedies and develop new tools” to curb distracted driving.

Ferro said the next step — a proposed regulation on driver distraction, including cell-phone use — could be out by summer.

In conjunction with the press conference, FMCSA handed out an official notice stating that the texting ban should not be construed to prohibit the use of other technologies such as “electronic dispatching tools and fleet-management systems.”

“The agency will address the use of other electronic devices while driving in a notice-and-comment rulemaking proceeding, rather than through regulatory guidance,” the notice said.

But the notice warned that “while fleet management systems and electronic dispatching tools are used by many of the nation’s largest trucking fleets, the department believes safety-conscious fleet managers would neither allow, nor require, their drivers to type or read messages while driving.”

LaHood declined to comment on how DOT will handle the issue of in-cab technologies, but Ferro said that FMCSA would consider how best to address other technologies “later this year” and would ask for public input.

ATA’s Graves said DOT’s efforts to curb distractions may result in changes to how in-cab technologies interact with drivers.

“I think you’re going to see a lot of advances in technologies, especially in the development of conversion of text-to-voice opportunities, for individuals to still receive all the information they need to adequately perform their duties without the level of distraction that we know handheld sending and receiving causes,” Graves pointed out.

In addition to ATA, several other advocacy groups, as well as legislative leaders, expressed support for the texting ban.

Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), chairmen, respectively, of the Senate Commerce Committee and that committee’s surface transportation panel, issued statements backing DOT and urging the agency to extend the ban beyond just trucks and buses.

The pair are co-sponsors of legislation that would provide incentives to states to enact texting bans for all vehicles.

DOT’s announcement also was hailed by Joan Claybrook, chairwoman of Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, who said there was “no place for texting when a split-second distraction can result in tractor-trailer jackknife . . . or a collision.”

However, some groups questioned the way in which the agency was proceeding.

“We support where they are going, but not how they got there,” said Todd Spencer, executive director of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.

Spencer said OOIDA was troubled by DOT issuing regulatory guidance, rather than going through the normal regulatory process.

“Making their action effective immediately bypasses normal regulatory rulemaking processes,” Spencer said. “Those processes allow actions to be vetted for unintended consequences, as well as potential implementation and enforcement problems.”

LaHood, meanwhile, said DOT was just beginning its efforts to curb distraction and compared it to the early days of requiring seat-belt use and tougher limits for drunk drivers. He conceded, however, that enforcing the texting ban will be challenging.

“It’s difficult, and we need to figure it out,” LaHood said of enforcement. “It’s the most difficult thing that we face right now.”