Editorial: Better Testing for Better Safety
In these times of failure to budget, filibusters and perpetual political campaigns, it is gratifying to see government and industry agree on some practical ideas, namely the National Transportation Safety Board’s report on eliminating impaired driving.
The five-member NTSB unanimously adopted the report May 14. The document provides history, science, analysis and recommendations to help reduce the most heartbreaking and infuriating of traffic accidents — those caused by drunken or drugged driving.
As we report in this issue, NTSB calls for reducing the maximum legal blood-alcohol content to 0.05 from 0.08 and increasing the use of ignition-interlock devices and high-visibility law enforcement, as well as rooting out repeat offenders.
American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves wrote to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, giving it a strong endorsement.
“All motorists should support reducing the instances of impaired driving. The trucking industry is held — and holds itself — to a higher standard, and we are encouraged by NTSB’s recommendations to bolster efforts to reduce drunken and drugged driving for all motorists,” Graves said in a statement, adding that the board’s recommendations are fully consistent with ATA’s safety agenda.
Of particular importance to trucking is the implementation of a regimen based on hair testing to spot drug abuse. Graves said he urged LaHood to proceed with a process that would allow motor carriers to collect hair samples for required drug testing, replacing the current mandate of urine testing.
“ATA knows for a fact that thousands of truck drivers who have failed hair tests have obtained driving positions with other carriers because they were able to pass DOT-authorized urine tests,” Graves wrote to LaHood.
Truck drivers are guiding 80,000-pound rigs on long stretches of highways at 60 mph, sometimes even faster. Sometimes they do this at night or in bad weather, and sometimes the loads are made up of hazardous materials.
On a daily basis, the overwhelming majority of those drivers do their jobs with enviable skill and admirable dedication. However, motor carriers don’t want to simply maintain this record — they want to improve it.
Therefore, trucking wants to use the best available tools for drug and alcohol testing “to make sure our roads are safe for all motorists,” Graves said.
NTSB said that in an average hour, one person dies in a crash involving a drunken driver and 20 more people are injured, including three with debilitating injuries.
That’s for all U.S. highway accidents, not only those involving trucks, but we join with NTSB in this instance to seek a way to lower those gruesome figures.
