FMCSA to Study Disabled, Parked Truck Roadside Warnings
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The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is planning a study to determine if modern warning devices for parked or disabled commercial motor vehicles can reduce crashes.
The study will require data collection from 256 truck drivers.
“Given the increasing focus on automated driver systems, questions surrounding the safety of CMV drivers when deploying warning devices, and the availability of new technology and alternative devices since these questions were last explored in the 1980s, there is a need to thoroughly evaluate the effectiveness of warning devices under current regulations,” the agency said in a Federal Register announcement. “In addition, advanced research instruments unavailable or not in use at the time of all past research on this topic are now in common use and would permit far more sophisticated analyses of the effects of warning devices on driver behavior.
“This includes sensors which can precisely measure and record the location of vehicles (e.g., differential GPS, eye-tracking devices), which allow the researcher to determine the precise moment when a driver first glanced at a parked or disabled CMV, and instrumented vehicles which record accurate, high-frequency data related to drivers’ interactions with a vehicle’s controls.”
Recent issues related to warning device requirements also call attention to the historically unresolved questions of whether the use of such devices improves traffic safety and, if so, how and to what extent, the agency said.
FMCSA announced the study two days before autonomous truck company Aurora Innovation Inc. filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seeking a legal ruling to support cab-mounted warning beacons in lieu of current regulatory requirements to use triangles when a large truck is parked or disabled on roadside.
Aurora said it provided the FMCSA with evidence that the beacons are equally or more effective than triangles, fusees or flares. (Aurora Innovation Inc.)
Aurora’s lawsuit is intended to overturn the agency’s decision last month denying an exemption allowing Aurora and Waymo to use the beacons.
On Jan. 10, 2023, Aurora and Waymo applied for an exemption from “certain FMCSA regulations” requiring drivers of commercial motor vehicles to exit the vehicle, regardless of roadway and traffic conditions, and place reflective triangles, fusees or liquid-burning flares on the roadway when stopped on the road or shoulder of a highway.
“Nearly two years after receiving the application, without asking any additional clarifying questions as allowed under the law, and despite the applicants’ submission of extensive research confirming the safety benefits and efficacy of the warning beacons as compared to the otherwise-specified human-placed warning devices, FMCSA arbitrarily and capriciously denied the application contrary to record evidence and without adequate, reasoned explanation,” the lawsuit said. “FMCSA’s decision stifles safety innovation and would impede the development of the autonomous trucking industry for no valid or lawful reason.”
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Aurora said its petition was supported by two separate studies, conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and Aurora itself, reflecting the responses of several thousand road users across a variety of lighting conditions and interstate roadway geometries.
“Both studies demonstrated that the beacons are equally or more effective in enabling road users to detect, recognize and react to the hazard presented by a CMV parked on a roadway as compared to human-placed warning devices, causing such road users to slow down and/or change lanes in response,” the lawsuit said.
FMCSA has never conducted experimental research on the impact of using the currently mandated human-placed warning devices, and it is “historically unresolved” whether “the use of such driver-placed devices improves traffic safety and, if so, how and to what extent,” the lawsuit said.
However, FMCSA said the two studies did not offer evidence that the beacons would provide a level of safety “equal to or better” than the triangles.
The petition allowing the beacon exemption was supported by a variety of trucking trade groups, truck manufacturers and other industry-related groups.
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