Groups Show Support for Government’s Plan to Bar Truckers From Texting While Driving

This story appears in the May 10 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has broad support for its move to bar truck drivers from texting, according to public comments on the proposed rule filed with the agency.

However, there was disagreement among those commenting about whether FMCSA had gone far enough in its rule and whether it should go further in future regulations of distracted driving.

“ATA strongly supports this proposal to prohibit drivers of commercial motor vehicle drivers from text messaging on handheld devices while driving,” wrote Rob Abbott, vice president of safety policy for American Trucking Associations. Abbott said that the trucking group “has called on the current administration and Congress to expand the ban on texting to drivers of all vehicles, in the interest of improving highway safety.”

Issued in early April, FMCSA’s proposed rule would bar truck drivers from using a cell phone to send or receive text messages (4-5, p. 3; click here for previous story).

Abbott said ATA also “applauds the agency for specifically excluding the use of in-cab fleet management systems, Global Positioning Systems and navigation systems.”

Stephen Keppler, interim executive director of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, said the law enforcement group “generally supports FMCSA’s efforts to prohibit texting in commercial motor vehicles.”

However, Keppler said CVSA was concerned that the rule did not factor in other distractions and urged the agency to make future rules “performance-based,” rather than prescriptive in nature.

“The current narrowly focused legislation and regulations will soon be out of date,” Keppler said. “Future regulatory changes need to be flexible and recognize that the rapid evolution of technologies may put enforceability of the rules beyond the technical language of the regulations and as a result enforcement could be hampered [or] limited.”

Keppler also said CVSA supported a move to require any in-cab or other electronic device to have an “in-motion” mode to prevent their use while driving.

Anthony Tarricone, president of American Association for Justice, formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, said the attorneys’ group supported the ban but said “the FMCSA should go further and prohibit [commercial vehicle] operators from utilizing onboard computers while driving as well.”

AAJ was not the only group in support of a more expansive ban.

David Snyder, vice president and associate general counsel of the American Insurance Association, said the group was troubled by the number of exceptions in the rule, which did not ban entering a phone number, using an in-cab fleet management system or putting information into a GPS system.

“We are concerned that these exceptions, if not carefully provided for, might undercut the ability of law enforcement to effectively enforce the ban,” Snyder said.

Henry Jasny, general counsel for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said the group does “not understand why a separate notice-and-comment rulemaking would be needed to address texting while driving using electronic dispatching tools and fleet management systems.”

“Unless there is a more substantive distinction between texting on such systems and other devices, aside from the economic investment, texting on such systems should be prohibited by the final rule issued at the end of this rulemaking proceeding,” he said.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association’s comments said the group “strongly urges FMCSA to include a prohibition on the use of in-cab fleet-management systems in the final rule.”

Abbott, defending the limited nature of the ban, said it was “important to distinguish these systems from handheld devices.”

“We do know that [in-cab systems] offer many safety benefits,” he said. “Accordingly, the net safety impact of limiting the use of these devices may not be positive, especially in team operations where co-drivers may use these devices to aid the driver when lost or needing to communicate with dispatchers.”

Edward Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department, said that the union “believe[s] further steps on texting while driving may increase safety, including holding employers responsible, extending the ban to all motor vehicles and clarifying the use of other work-related technologies.”

Specifically, Wytkind complained that the proposal “does not articulate any enforcement mechanism to hold employers responsible for violations of the provision.”

“If an employee engages in text messaging at the behest of an employer, especially under duress, any enforcement action should be directed at employers, not employees,” he said.

On the other hand, Abbott said in ATA’s comments that the federation was “concerned that motor carriers will be held accountable for texting violations committed by drivers when the motor carrier neither condoned nor required these acts and could not have prevented them.”

“As FMCSA is well aware, drivers are not always under direct supervision,” Abbott said.