NTSB Chairwoman Urges More Focus on Driver Fatigue, Safety Technology
By Sean McNally, Senior Reporter
This story appears in the June 28 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
WASHINGTON — The National Transportation Safety Board would like to see regulators and the trucking industry do more to address fatigue and adopt more safety technology to reduce highway crashes, Chairwoman Deborah A.P. Hersman told Transport Topics during a June 25 interview.
Hersman said there are “brutal economic pressures” that often encourage truck drivers and trucking companies to ignore fatigue, but she added that the issue was more complex than just reducing the number of hours truckers drive.
“Fatigue is just not as simple as revising hours-of-service regulations,” she said. “It’s about compliance. It’s about enforcement. It’s about fatigue risk-management programs that encompass education and training.”
Hersman also cited the need for adequate places for drivers to stop and rest as another way to address their fatigue (click here for previous story).
However, while the fatigue issue is not just about the hours rule, Hersman did say that the board “sees a lack of compliance with the hours-of-service regulations in many of the investigations that we are involved in. And some of those are not just minor; some of them are fairly egregious.”
To encourage more compliance, NTSB has recommended mandating electronic onboard recorders on large trucks, she said. She noted that the board is not bound by the same cost-benefit analysis rules as are other agencies, such as the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
Hersman said the NTSB is a supporter of more use of technology beyond just EOBRs.
Lane-departure warning systems and collision avoidance systems can “buy people a little bit of protection,” she said. “They’re not going to prevent people from doing bad things or committing egregious errors, but electronic stability control, adaptive cruise control, lane-departure warning systems, all of those things can help protect people in marginal situations.”
Hersman said she would prefer fleets to adopt these types of technology voluntarily, “but I think, when we get to the point where we don’t see the voluntary compliance reaching the parts of the fleet that are most in need of it, then I think the mandate is necessary.”
Beyond technology and addressing fatigue, Hersman said truck drivers are held to a higher standard than the average driver, and they need to address safety issues accordingly.
“What people in the trucking industry need to realize is they are professionals,” she said. “They are professional drivers, and the standard of care and the level of expectations for them and their performance are higher.”
“When they make poor choices, it’s not a reflection on a personal decision, but it impacts the entire industry because there’s an expectation that there’s robust training and education, oversight, enforcement,” Hersman said.
“And I think that, oftentimes in our investigations, we find that there’s a lack of all of those — not just the personal discipline, but the company and the carrier’s oversight by the enforcement authority.”
Hersman also recognized that truckers are often put in bad situations on the road by others drivers that “are not respectful” of large trucks.
“Most people do not understand what the physics are behind large trucks,” she said, adding that
“familiarization efforts,” including partnerships between the industry and law enforcement “are extremely important.”
“We can deal with the theoretical, but you really need to see that practical experience,” she said. “I think, for law enforcement to have that opportunity, it does help them to understand.”
