Trucking regulations are important to public safety, and proposed revisions to trucking regulations are raising safety concerns. Large trucks are less maneuverable, require greater distance to stop and produce blind spots for the driver. Commercial truck drivers are also under pressure to keep the trucks moving as stopped trucks lose money for the trucking company. The pressure to keep trucks on the road often leads to exhausted drivers.
Under current rules, truckers are limited to driving for 11 hours within a 14-hour window, and they must be off duty for 10 hours before the clock restarts. The current standards were established to reduce the incidence of truck crashes. In August, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration proposed changes that would extend the daily work period under certain circumstances.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) shares our alarm about what these proposed rule changes may mean for increased safety risks. The IIHS is an independent, nonprofit scientific and educational organization dedicated to reducing the losses – deaths, injuries and property damage – from motor vehicle crashes.
“Driver fatigue is a major risk factor in large truck crashes,” says IIHS Senior Statistician Eric Teoh. “Creating more exceptions to the hours-of-service limits, which already allow drivers to log long hours, isn’t likely to improve safety and may well cause harm.”
More information about the proposed changes can be found in this recent article by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
The truck accident injury lawyers at Clark, Perdue & List are committed to holding trucking companies accountable when they fail to operate safely, causing harm to the motoring public.