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According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the number of deadly truck crashes declined 20 percent last year, dropping from 4,245 in 2008 to 3,380 in 2009. The drop in commercial trucking fatalities puts them at their lowest level in the Transportation Department’s history, but what is responsible for the sudden spike in safety?
When you’re behind the wheel, it’s not difficult to become distracted, especially on long, lonely hauls. The radio, cigarette lighter, food, drink, and an incoming call are all things that vie for your attention and beckon you to break the routine when you’re behind the wheel. But by far the most dangerous road distraction is cell phone text messaging – a distraction that kills 6,000 people every year and injures half a million more. Texting while driving is so lethal that researchers throughout the country have been conducting tests to determine why this distraction is many times riskier than drunk driving.
Truck driver Robert Morali, a longtime resident of Jackson, Mississippi, has driven more than 5 million miles for UPS over a span of 39 years and has never had an accident, reports the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger. Morali’s record of perfect safety places him in a rare and elite class of drivers. Only 60 out of 102,000 UPS drivers have driven 39 years without having an accident.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has quickened its pace in establishing new rules that would explicitly ban commercial truck and bus drivers from texting and restrict the use of cell phones in general. The FMCSA is expected to submit its proposed rules to the Office of Management and Budget for review today, Monday, March 8.
