ATA Gives Details of Bold Highway Safety Agenda, Releases Task Force Report
October 28, 2008 11:00 AM
Clayton Boyce (703) 838-7902
Arlington, Va. - The American Trucking Associations today unveiled the details of a bold highway safety agenda designed to reduce the number of highway-related fatalities and injuries for all drivers on the nation's highways.

Augmenting an established platform of successful safety initiatives, ATA today outlined 18 critical steps for further reducing highway crashes among all motorists.

"Safe driving and safe highways are a team effort," said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves. "The entire community, from motor carriers to law enforcement to the motoring public and law makers must work in concert to make our highways safe. ATA has long pursued a safety agenda. Large truck fatality and injury rates are already at their lowest point since the federal government began reporting the figures three decades ago. But we must continue to raise the bar for safety."

The new safety policies adopted by ATA's Board of Directors are designed to improve the performance of both commercial and non-commercial drivers, and make vehicles and motor carriers safer. ATA's aggressive safety agenda follows and compliments an ATA initiative announced in May 2008 that is designed to result in a sustainable and environmentally responsible trucking industry.

These 18 safety recommendations supplement ATA's existing safety agenda, which includes promoting greater safety belt use by commercial drivers; re-instituting a national maximum speed limit; speed governing of all new trucks; and a decade-long initiative to create a national clearinghouse for drug and alcohol test results.

The recommendations were made by ATA's Safety Task Force and adopted by ATA's Board of Directors at the annual Management Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans earlier this month. A synopsis of the 18 recommendations follows.
 
Ten recommendations to improve truck and passenger vehicle driver performance are:
    1. Policy on the use of non-integrated technologies while the vehicle is in motion
2. Policy supporting uniform commercial drivers license (CDL) testing standards
3. Support for a CDL graduated licensing study
4. Advocate for additional parking facilities for trucks
5. Advocate for a national maximum 65mph speed limit
6. Pursue strategies to increase the use of seat belts
7. Support for a national car-truck driver behavior improvement program
8. Support for increased use of red light cameras and automated speed enforcement
9. Support for graduated licensing in all states for non-commercial teen drivers
10. Support for more stringent laws to reduce drinking and driving.
 
Three recommendations that focus on making vehicles safer are:
    11. Support targeted electronic speed governing of certain non-commercial vehicles
12. Require electronic speed governing of all large trucks made since 1992
13. Advocate for new large truck crashworthiness standards.
 
Five recommendations that will improve federal oversight are:
    14. Advocate for a national employer notification system
15. Create a federal clearinghouse for positive drug and alcohol test results of CDL holders
16. Support a federal registry of certified medical examiners
17. Create a policy supporting access to the national Driver Information Resource
18. Support for required safety training by new entrant motor carriers.

For more details on each of the 18 recommendations, click here to download the full Safety Task Force Report.

The American Trucking Associations is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. Through a federation of other trucking groups, industry-related conferences, and its 50 affiliated state trucking associations, ATA represents more than 37,000 members covering every type of motor carrier in the United States.