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By Sean McNally, Senior Reporter

This story appears in the April 5 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Department of Transportation last week issued a proposed rule outlawing text messaging by commercial drivers, taking another step in its ongoing effort to eliminate the practice.

“This rulemaking keeps our commitment to making our roads safer by reducing the threat of distracted driving,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a March 31 statement announcing the proposed rule.

Earlier this year, DOT and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration barred texting by truck and bus drivers with a “guidance” that reinterpreted existing safety regulations, but the new proposal would ban the practice more formally.

“The guidance document was not intended as a substitute for notice-and-comment rulemaking,” the safety agency said in a Federal Register notice. “This [proposed rule], if adopted as a final rule, would take the guidance a step further by establishing more detailed, binding requirements on industry.”

Under the proposal, drivers who text can be subject to a fine of up to $2,750, and repeat offenders risk suspension of their commercial driver licenses.

FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro said the agency was “committed to using every resource available to eliminate the dangers of distracted driving.”

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However, the agency stated in its rule proposal that the new restrictions apply only to sending and receiving text messages, while activities such dialing or talking on a cell phone, adjusting a Global Positioning System unit or using in-cab dispatching technology are still allowed.

“FMCSA acknowledges the concerns of motor carriers that have invested significant resources in electronic dispatching tools and fleet-management systems; this rulemaking should not be construed as a proposal to prohibit the use of such technology,” the agency said, adding that the rule also does not “prohibit the use of cell phones for purposes other than texting.”

Those activities will be addressed later through a separate rule.

Bill Graves, ATA president and CEO, said, “improving highway safety is one of the trucking industry’s top priorities and ATA greatly appreciates DOT’s commitment to instituting rules that encourage safe driving behaviors.”

“Prohibiting the use of handheld wireless devices by commercial drivers to send or receive text messages while driving is an important next step to further the actions our industry has already taken,” Graves said. “We hope the administration will look to expand the proposed ban on texting on handheld devices while driving beyond commercial vehicle drivers.”

Randy Mullett, vice president of government affairs for Con-way Inc., told Transport Topics that the agency’s approach is “a really responsible and appropriate way to start down the path” to eliminating distractions.

“This is a great first step,” he said, “and I think they recognize that maybe they don’t have enough information to know what are the impacts of these onboard technologies and their uses and how do they contribute to safety in other ways if you just totally banned the use of them.”

“We’re happy that it didn’t make things like a Qualcomm unit or our handhelds illegal and totally useless,” Mullett said. “They struck a good balance between safety and technology.”

Rob Abbott, American Trucking Associations’ vice president of safety policy, said the rule was “good in that it goes a step further” than the earlier guidance because of the penalties and disqualifications attached to texting.

“This is on the mark,” he said, adding that since “there’s not enough known about distractions generally for them to take that next step” of banning other types of activities.

While other industry groups said they supported the effort to ban texting, they raised concerns about the specific rule.

Steve Keppler, interim executive director of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, said that the text ban “is probably going to be the least controversial” step DOT takes, but questioned the exceptions written into the rule.

“How can you differentiate between texting and dialing? That is going to be a difficulty for enforcement,” he said.

“We are in support of a ban on texting,” said Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, but he added that the driver group “think[s] drivers have reasonable expectations to privacy and there’s certainly no hint of that in what we’ve seen so far.”

“We find it mildly curious that the customary procedures that carriers use to communicate with drivers are apparently all OK,” he said, “even if those procedures may in fact be just as distracting to drivers.”

Keppler also questioned how quickly the rule was processed.

“They moved this rule through with lightning speed . . . I can understand this is an important issue and a safety issue, but I think there are some other priorities that frankly we think ought to be looked at,” he said, pointing to the Unified Carrier Registration fees that are currently under review and the final rule on electronic onboard recorders that has yet to be published despite getting White House approval nearly two weeks ago.

“It’s crazy — it is an important issue and it is a safety issue; those types of things send a message to people about priorities,” Keppler said.