ATA Gives Details of Bold Highway Safety Agenda, Releases Task Force Report

Mike

Well-Known Member
ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- 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, see the full Safety
Task Force Report. Visit:
http://www.truckline.com/Newsroom/PressReleases/Documents/Safety Task F
orce%20Report.pdf.

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.
 

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