The National Transportation Safety Board in the U.S. says the current FMCSA ban on drivers using hand-held phones does not go far enough.<\/p>\n
According to a report in Heavy Duty Trucking<\/em>, the board made a recommendation to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that drivers should not use hands-free phones while driving.<\/p>\n Commercial drivers are already banned from using hand-held communication devices in most jurisdictions in North America.<\/p>\n The NTSB made its recommendations after an investigation of a 2013 truck-train crash that caused a derailment. The Board found that the truck driver, who made that crossing regularly, was in the habit of relying on the sound of a train\u2019s horn to determine if it was coming.<\/p>\n One key contributing factor in this incident was that the driver was distracted by a call that came in on his hands-free phone just as he was approaching the tracks.<\/p>\n NTSB said the current FMCSA ban on drivers using hand-held phones should be expanded to include hands-free communication as well.<\/p>\n However, the board acknowledged several other factors also contributed to the crash:<\/p>\n For one thing, the driver had severe, untreated sleep apnea that likely affected his alertness, the board said.<\/p>\n The company also had a long record of noncompliance with safety regulations such as driver qualification, drug and alcohol testing and hours of service.<\/p>\n The company and the agency went through several cycles of enforcement and corrective action, but the board found that the agency did not do enough.<\/p>\n The board also said efforts to improve safety at private grade crossings are \u00a0\u201cinadequate.\u201d<\/p>\n The NTSB is not a regulatory body. It has no legal authority to implement, or impose, its recommendations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The National Transportation Safety Board in the U.S. says the current FMCSA ban on drivers using hand-held phones does not go far enough. According to a report in Heavy Duty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[138,139,140,141],"class_list":["post-1640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-operations-safety","tag-cell-phones","tag-communication","tag-distracted-driving","tag-texting"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cantruck.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}