Traffic density on North American roads, outside its main cities at least, is far less than in most of Western Europe or Japan. Because the average space between one vehicle and the next on Interstate highways is correspondingly greater than on German autobahns or UK motorways, safety issues are arguably less critical. That undoubtedly explains why US truck safety regulations are years, even decades, behind equivalent legislation elsewhere, especially in Europe.
If the driver of a 40 tonne gross class 8 tractor-trailer rig on a long straight US freeway starts to fall asleep because he has been at the wheel for an excessive number of hours, he is more likely to regain full consciousness before an accident occurs than his European counterpart under similar circumstances. By the same token, if he is distracted through using his hand-held telephone while driving, a disastrous outcome is that much more probable.
Astonishingly, there are at present no laws in the US prohibiting truck drivers from texting or phoning on the move. Nor is there any equivalent to the legislation in Europe requiring drivers’ working hours, adherence to speed limits and other behaviour to be logged automatically by a tachograph or any other form of electronic recorder.
Astonishingly, there are at present no laws in the US prohibiting truck drivers from texting or phoning on the move.
Nevertheless, controversy is now raging over the need to address these vital safety issues. US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood recently rebuked the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) for its claim that a texting ban, in three out of the four states which had introduced such a prohibition, “had not reduced crashes at all”. LaHood, who has made distracted driving – specifically through texting – a key issue of his transport policy, said the IIHS report was “completely misleading”. He said distracted driving related crashes killed nearly 5,500 people in 2009 and injured almost half a million more.
Meanwhile, two US senators, one Democrat, one Republican, with the support of some of the country’s largest trucking fleets, have just introduced legislation that would require all trucks to be equipped with what they describe as “on-board electronic recorders” to monitor driving hours. No reference is made to the now universal requirement for tachographs in European heavy and middleweight trucks.
As happened in Europe 20 or so years ago over tachographs, there has been an outcry against the proposals from small owner operators in the US, objecting to what was seen back then as “the spy in the cab”, supposedly infringing individual liberties. The US Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association has said “there is no data that shows these devices will increase highway safety. They will only benefit larger companies and technology vendors”.
But given the huge, but largely unacknowledged, power now wielded by European stakeholders in the North American truck industry, through class 8 market leader Freightliner (Daimler Trucks) and Volvo (with Mack), along with the DAF influence on its Paccar Group parent – evident in the adoption of SCR for NOx emission control – it seems inevitable that those safety measures will be enacted sooner rather than later.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Automotive World Ltd.
