DOT bars bus drivers and commercial truckers from texting while driving
By Darren Murph 
posted January 26th 2010 5:03PM
posted January 26th 2010 5:03PM
It's coming. And soon. Of course, you know darn well we're referring to the day where no human in any nation can text and drive legally, and we're seeing the US Department of Transportation get us one step closer with its latest mandate. Effective immediately, bus drivers and interstate commercial truckers are disallowed from texting while operating a motor vehicle, and should they choose to send that one last SMS anyway, they'll be hit with "civil or criminal fines of up to $2,750." Needless to say, the Advocates for Highway Safety are pretty stoked about the notion, but they confess that this isn't taking things far enough. And for anyone who has been sideswiped by someone special telling someone more special "I LUVRZ U XOXO LOL" while doing 80 on the I-15, well, they'd probably concur.
10-4 good buddy!
@One Love You know "good buddy" refers to a gay male right? Lingo has changed a good bit.
Who is really going to accuse a truck driver? You can't even see up into them from the car level.
@Plazmic Flame
You do not need to see a truck driver txt'ing. The DOT can check the time that the txt was sent to the truck drivers log book. That is all they need to prove the txt with.
@doc69
1. The law doesn't ban RECEIVING texts... The law only bans SENDING texts.
2. Sending TXT's isn't going to be in a truckers log book. Unless the text is "WORK" related. PERSONAL txt's won't be logged.
3. DOT... Will need a WARRANT to view a drivers phone. Or in the process of getting pulled over. The driver can hide his "texting" phone, and only SHOW another phone to the officer. The officer checks this "Second" phone and sees no txt's were sent or received to it.
Again very very hard to ENFORCE.
It's again'st the law for COMMERCIAL Truck drives to have or use Radar detectors. Yet I know ALOT of truck drivers STILL use them & have yet to get a ticket for a radar detectors.
One other note on a Non commercial level. Radar dectectors are illegal in Virginia for EVERYONE. Yet I routinely drive though VA on a regular basis for the alst 15 years & have yet to get a ticket for my Radar Dectector. I do have Texas Plates, & it is a $2000 radar detector that is installed in my vehicle & meant to not be easily found.
Texting, or phone use will be very easy to skirt around the law & almost impossible to enforce.
TGC
@TexasGrillChef
So you are saying most truckdrivers are not only texting but doing it while going over the speedlimit.
I wonder what happens if you get in an accident though and logs show a text sent at that moment.
@Wwhat
Well when you get in a wreck, you have alot more things to worry about then a ticket for texting, or speeding. Besides that if your dead it won't really matter.
Please keep in mind. I am NOT supporting, nor am I saying that anyone SHOULD speed, or text, or smoke, or anything else, or even any combination of those activities. They shouldn't do anything except drive. ALL I am saying is that just short of a wreck it will be hard to, if impossible to enforce. This applies to commecial drivers as well as the thought to private vehicles as well.
My buddy rear-ended a Mercedes with his tractor trailer while texting, nobody was hurt, but the Mercedes was no longer!
It is incomprehensible to think that this law is not world-wide. How long before a trucker ploughs into the back of some traffic creating an explosion and multiple casualties? (Here in the UK we saw sense a while back. Not only is texting banned, but so is talking without a handsfree.)
@Oflife The only problem there is that calling hands free barely makes a difference to response times, and telling people that they can *only* use hands-free gives the impression that it is safe.
@RikF
no phones, period. make this happen. why the hell hasn't it yet.
@acme64
Ummm, no. I don't think I'm the biggest talker in terms of minutes but if I get a call and I'm available, I want to receive it. Especially since I have family overseas in some not so safe places so if they have the opportunity to call me, I'm taking it, even if driving.
It's only thing to text and drive, your eyes aren't on the road. If you can't talk and drive, then that's a problem with yourself. You need to practice and get better at it or update your brain OS*.
*coming soon
@Plazmic Flame
WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Oflife
UK laws and enforcements on the roads are ALOT different than in the USA. There are alot of things our police officers can't do in our country that your law enforcement officers can do.
Just curious though... How do you all enforce it?
@Plazmic Flame
It's a fallacy that you can be trained to talk and drive at the same time. Unanimous international studies prove otherwise. Various research also illustrates that humans (particularly males) do not handle multi-tasking well at all.
From my own experience, in the majority of times I see someone driving erratically, they are on the phone. You must be the exception.
@TexasGrillChef
Hence our ridiculously high number of fatalities. Texting or holding the phone while driving has been banned for a good 15 years in so many countries.
@Plazmic Flame
Oh boohoo, you got family killing people in foreign places so you can endanger people too, yeah right.
@Plazmic Flame I agree, those people that have issues talking and driving at the same time are probably already prone to be inattentive drivers anyway.
Really????? This law actually has to be implemented? Normal people aren't smart enough to not text while driving very large equipment?
/wonders what the world is coming to.
@Huffdady
No apparently. I've read of bus drivers texting and getting into accidents. And the train engineer in that one fatal California crash was texting supposedly.
good, a small step in the right direction, now to ban all forms of phone activity while driving
This is all non-sense anyway. There are already laws to punish this - it is called "inattentive driving". Inattentive driving has always been a ticket-able offense (at least in the states in which I have lived). It is a matter of enforcement. Dreaming up a new law/ordinance does not help if there is no bite to the bark.
@Curious G
Its economics, plain and simple. You'll get more money stopping people for texting and driving than you will for "inattentive driving."
Not to mention the fact that if your caught texting while driving, that's that case closed your guilty, but there is no definitive way to prove that you were "inattentive" while driving.
If a cop pulled me over and said I was "inattentive" I would say prove it and it would get thrown out, but If I'm texting its hard to beat that if my last sent message was while I was on the road.
So I can still drive a truck and use my laptop (sitting on my steering wheel) while driving though right? This just talks about texting, not full out emailing, web browsing, or gaming. So I am fine with it.
Although I agree with needing to stop texting while driving, smartphones are becoming the center for everything. I, for one, use my Pre as my primary MP3 player. Changing tracks is the same amount of distraction as any head unit, but how would a cop passing by know whether I was texting or playing a song?
I think this is going to become a very big issue, especially when these laws start applying to the masses.
Hands-free is safer than talking to a passenger. When my best friend is driving, he has the habit of constantly turning to look at me instead of watching the road. I'm sure he's not the only one who does this. I know that speakerphones are slightly distracting, but people aren't going to give up phones while driving any more than they'll give up speeding. A complete ban on talking while driving is totally unenforceable and will undoubtedly become a "human rights" or "racial equality" issue if we push it. The ultimate answer isn't to ban rolling communications, but to perfect self-driving cars. That would eliminate 99% of all traffic accidents regardless of the cause.
@psycros
So now we have a cop confiscating my phone? Are they going to subpoena my phone records? I highly doubt that is going down road-side.
I would say "prove I am texting"? It still goes back to the cop seeing you do it - just as he sees you swerving or otherwise driving inattentively. I am not arguing this adds to the visibility of the problem and I commend that. I just can't get over the "it's about time" attitude as if there was never a hammer in place.
@Curious G
In this part of the world they simply made it illegal to hold a phone while driving, doesn't matter if you call or text or watch youtubes or read the latest tablet rumors or whatever.
Seems a pretty simple fix if you think about it huh.
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/19411812/detail.html
This is almost impossible to enforce. NY state has had cell phone laws for years, and still people use their phone while driving all the time.
@LowSky
Same with California. I see people driving while texting/talking on cell phones all the time.
@LowSky
Here's when it'll get enforced more vigorously. After enough accidents where someone dies, unfortunately. THAT'S when it'll get seriously enforced, just like how drunk driving eventually was treated. Drunk drivings laws at one time were very lenient. That's how it always is, sadly. I see distracted drivers in Chicago doing the same thing and it's illegal to talk on the phone here. Enough people just haven't died from distracted drivers yet to make it serious.
While I won't DENY that using cell phone or texting while driving is dangerous..... I want to point what ELSE IS DANGEROUS While driving.
Being that I am a paramedic... I have seen MANY accidents AND Deaths because of SMOKING while driving, & EATING while driving.
One other point.... HOW ARE YOU GOING TO ENFORCE THIS?????
While we would like people to drive safely and not use thier cell phones or text....
YOU AIN"T GOING TO BE ABLE TO ENFORCE THIS very easily.
Especially if your using handsfree devices, voice control, ear pieces AND have TINTED windows.
Suffice it to say.. I beleive if you CAN"T ENFORCE it... then it won't do anygood to pass the laws.
TGC
Smoking... Oh you are part of that sect, the anti-smoking maniac.
@Wwhat
Not really.... I could careless if you, or anyone else kills themselves slowly by smoking, doing drugs or drinking excessively.
As long as your not doing it anywhere that will HARM myself, or the ones I love then please feel free.
TGC
did anyone notice that the trucker in the photo is the same one in this onion article?
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/heartbreaking_country_ballad
well played, engadget.
not easy to enforce? I would have thought it was blissfully simple - if you are stopped for any driving offence then two things happen automatically:
1) you are brethalysed - you can refuse, but then you are assumed guilty
2) you are phonealaysed - you consent to your phone records being polled to answer the question "were any texts sent during a given time window?" - again, you can refuse in which case you are assumed guilty.
The law does not need to know who you texted, nor the content of the text, so no real privacy concerns - just a yes/no to the question "were any texts sent?"
Yes, but when will we ban eating and driving? Or farding and driving? Surely these activities are just as distracting if not moreso? Especially farding.