On Tuesday, a group of advocates for truck safety wrote a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, urging the federal government to implement measures that would prevent hazardous material (hazmat) crashes, prioritize public safety over corporate profits, and protect communities. They emphasized that such actions could potentially save lives.
The letter from the Truck Safety Coalition, which includes Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, Parents Against Tired Truckers, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, the Center for Auto Safety, the Consumer Federation of America, Kids and Car Safety, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, called for:
- Automatic emergency braking be required on all commercial motor vehicles
- Mandated speed limiters on all commercial motor vehicles
- As fatigue is a major problem in the trucking industry, the hours-of-service rule needs to be reformed and restored
- Obstructive sleep apnea rulemaking to be reinstituted
- New entrant carrier proficiency exam
The letter also said, “Anti-safety trucking legislation in the 118th Congress will make our nation’s dangerous roadways even deadlier.”
The letter from the Truck Safety Coalition referenced two pieces of legislation, namely the Ceasing Age-Based (CAB) Trucking Restrictions Act (H.R. 267) and the Safer Highways and Increased Performance for Interstate Trucking (SHIP IT) Act (H.R. 471). The coalition urged the government to take action on these bills to ensure safer highways and trucking practices. Additionally, the letter stated that the signatories were against the teen trucker pilot program that was mandated by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and called for strong regulation and oversight in this area.
The Truck Safety Coalition’s letter and demands were partly influenced by the recent derailment of a Norfolk and Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio, which resulted in a large spill of hazardous chemicals. The coalition argued that trucks transporting hazardous materials also pose a threat to highway safety and called for stricter regulations to prevent such accidents.
“The East Palestine train crash has revealed dangerous and deadly deficiencies in the rail transportation of hazardous materials,” the letter’s authors said. “Perilous deficiencies are also ubiquitous in the truck transportation of hazardous materials. There are no defensible excuses for further delays when public safety is clearly at risk.”
The letter added, “Government inaction and relentless opposition by special trucking interests put the public at unnecessary and unreasonable risk of a deadly and dangerous crash. It is past time to issue essential and overdue truck safety standards that will prevent hazmat crashes, save lives, protect communities, and put public safety ahead of corporate profits.”
