December 14, 2011 in Idaho

ITD to hold off a year on trucker texting ban

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BOISE - The Idaho Transportation Department had been working on legislation to propose in January to ban texting by commercial truck drivers, to comply with a recently enacted federal rule, but now the proposed legislation is being withdrawn. The reason: Another new federal rule has come out, banning all use of handheld cell phones by interstate commercial truck and bus drivers while operating their vehicles.

Idaho has to comply with the first rule by Oct. 20, 2013; it has three years to comply with the new one on cell phones. Rather than move ahead with just the first part, ITD’s staff is recommending holding off until the 2013 legislative session, and developing legislation to bring the state into compliance with both rules. The ITD board, which is meeting today, is expected to approve its staff’s recommendation to hold off until next year to come up with more comprehensive legislation, to “avoid confusion on the part of vehicle operators and law enforcement.”

Meanwhile, Idaho lawmakers have been debating texting-while-driving bans for all drivers for several years, without ever reaching agreement on any particular proposal; some Idaho cities, including Twin Falls and Meridian, have passed their own bans since state lawmakers haven’t acted.

Four comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  Kivaari on December 14 at 10:50 a.m.

  oneanddone, You are correct that your comments are cruel and childish. Maybe if it happens, the survivors will wish you twice what befell their loved one. How you turned this into a political issue is odd.

• 

  sam67 on December 14 at 11:12 a.m.

  oneanddone, what a horrible, horrible thing to say.

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  RedCedar on December 14 at 11:33 a.m.

  I agree with both of you. Oneanddone’s wish is repugnant.

  I also fail to see why people are so down on “commercial drivers”. In every wreck them I’m aware of involving a commercial vehicle and a “civilian”, the civilian driver was at fault. Yes, I know of plenty of cases where a trucker dumped his rig because he was slipped on the ice, which in hindsight means he was going too fast for conditions, but even then most of the jacknifed semis on the passes come about because some moron in a light vehicle passed the truck and cut in close in front and then hit the brakes when he realized the reason the truck was going slow was because visibility was terrible. The penalties for all traffic offenses are very severe for CDL holders, and beyond that nobody wants to hire a driver with a less than perfect record.

  All I can figure is that people zipping around in little cars are simply physically frightened of the size of big trucks and so they imagine them wreaking all kinds of havoc and keep calling for draconian penalties against truckers. A more practical course of action would be to simply give them a wide berth. Another thing I see all the time is drivers who don’t know how to merge. Truckers usually drive in the slow lane, often because they’re are only 2 lanes each direction and they obey the law that says “keep right except to pass”. Meanwhile, most drivers entering the freeway pay no attention at all to whatever traffic is already on the freeway. The accelerate as fast as their car will go, or as fast as they feel like, and if that puts them side-by-side with a big rig at the end of the on-ramp, guess who has to move? It’s gotten so most truckers simply shift into the left lane whenever they see someone approaching on the on-ramp. That itself is dangerous because there’s usually traffic already in the left lane, but it’s either that or slam on the brakes, which is its own danger.

  In one case I know of, a dumb kid came zooming up the ramp without looking, and to avoid squishing him like a beer can, the trucker had to swerve so hard that he dumped his trailer over the I-90 viaduct in Wallace and the load into the river. Fortunately the load was apples rather than oil or toxic chemicals, but he still wrecked his truck and miraculously escaped injury, all because this kid wasn’t paying attention. I don’t know if he was texting, cell-phoning, or playing with himself, but he’d have been dead if the trucker hadn’t sacrificed his rig and risked his own life instead.

  And no, I’m not a trucker. I just drive a lot and I notice who are the good drivers and who are the bad ones.

• 

  catfuzz on December 14 at 2:37 p.m.

  RedCedar is correct. More than 3/4’s of truck accidents are caused by non-professional drivers. The penalties for commercial truck drivers who violate traffic laws ARE much more severe than for non-professionals. The BAC for commercial drivers is half the legal limit than for everyone else. A ticket for tailgating can get a pro drivers license revoked. Seatbelt use was required for commercial drivers long before they required them for everyone else. Truckers are the safest drivers on the road.