U.S. gov’t announces texting ban for commercial truck and bus drivers
by Jonathon Ramsey (RSS feed) on Jan 26th 2010 at 3:27PM
It’s official: the U.S. Department of Transportation has made it a crime for inter-state truck drivers and drivers of coaches carrying more than eight passengers to text or use handheld cell phones while driving. the penalty for being caught doing so is a fine of up to $2,750.
The move has been planned for a while, with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood holding a summit last October to discuss the issue, and foreshadowing the texting ban for truck, coach and school bus drivers. And this won’t be the end of it, either. the message accompanying the news said, “In the months ahead, we’ll propose additional legal remedies and develop new tools that will help us… bring an end to the terrible dangers posed by distracted driving.” Here’s a +1 for safer roads. Hopefully.
[Source: Department of Transportation | Image: Meredithwz – CC 2.0]
Filed under: Government/Legal
Tags: anne ferro, AnneFerro, cellphone, coach drivers, CoachDrivers, Department of Transportation, DepartmentOfTransportation, DOT, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, FederalMotorCarrierSafetyAdministration, school bus drivers, SchoolBusDrivers, text ban, TextBan, texting, texting ban, TextingBan, trucks
Tags: coach drivers, department of transportation, motor carrier safety, truck drivers, trucks