Washington Fortifies Law on Hands-Free Cell Phone Use While Driving

On March 26, Washington became the 6th state to pass a law making it a primary offense to be caught holding a cell phone to your ear while driving.

By making it a primary offense to use a cell phone without a headset while driving, a law enforcement officer can stop any driver seen holding a cell phone to their ear. Previously, this was considered a secondary offense; it could only be enforced if the driver was stopped for another infraction, such as speeding.

The others states passing laws that make talking without a headset a primary offense are California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon. The District of Columbia has also enacted this law. Read more about the law.

DOT Issues Rule Requiring Electronic On-Board Recorders for Serious Hours-of-Service Violations

Interstate commercial truck and bus companies with a minimum of 10 percent hours-of-service violations during a compliance review will be required to install electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs) in all their vehicles. EOBRs are devices that record the number of hours drivers spend operating the vehicle.

The US Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) passed the rule on April 2, 2010 (scheduled to begin June 1, 2012) and estimates 5,700 interstate carriers will use EOBRs by July 2013. Learn more about the rule.

"We are committed to cracking down on carriers and drivers who put people on our roads and highways at risk," said Secretary Ray LaHood. "This rule gives us another tool to enforce hours-of-service restrictions on drivers who attempt to get around the rules."

MSC in Wisconsin Trooper Magazine

In February, Messerschmidt Safety Consulting was honored by inclusion in the cover story of the Spring 2010 issue of Wisconsin Trooper magazine. Wisconsin Trooper is the official quarterly publication of the Wisconsin State Trooper Association.

During 2009, Troopers from the Wisconsin State Patrol (WSP) made important contributions to two Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) technical papers. Sergeant Duane Meyers coauthored a technical paper with Dr. L. Daniel Metz, which looks at tire/road friction at high speeds (“Controlled Braking Experiments with and without ABS,” forthcoming SAE 2010-01-1000), and Trooper Tim Austin coauthored a technical paper with representatives of several other organizations (including MSC) on the effect that power failure has on event data recorders (EDRs) in heavy trucks (“Simulating the Effect of Collision-Related Power Loss on the Event Data Recorders of Heavy Trucks,” forthcoming SAE 2010-01-1004).

Wisconsin’s Technical Reconstruction Unit, of which Meyers and Austin are members, continues to make meaningful and valuable contributions to forensic science, accident investigation and reconstruction, and criminal justice. We at MSC are privileged to have had the opportunity to work with the WSP and to have been included in the Trooper Association’s quarterly magazine.

Revisiting the 50th Anniversary of the IIHS

Last September, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) celebrated their 50^th Anniversary with such a bang that we think this “news” is worth revisiting.

At an event celebrating the contributions of auto insurers to the progress of improvements in highway safety, a crash test was conducted with a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air and a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu. The crash event helped demonstrate how car crashworthiness has evolved since 1959.

Robert P. Hartwig, PhD, the President of the Insurance Information Institute, gave the keynote speech at this event. In his speech, he provided interesting statistics to help explain the progress of highway safety over the past 50 years. Dr. Hartwig said “there were 6 percent fewer highway deaths in 2008 than in 1960 despite the fact that last year [2008] there were nearly three times as many licensed drivers, four times as many cars and ten times as many miles driven than in 1960.” Read more about the event.

To see how much better the 2009 Malibu fared than the 1959 Bel Air, view a short video of the crash test event.

FMCSA Bans Text Messaging While Driving CMVs

On Tuesday, US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced a ban on text messaging while driving for all commercial truck and bus drivers. The ban goes into effect today, 27 January 2010, and is the result of an administrative interpretation of 49 CFR 390.17.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has provided regulatory guidance on this issue; read the rule in the Federal Register.

Transport Topics Online quoted American Trucking Association (ATA) President Bill Graves as saying, “ATA supports DOT’s action to ban the use of handheld wireless devices by commercial drivers to send or receive text messages while driving.”

Landline Magazine Online quoted Owner Operators and Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) Executive Vice President Todd Spencer, whose review was not as positive:

“We support where they are going, but not how they got there…. Making their action effective immediately bypasses normal regulatory rulemaking processes. Those processes allow actions to be vetted for unintended consequences, as well as potential implementation and enforcement problems.”

The fine for texting while driving will be up to $2,750.00

Mack Truck EDR Downloads

It is common knowledge among vehicle collision investigators that the electronic engine controls in Mack Trucks contain an event data recording function. Mack has supported this technology since 1998, when the V-MAC III system came online. Today V-MAC III and V-MAC IV systems both support the collection of event data often associated with collisions, rollovers, and other mishaps.

The difficulty for investigators has been in getting these valuable data. During 2007, the turnaround time for having data extracted from the electronic controls and then returned to the investigator often was longer than six months.

In 2008, Mack Trucks took steps to solve this problem--selecting two Third Party Authorized Providers of the data extraction service. The Authorized Providers are Delta-V Forensic Engineers in Charlotte, NC and KEVA Engineering in Camarillo, CA.

The immediate result was a drastic reduction in turnaround time with no additional cost.

Recently, Delta-V and KEVA launched a website to help inform the public about Mack data extraction services. The site contains the required forms, addresses, and instructions for obtaining event data from Mack trucks.

Many of us hope that Mack will allow the software and hardware to be publicly distributed; however, until then, we have a much improved system with relatively short turnaround time, guaranteed competence of the engineer performing the extraction, and excellent (in our experience) customer support.

The URL for this new website is: www.hvedr.com.

FocusDriven: Raising Awareness About Distracted Driving

FocusDriven is a national nonprofit organization created by US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and the National Safety Council to address the issue of distracted driving. People who talk or text on their cell phone while driving are considered distracted drivers. Distracted drivers can create dangerous situations on the road and have caused an increase in fatal car crashes. The formation of FocusDriven was formally announced last Tuesday.

The mission of FocusDriven is to advocate for victims of motor vehicle crashes caused by people using their cell phone while driving, and also to increase public awareness about the dangers of cell phone use while driving. Increased public awareness could help advance public policies to address distracted driving as well as ultimately lead to the group’s ability to expand their mission to include educational components and technology solutions.

Results of a public opinion poll conducted by Nationwide Insurance show 81% of the public admitting to talking on a cell phone while driving. This statistic, as well as other important information, can be found at FocusDriven’s website.

Additional information can be found at the Department of Transportation’s website on distracted driving.

Learn more about an example of technology aimed at helping individuals avoid the temptation to talk or text while driving--and also aimed at helping businesses enforce policies against distracted driving--at the ZoomSafer website.