GAO report: Disabled truck, bus drivers pose safety threat
July 23rd, 2008
From the Detroit Free Press, Time Magazine, ABC News:
More than half a million U.S. truck and bus drivers, or more than 4 percent of commercial license holders, have qualified for full disability benefits because of medical conditions, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.
Drivers’ disabilities include vision, hearing and seizure problems, the GAO said. Some are so severe that the license holders generally would be denied certification to drive trucks and buses.
The report said that tractor-trailer and bus drivers have suffered seizures, heart attacks or unconscious spells that led to deadly crashes. The problems persist despite years of government warnings and hundreds of deaths and injuries blamed on commercial truck and bus drivers who blacked out, collapsed or suffered major health problems behind the wheels of vehicles that can weigh 40 tons or more.
… The agency responsible for cracking down on unfit truckers, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, acknowledges it hasn’t completed any of eight recommendations that U.S. safety regulators have proposed since 2001.
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on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under blindness/visual impairments, deaf/hard of hearing, disabilities.
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September 18th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Are you saying that deaf people can’t drive a truck? That is so un-true. Just because our ears don’t work doesn’t mean we can physically drive a truck. We are often one of the best and safest drivers on the road. This is like telling a blind person they can’t walk across the street because they don’t know where the white stripes are.