Devices to track truck, bus driver hours proposed

3/13/2014

WASHINGTON — The government wants commercial trucks and buses that cross state lines to be equipped with electronic devices that record how many hours the vehicles are in operation.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s new proposal is intended to prevent drivers from exceeding limits on the number of hours they can spend behind the wheel.

Accident investigators have pointed to crashes where drivers regularly were exceeding limits on work hours. In some cases, drivers or their employers altered logbooks or kept two sets of books. That made enforcement difficult.

The government says the electronic devices would make it harder for drivers to misrepresent their hours and would help reduce crashes by tired drivers.

The government estimates that having the devices would mean 20 fewer deaths and 434 injuries each year.