U.S. recommends ban on drivers using electronic devices

“Too many people are texting, talking and driving at the same time,” NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said at a hearing in Washington. “It’s time to put a stop to distraction. No call, no text, no update is worth a human life.” The NTSB recommends safety improvements for U.S. agencies to act upon. It can’t implement […]

“Too many people are texting, talking and driving at the same time,” NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said at a hearing in Washington. “It’s time to put a stop to distraction. No call, no text, no update is worth a human life.”

The NTSB recommends safety improvements for U.S. agencies to act upon. It can’t implement them itself. Donald Karol, the NTSB’s director of highway safety, said the agency had been recommending collision warning systems since the mid 1990s.

The board strengthened its anti-phone stance after completing its investigation into an August 2010 crash in Gray Summit, Mo., in which a 19-year-old GMC Sierra pickup driver sent or received 11 text messages in 13 minutes before plowing into the back of a tractor-trailer.

Two school buses collided with the stopped trucks. The pickup driver and one bus passenger perished in the crash. The truck driver and 37 other people were injured.

Last year, 3,092 deaths, or 9.4 percent of 2010 U.S. road fatalities were related to driver distraction, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said last week.

Comparable figures to previous years were not available because the agency changed how it keeps the statistics. Overall traffic fatalities dropped 2.9 percent last year to 32,885, the lowest since 1949, NHTSA said.

The NTSB’s recommendation would have to be adopted separately by each U.S. state, since states have authority to regulate driver behavior. States should adopt electronic-device bans, then back up the laws with aggressive enforcement in the same way they have with drunk driving and seat-belt use, Hersman said.

Already the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which regulates trucking and bus companies, banned hand-held cell phones for drivers operating commercial vehicles last month. It banned texting for commercial drivers in January 2010.