WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) today shut down Atlanta-based trucking company Southern Transportation, Inc. using new authorities given to FMCSA under the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21).
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced that, in keeping with his commitment to make safety the top priority of the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. DOT has already completed more NTSB safety recommendations in 2010 than in any of the last five years. Over the last eighteen months, the Department has set an aggressive safety agenda, proactively taking on a number of critical safety issues, including distracted driving, pilot fatigue, and transit safety, as well as holding automakers accountable for vehicle defects.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood kicked off the 2010 national Distracted Driving Summit today by announcing new anti-distracted driving regulations for drivers transporting hazardous materials, commercial truck and bus drivers, and rail operators, and by identifying more than 550 U.S. companies – employing 1.5 million people nationwide – that have committed to enacting anti-distracted driving employee policies in the next twelve months. The Department of Transportation also released interim data this morning from its pilotenforcement campaigns in Hartford, Connecticut and Syracuse, New York, showing that its “Phone in One Hand, Ticket in the Other” enforcement efforts have already dramatically reduced distracted driving behavior in both cities.
