{"id":655,"date":"2020-02-04T18:07:33","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T18:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/?p=655"},"modified":"2020-02-04T18:07:35","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T18:07:35","slug":"atas-spear-again-advocates-young-drivers-to-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/laws-and-regulations\/2020\/02\/04\/atas-spear-again-advocates-young-drivers-to-congress\/655\/","title":{"rendered":"ATA&#8217;s Spear Again Advocates Young Drivers to Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By Al Muskewitz<\/strong><br>\u00a0<br>Chris Spear, president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations told lawmakers Tuesday something that seems a fundamental answer to the age-old question of solving the national driver shortage: Change the law.<br>\u00a0<br>It has to do with 18-21 year old drivers and the perception of their ability to navigate the nation\u2019s interstate system. The example always cited here is a young driver in Tennessee can go from Bristol to Memphis on I-40, but is prohibited from going the extra mile across the Mississippi River into Arkansas.<br>\u00a0<br>Speaking at a hearing before the U.S. Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Transportation and Safety, Spear told lawmakers, \u201ccurrent law states currently permits an 18-year-old to drive a (Class 8 commercial vehicle) over 850 miles from San Diego to Crescent City, Cal., (and) over 830 miles from Brownsville to Perryton, Texas. However, 18-year-olds are prohibited from driving a truck from Providence, R.I., to Rehoboth, Mass. \u2013 a mere 10 miles.<br>\u00a0<br>\u201cGiven that 49 states and the District of Columbia have already determined that 18- to 20-year-old drivers do not inherently pose a significant safety risk to other intrastate motorists, it defies logic that these same 18- to 20-year-olds are legally unable to drive across state lines.\u201d<br>\u00a0<br>Opponents of opening interstate commerce to younger truckers always point to the insurance issues, but Spear is advocating their acceptance into the system with adequate training.<br>\u00a0<br>\u201cThe heavily bipartisan DRIVE Safe Act would require 400 hours of apprenticeship training and safety technology,\u201d Spear said. \u201cForty-eight states require none of this, making the DRIVE Safe Act a leap toward safety.\u201d<br>\u00a0<br>The hearing was convened to further outline the industry\u2019s top priorities and identifying steps Congress can take to enhance high safety, expand job opportunities in trucking and revitalize America\u2019s infrastructure.<br>\u00a0<br>In terms of safety, Spear emphasized the dangers of speeding and distracted driving among the motoring public. He noted as recently as 2017, 72 percent of large truck crashes in multiple-vehicle crashes had no truck driver-related factors recorded.\u00a0<br><br><em>Al Muskewitz is Editor for Wright Media Corp.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Al Muskewitz\u00a0Chris Spear, president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations told lawmakers Tuesday something that seems a fundamental answer to the age-old question of solving the national driver shortage: Change the law.\u00a0It has&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,214,215],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":656,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions\/656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}