House examines problem of medically unfit truckers

WASHINGTON - House lawmakers scolded federal regulators yesterday for failing to implement recommendations made in 2001 that were designed to keep medically unfit commercial truck and bus drivers off US highways.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat, told Rose McMurray, chief safety officer for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, that deaths and injuries caused by medically unfit drivers are "on your conscience" since the agency has taken so long to act.

McMurray said the agency has proposed one rule and is close to proposing another to address two of the recommendations - to merge the licensing and medical certification of commercial drivers, and to create a national registry of examiners approved to issue medical certificates.

The National Transportation Safety Board made the recommendations after a 1999 New Orleans bus accident that killed 22.

A study by the House committee found it's so easy to fabricate the medical certificates required to operate commercial trucks and buses that there's almost no incentive to obtain a real document.

There is so little control over how drivers get medical certificates that it's "relatively easy for a . . . commercial driver to circumvent the physical examination requirement," the study found.

The study was based on a sample of 614 medical certificates obtained from truck drivers at roadside inspections in California, Illinois, and Ohio.