Safety

The Governors Highway Safety Association has decided not to endorse complete bans on cellphone use while driving, the Washington Post reported Monday.

WASHINGTON — Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced that the Obama administration intends to issue a broader ban on texting while driving aimed at closing a jurisdictional loophole involving intrastate haulers of hazardous materials.

Please keep step-van drivers in the National Truck Driving Championships. I attended my first truck-driving rodeo two years ago because the step-van category was added, and I had a blast. Now, I’m hooked on NTDC.

Durable goods orders fell 1.3% in August, the Commerce Department said Friday. Orders excluding transportation equipment rose 2%, more than forecast.

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Tuesday that the federal government would seek to ban text messaging by all drivers hauling hazardous materials.

A federal rule banning truck drivers from texting while driving has been sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget, in advance of Tuesday’s distracted driving summit being hosted by the Department of Transportation in Washington.

The fine for texting or talking on a cell phone could become as high as $500 in New Jersey under a bill approved Monday by the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee.

The Department of Transportation has announced the agenda for its second Distracted Driving Summit, scheduled for Sept. 21 in Washington.

Truck drivers who participated in a test of a five-year, mostly federally funded program to develop integrated crash warning systems said the prototype technology helped them avoid accidents, but they said the frequent false alarms were “annoyances.”

The trucking industry received some of the best news possible last week, when the federal government announced that the number of fatalities in truck-involved crashes nosedived 20% during 2009.