Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers & Impaired Driving
XII.
While the standard for passenger vehicle operators is .08 BAC, an operator of a commercial motor vehicle is held to a much higher standard and considered to be under the influence of alcohol at .04 BAC (49 CFR § 382.201 Alcohol concentration). Additionally, under the Federal Motor Safety Carrier Administration (FMCSA) regulations, a commercial operator may not use alcohol within four hours of going on duty or operating a commercial vehicle. Drivers cannot possess alcohol in the cab, and any driver who appears to have consumed alcohol in the past four hours must be placed out of service for 24 hours. Nor should a driver be on duty and possess, be under the influence of, or use drugs or substances ( 49 CFR § 392.4 Drugs and other substances). This is where the assistance of all public safety professionals is so vitally important. Many patrol officers, deputies and troopers when asked about stopping a commercial motor vehicle and their operators for a traffic violation or suspected impairment will express a level of uneasiness, trepidation, or intimidation about stopping a commercial motor vehicle. We encourage officers to look at a commercial motor vehicle operator no differently than other drivers when enforcing impaired driving laws and to use all available tools to remove these drivers from our roadways. Licensing for operation of commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) is specialized because the safe operation of those vehicles requires knowledge and skills above those required to drive a car or other lightweight vehicle. A commercial driver’s license (CDL) is not a standard driver’s license. As such, a CDL holder should be considered a professional driver with a unique privilege. A CDL is necessary to ensure that only safe drivers operate CMVs. The regulation of the CMV industry and CDL licensing programs is designed to “help reduce or prevent truck and bus accidents, fatalities, and injuries by requiring drivers to have a single CMV driver’s license and by disqualifying drivers who operate CMVs in an unsafe manner.” (20) CMVs are larger and heavier than an ordinary passenger motor vehicle. A fully loaded tractor-trailer weighs 80,000 pounds. The kinetic energy or destructive force of such a vehicle traveling at only 12 miles per hour is the same as a 3200-pound passenger car traveling 60 miles an hour. This difference makes a crash between a CMV and a passenger car potentially much more severe for the passenger car and its occupants. In the United States in 2020, the majority of fatalities from large truck crashes were of those in passenger vehicles or otherwise, not those in the CMV. Only 15% of those large truck fatalities were the large truck (22) occupants.
Author
Jim Camp Senior Attorney National Traffic Law Center Member, MADD Law Enforcement Committee
Operation of a motor vehicle while impaired by alcohol and/or drugs under any circumstance poses an enormous risk to public safety. The risk is further compounded when a CDL holder impaired by alcohol or drugs operates a CMV.
(21)
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Mothers Against Drunk Driving ®
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