The US Department of Labor, building on president Barack Obama's order that prohibits federal employees from texting while driving plans to expand that order to private employers as well and ask them to prohibit "any work policy or practice that requires or encourages workers to text while driving."
"It is imperative that employers eliminate financial and other incentives that encourage workers to text while driving," US Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said in a statement cited by Inside Line.
Those who fail to comply with the new order will be subject to citations and penalties issued by the US Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The administration will act only after somebody files a complaint saying the employer requires them to text and drive.
According to the report filed earlier this week by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), fatalities associated with driver distraction increased from 10 percent to 16 percent between 2005 and 2009.
A total of 5,474 lives were lost in 2009 due to distracted driving, with the number of people injured as a result of such crashes reaching 448,000. Last year, the number of people who died as a result of distracted driving accounted for 16 percent of overall traffic fatalities in 2009, the same as in 2008. Transportation secretary Ray LaHood calls distracted driving “an epidemic.“
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