Is your life at risk from a medically unfit driver?

It is frightening but true.  According to recent investigations and a congressional inquiry, there are numerous bus and truck drivers out on American roads right now, driving with serious medical conditions.  Some of these drivers are even accepting money from federal government disability programs from their ailments, which supposedly are bad enough that they cannot work.  Yet, work they do, driving on the same roads that you and your family travel every day.

If you’re surprised to hear this, then you’ll be even more shocked to find out that this has been a known and documented problem for nearly a decade.  A tragic deadly bus crash caused by a medically unfit driver in 1999 resulted in a number of recommendations from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) directed at the government agency that oversees truck and bus drivers.

However this agency, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has been dragging its feet in implementing the proposed regulations.  In the meantime, drivers who should not be on the road continue to cause tragic bus and truck accidents and doctors say that the medical certificates they need to work are so easy to obtain illegally that nobody pays much attention any more.

Is this the best we can do?  Is this all the regard we have for human life?  If the federal government can’t be relied on to protect innocent members of the traveling public and if drivers themselves can’t be relied on to stay off the road if they’re unfit to drive – what is the average person to do?  You can read more about this problem in our library article, “Are Medically Unfit Bus and Truck Drivers Endangering Your Life?” and learn more about tractor trailer accidents in our article, “The Deadly Facts about Tractor Trailer Accidents”.