School bus safety will the focus of a National Transportation Safety Board meeting next month to consider the Special Investigation Report based on the investigation of two 2016 school bus crashes. On Nov. 1st in Baltimore, Maryland, a city school bus crossed into oncoming traffic and struck a commuter bus, killing six people.

“Safety should not be a competitive advantage.” That’s the message I keep in mind every time I visit groups that represent employers, like the Network of Employers for Transportation Safety (NETS) which focuses on highway safety, or when I meet with the executives at individual companies, who may use many different modes of transportation for their businesses.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has declared Tennessee-licensed truck driver Eric Ronald Scott to be an imminent hazard to public safety and has ordered him not to operate any commercial motor vehicle (CMV) in interstate commerce. Scott was served the federal order on January 18, 2017.

Although employers cannot control roadway conditions, they can promote safe driving behavior by ensuring workers: recognize the hazards of winter weather driving, for example, driving on snow/ice covered roads; are properly trained for driving in winter weather conditions; and are licensed (as applicable) for the vehicles they operate. For information about driving safely during the winter, visit OSHA's Safe Winter Driving page.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has declared a Mitchell, South Dakota-based trucking company, Lonnie Roth, and separately its owner, Lonnie Roth, as a commercial driver, to be imminent hazards to public safety and ordered the company and the driver to immediately cease all interstate and intrastate commercial operations.

A commercial bus driver who failed to tell his medical examiner about episodes of dizziness and fainting has been ordered out of the driver’s seat after his medical condition nearly caused a bus filled with passengers to crash on an interstate highway.