#driver-fatigue-concerns

#driver-fatigue-concerns

The National Safety Council recently estimated that U.S. traffic deaths plummeted by nearly 5,000 between 2024 and 2025 - a 12-percent drop, and the largest single-year decline since at least 1999. That estimate still means that 37,810 people lost their lives in car crashes last year - a horrifying number, but the lowest one published by NSC since 2019.

All truckers and pass drivers will have to take their commercial driver's license tests in English as the Trump administration expands its aggressive campaign to improve safety in the industry and get unqualified drivers off the road. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the latest effort Friday to ensure that drivers understand English well enough to read road signs and communicate with law enforcement officers. Florida already started administering its tests in English.

For three decades, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has been smashing vehicles with an adult-sized dummy sitting in the front seat, simulating a type of head-on collision where two vehicles are slightly offset. It's always been a challenging test, above and beyond the minimum standards that car companies are legally required to meet. The IIHS conducts tests and independently awards safety ratings that are meant to reward companies for superior safety, well exceeding minimum standards.

The sudden closure derailed his career plans. A trucking job was a path forward, he said, a way to earn a better living than his current rotation of gig jobs, such as putting up blinds and detailing cars. He had quit working, paid about $2,000 in tuition and fees to attend the trucking school and was hiring a babysitter to take care of his two kids so he could attend class for a few hours each day.

The original deadline for providing data related to these incidents was set at January 19, with potential penalties up to $27,874 per day of being late, for a maximum of $139.4 million. But in part because the winter holidays cut into that time a little bit - and with Tesla being inundated with other investigation's requests into its self-driving tech's safety record - the automaker asked to extend the deadline. Evidently, its pleas fell on sympathetic ears: it now has until February 23 to make good.