DOT Core · Driver Training VideoDistracted Driving + Seat Belt

First — distraction

At fifty-five miles an hour, five seconds looking at a phone means you just crossed a full football field. Blind. Nobody steering. That's the whole story of distracted driving in one picture.

The research behind the federal rule says a texting truck driver is twenty-three times more likely to end up in a crash or a near-miss. Not twenty-three percent. Twenty-three times.

Distraction comes in three forms

Your eyes off the road. Your hands off the wheel. Your mind off the drive. A text takes all three at once — that's why it's the worst of them.

And the law knows it

Federal rules ban texting and hand-held phone use in a commercial vehicle — and driving includes sitting at a red light with the engine running. The fine: up to twenty-seven hundred fifty dollars for you. Up to eleven thousand for the company.

So here is your company standard. Phone mounted. Bluetooth connected. One-touch or voice only. GPS, music, calls — set before the wheels move. If it needs your thumbs, it waits until you're parked.

Now the second habit

It takes three seconds. Click.

In a thirty-mile-an-hour crash — city speed — an unbelted body hits the cab with the force of a three-story fall. The belt is what keeps you behind the wheel and in control, instead of flying into the windshield.

And if you're thrown from the cab — three out of four don't survive it. About four in ten truck drivers killed in crashes weren't wearing their belt. The cab can't protect you if you're not attached to it.