Editorial: Toughen truckers' med exams

The National Transportation Safety Board is taking the right step by exploring whether tougher medical screening procedures should be put in place for the nation's 9.6 million commercial drivers. Federal safety regulators are concerned that some drivers with serious medical conditions, and others with drug problems, are able to pass what government officials contend are relatively easy screening exams. NTSB Chairman Jim Hall said Thursday that bus drivers and truck drivers should have to undergo the same type of thorough medical examinations that commercial pilots must take if they expect to fly. "You wouldn't want to get on an airplane with a pilot who is unfit," Hall said.

One of the reasons for the heightened interest in this issue was the crash of a charter bus on Mother's Day in New Orleans last year in which 22 people died. The NTSB investigation determined that the driver's health played a role in the deadly crash; police also believe the use of marijuana shortly before the accident was the primary cause. Although the driver had heart and kidney problems, the doctor who diagnosed the driver with congestive heart failure in 1998 signed his medical certificate that allowed him to drive. As the Associated Press noted in a story last week, federal law prohibits commercial drivers with this disease from driving.

It's estimated that more than 5,000 individuals die every year in crashes that involve trucks. The NTSB doesn't have up-to-date figures on how many of these deaths are attributed to unfit drivers, but the Washington Post reported Wednesday that a limited NTSB study in 1990 found that 10 percent of 182 fatal accidents in eight states involved commercial drivers whose poor health contributed to the deaths. The American Trucking Association opposes stricter medical examinations, believing that they're not needed. But it is time for the NTSB to move forward with tougher exams.

One of the problems is doctor shopping, where drivers go to doctors who they know will give them passing grades. The NTSB is considering tougher requirements so that only government-approved physicians, who have undergone training to help them better detect health or drug problems, administer the examinations of drivers. Although it is important to make our highways safe, at the same time the rules must be reasonable. For instance, requirements in the aviation industry that commercial pilots must retire by a certain age are arbitrary and don't reflect whether or not the pilot is in excellent health. The focus should be on getting the genuinely unsafe commercial drivers off the road to make our roads safer for travel.

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