The National Transportation Safety Board is pressing federal regulators to require driver-monitoring technology in heavy trucks, arguing that tools capable of detecting distraction, drowsiness or impairment should be standard across commercial fleets, according to new reporting from FreightWaves. The call seeks to move the industry beyond voluntary adoption toward a uniform baseline that covers both newly built vehicles and trucks already in service.
The timing is consequential. Fresh federal estimates show roadway deaths are trending down in 2025, giving policymakers a rare opening to lock in gains with targeted interventions. Early figures released Wednesday, September 24, indicate an 8.2% drop in U.S. motor-vehicle fatalities in the first half of this year versus 2024—progress safety advocates say should be reinforced by technologies that prevent human-factor crashes.
At the same time, enforcement attention around driver qualifications is ratcheting up. On September 23, the Department of Transportation’s inspector general opened an audit into how FMCSA oversees states’ English-language testing for CDL applicants—a sign the agency’s gatekeeping on who’s allowed behind the wheel is under new scrutiny.
On the roadside, federal inspectors have stepped up activity as well. FMCSA data show a marked surge in inspections since late June, coinciding with renewed English-proficiency enforcement—an operational shift fleets are already feeling in day-to-day compliance.
What a monitoring mandate could look like: NTSB’s push points to systems that can reliably flag eyes-off-road, eyelid closure, head pose and other indicators of inattention, typically via driver-facing cameras and AI-based analytics. For carriers, the practical impact would fall into three buckets: hardware (in-cab sensors and cameras); software (event detection, alerting and coaching workflows); and governance (policies for data access, retention and use). Integrations with existing safety stacks—AEB/ESC, telematics, ELDs and video—will matter, but so will trust: programs framed around coaching rather than punishment tend to gain driver buy-in faster, reduce event rates earlier and deliver stronger legal defensibility when crashes occur.
For operations leaders, the takeaway is to get ahead of the curve. Even before a federal rule lands, procurement lead times for cameras and compute units can stretch months; internal policy alignment (privacy, data sharing with insurers or plaintiffs, union contracts) takes longer. Safety teams should pilot with clear success metrics (incident-rate reduction, near-miss trends, false-alert rates, coaching completion), document the ROI case, and socialize results across the driver workforce.
Why this matters now: With fatalities easing but still high by historical standards, regulators are signaling a holistic strategy—tightening qualifications and oversight while nudging broader deployment of driver-assist and monitoring tech. If NTSB’s recommendation gains traction at FMCSA and NHTSA, fleets that have already industrialized coaching around driver-facing video will have a head start on compliance—and a stronger position in claims, audits and customer safety scorecards.
Sources: FreightWaves, Commercial Carrier Journal, Transport Topics
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