Expert to Show Marijuana’s Effect on the Brain While Driving

With more and more states allowing for either medicinal and recreational marijuana sales, many fleets are beginning to show concern about whether or not they need to keep a closer eye on their drivers. No matter the controlled or uncontrolled substance a person imbibes, the effects on their driving ability and the safety of those around them on the highway is a cause for concern that needs to be addressed.

Dr. Denise Valenti, IMMAD LLC, will review driving and marijuana use in general and further discuss the associated dysfunctions to visual and neural pathways at the Fleet Safety Conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, October 31, 2018. She will also provide additional information regarding the status of roadside testing related to marijuana impairment.

“Marijuana affects self-awareness. A driver cannot accurately self-assess so they do not judge their impairment properly,” says Dr. Valenti. “I compare this to the permanent dysfunctions with Alzheimer’s disease.”

According to the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, drivers testing positive for marijuana - active THC alone-indicative of use within four hours - in fatal crashes are six times more likely to have killed someone other than themselves compared to alcohol positive alone, as reported in the agency’s 2015 report “Driver Toxicology Testing and the Involvement of Marijuana in Fatal Crashes, 2010-2014.”

But how can we test drivers on the roadside? According to Valenti, there is a new possible test on the horizon.

“We have a National Institutes of Health National Institute of Drugs and Addiction Small Business Innovation Research contract to research a simple goggle virtual reality system coupled with a cell phone and blue tooth response button to measure retinal dysfunction,” explains Valenti. “We are finding mid peripheral vision impairments. This is essentially the ‘tunneling’ of vision often reported by marijuana users. The final version will be a quick, simple, objective, sensitive, specific test of marijuana driving impairment for law enforcement. This test will be threshold related and have a number value compared to a large normative data base. That test will take two minutes per eye.”

California Port Tightens Clean Air Standards for Trucks

The Ports of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach in Southern California will require all newly registered trucks servicing terminals at either port to be model year 2014 or newer as of Oct. 1.

The new requirement only applies to trucks registering in the Port Drayage Truck Registry for the first time. Trucks that are already registered as of Sept. 20 will be allowed to continue operating at the ports as long as they are current on their annual dues and compliant with emissions regulations set by the California Air Resources Board.

Currently, all trucks working the ports are required to be 2007 model year or newer and according to the PDTR, half of the trucks registered are at least 2010 model year or newer. About 17,000 trucks are registered to work in the San Pedro Bay port complex.

The new rules were adopted by both the Long Beach and Los Angeles boards of Harbor Commissioners in June and finalized in July. It is the first in a series of steps the ports are taking to advance clean truck progress under the 2017 Clean Air Action Plan Update, approved last November. The goal of the plan is to phase out older trucks with a goal of transitioning to zero-emission trucks by 2035.

The plan includes waiving the PDTR registration fee for near-zero and zero emissions trucks and charging a rate for cargo moves by trucks with exemptions for trucks that meet those same standards. The ports will conduct a truck rate study and feasibility assessments prior to proposing rate changes

California Blackballs Certain Motor Carriers

California Governor Jerry Brown (D) has signed into law a bill that aims to hold retailers partly accountable for working with trucking companies that have a record of labor violations.

The bill, SB 1402, makes retailers jointly liable for violations of state labor and employment laws when they hire trucking companies with unpaid final judgements for failure to pay truck driver wages, imposing unlawful expenses on employees, failure to remit payroll taxes or to provide worker’s compensation insurance, misclassifying employees as independent contractors, and other labor law violations.

“Governor Brown’s signing of SB 1402 will allow port truck drivers to share in the benefits from California’s leading role in global trade,” said California State Senator Ricardo Lara (D), whose district includes the Port of Long Beach. “Retailers using their power to end exploitation and restore good jobs for workers at our ports will mean port truckers are left behind no more.”

Lara introduced the bill earlier this year, proposing it as a way for the state to curb a practice at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach that the labor department has repeatedly deemed a misclassification of truck drivers as independent contractors. The California Division of Labor standards Enforcement has won more than $45 million on behalf of 400 truck drivers in cases involving driver misclassification.

Under SB 1402, the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement will create a list of port trucking companies that have failed to pay final judgments. Retailers hiring port trucking companies on that list would be liable for future state labor and employment law violations incurred by these companies.

Harbor Trucking Association, a group that represents port trucking companies and other drayage stakeholders on the West Coast, opposes the new law, despite working with lawmakers to address concerns. In a statement to Heavy Duty Trucking, HTA CEO Weston LaBar said that the bill could hurt business in the state and may set the stage for excessive regulation in the future.

“The HTA appreciates the author’s office working with industry to remove many of the initial concerns and clarifying certain provisions,” said LaBar. “However, we were unable to remove our opposition for two main reasons. First, we feel that this bill will cause shippers to pursue cargo gateways outside of California solely on the unknown unintended consequences and mere perception of being anti-competitive. Second, because the California State Legislature routinely takes reasonable legislative measures and over time turns them into unmanageable over-regulation, with a series of trailer bills that attach new unreasonable provisions to the initial legislation.”

Proponents of the new law believe that truck drivers who are classified as independent contractors and not employees are not truly independent from the companies for which they contract. Therefore, it is contended that by misclassifying these drivers as independent, they are denying them proper wages and benefits. Other alleged practices by these companies include placing drivers in truck leases that leave them with little take home pay and no ability to work for other companies.