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The Department of Transportation’s inspector general recommends using recording devices to assist in efforts to improve surface transportation safety, which he says needs to remain a top priority at the agency.

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On Dec. 23, Kenneth M. Mead sent a report to Congress that suggested placement of the monitors to crack down on hours-of-service violations.

The installation and use of electronic recorders and other technologies to manage the drivers’ hours-of-service requirements have significant safety value and could be accomplished more expeditiously if they were phased in over a period of years and coupled with a revised hours-of-service rule,” he wrote in outlining several approaches to improve safety.

Mead was asked by two congressional panels to identify DOT’s top management issues and suggest how to address them. The House Government Reform Committee and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee made a similar request in 1998, when truck and rail safety was ranked in that review just behind aviation safety as top priorities of the agency.

For the full story, see the Jan. 3 print edition of Transport Topics. .