Pollack pushes for commercial driver’s license reform following deadly crash
The Baker administration is pushing for a new law aimed at closing some loopholes involved in the series of massive oversights that allowed a Springfield-area trucker now charged with the deaths of seven bikers to remain behind the wheel.
Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack testified Thursday morning on Beacon Hill in favor of “An Act to Promote Commercial Driver Safety,” a House bill she says “addresses critical issues” that came to light following the June fatal crash that exposed major procedural and personnel issues at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
“That tragedy called attention to the commonwealth’s regulation of commercial driver’s licenses under federal and state law,” Pollack testified. “The bill addresses a number of critical issues that were revealed by the N.H. tragedy, strengthening eligibility requirements, enhancing penalties for multiple serious traffic violations and adding requirements to ensure that employers hiring (commercial driver’s license) drivers become aware when a CDL driver’s eligibility changes.”
Zhukovskyy, a 23-year-old truck driver, has pleaded not guilty to 23 criminal charges including vehicular homicide in the June crash in Randolph, N.H., that killed seven bikers from a Massachusetts veterans group called the Jarheads Motorcycle Club. The Ukrainian national faces up to 378 years behind bars for the alleged drugged-driving crash — but has no clear path to trial anytime soon as his public defender objected to a proposed schedule last month in Coos County Court in Lancaster, N.H. Two wrongful death suits against Zhukovskyy are also moving through New Hampshire courts.
At the time of the New Hampshire collision, Zhukovskyy had a valid Massachusetts commercial driver’s license despite the recent Connecticut arrest and a lengthy record, including a recent OUI arrest in Connecticut.
The June crash led to the sudden removal of Registrar Erin Deveney, a multimillion-dollar investigation and discoveries of institutional problems going back years at the RMV.
Registry employees ended up finding rooms full of bins of paper notices from other states meant to notify Massachusetts of driving infractions by Bay State residents, revealing that the office that should have been keeping track of the out-of-state notifications simply hadn’t been doing so. After thousands of retroactive license suspensions over the summer, the RMV continues to try to rebuild following the disaster.
Pollack on Thursday touted that this bill would bar people from obtaining a commercial driver’s license if their license has been suspended anytime in the previous three years. it would also increase license suspensions for truckers who commit multiple serious traffic violations in a three-year period.
Commercial driver’s license holders would be required to notify employers and the RMV the next day if they are convicted of violating any traffic law, or if their licenses are pulled or suspended in a different state. Truckers also would have to sign up to for the state’s Driver Verification System, which provides automatic notification to their employers if their licenses are pulled.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/35er44c
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