U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., has asked the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to reconsider electronic on-board recorders, citing recent high-profile truck accidents in her state.  Feinstein cited the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which claims that a third of drivers omit hours from log books and that the percentage of truckers asleep at the wheel at least once in the past month increased from 13 percent in 2003 to 21 percent in 2005. European trucks already have non-electronic tachographs, and two years ago, the European Union began requiring new trucks to have electronic recorders, Feinstein said.  In January 2007, the FMCSA proposed a rule to establish performance standards for recorders and incentives to encourage their voluntary installation. The proposed rule would mandate the recorders, however, only for carriers that have serious and continued violations of the hours rule twice within a two-year period.
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