Irvin Joseph Halter - Comments

To: Docket Management Facility (M-30) U.S. Department of Transportation West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE Washington, DC 20590-0001 Re: Docket No. FMCSA-2009-0370. You people are just plain out of your tree! States already have laws on using communication devices and being distracted while driving and for those states that do not they are in the process of passing such laws. Why do you desire to compound the rules/laws? You say you have public polls in favor of federal regulations on this subject but yet you have admitted not having any studies implicating CMV drivers and crash causation with testing. Exactly where do your facts and figures come from? You are planning on exempting certain items namely the fleet-managed Qualcomm system. I am just a single Owner Operator, I use my laptop while on the road for scanning freight bulletin boards acquiring loads. I also use my cell phone for communicating with a dispatcher, shipper and receiver in the course of my daily profession. Take these devices away and what does that leave me to make a living with? I suppose we will revert back to the "good old days" of pay phones which there are darn few remaining in rest areas in any state and even truck stops have done away with their banks of pay phones. It appears to me you are bedfellows with the big companies and are in the process of destroying the trucking industry for the single Owner Operator. This has nothing to do with safety but smacks of "Big Brother, Big Government". After it is all said and done and you have your rules/laws imposed upon us, what next? You plan on doing away with stereo's, radio's, GPS, DVD players, magazines, newspapers in trucks. I believe somewhere along the line you people should commence using "common sense" and educate your four wheel driving public. People! Cell phones and all their gadgetry are here and they are here to stay so get over it. Irvin J Halter 1912 Sentinec CT Virginia Beach VA 23456 757 301 3396