The FMCSA is planning another study that is more specific to understand and quantify the prevalence and severity of sexual assault and sexual harassment (SASH) experienced across the commercial motor vehicle (CMV) industry, particularly among drivers.
This topic is the very reason our organization was created in 2010, and it is a long time in coming.
Our comment to the register was posted today as a PDF and we urge everyone to go to the federal register and post their own comment even if it is only a few lines to speak from your heart about the importance of this issue. Here is the link.
Some of the elements of our comment letter involve how long we have been trying to get the FMCSA to take a look at this issue that spans all the way back to our first interaction with them as early as 2013.
In it I share some of my own personal experiences in truck driver training of being sexually harassed and I shared some of the experiences other women have had such as being drugged by their trainer or co-driver and raped or gang raped by several of their co-workers. Women who have been choked into unconsciousness, Trainers who refuse to let their trainee shower for days, one woman who was sodomized on her trainer's truck and threated with a gun. Another woman whose trainer had his wife meet the student at a motel and try to get her to engage is group sex and brought a bag of duct tape and adult novelty items with him in a duffle bag.
This should not be happening in any workplace. Especially one where training is taking place that has its own designated federal agency.
Our comment included recommendations of what specific areas should be included in the new study that specifically identifies training fleets with a long history of problems when it comes to Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault.
We also urged the FMCSA to not wait for another study to be completed before taking some immediate action since they have been aware of this problem for over a decade which we documented in our comment.
We hope you will read our letter in its entirety that we submitted to the Federal register request for information today. We also urge you to take action. It only takes a few minutes to make a comment on the federal register - request for information docket. Include your ideas on what areas should be included in this new study.