Two U.S. representatives have introduced a bill that would provide a tax credit for commercial vehicle owners to purchase and install specific advanced safety technology, including brake stroke monitoring systems, vehicle stability systems, lane departure warning systems and collision warning or mitigation systems.


The bill was introduced on May 4 by Representatives Geoff Davis, R-Kentucky and Mike Thompson, D-California. H.R. 1706, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Act of 2011, would:

* Provide a tax credit equal to 50 percent of the cost of a qualified system, up to $1,500

* Allow a total credit of up to $3,500 per vehicle

* Limit the qualifying taxpayer to a maximum credit of $350,000 per taxable year

* Extend credit eligibility for the purchase of school buses, intercity buses and vehicles used in commerce weighing over 26,000 pounds

The Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association and its affiliate organization the Heavy Duty Manufacturers Association announce strong support for the measure.

"Increasing the deployment of the technologies in this bill will help reduce accidents and fatalities on our nation's highways and improve commercial vehicle safety," said Bob McKenna, MEMA's president and CEO.

An April 2010 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety assessed a number of the technologies included in the bill and found that they have "the potential to prevent or mitigate more than one of every four large truck crashes, one of every three injury crashes, and about one of five fatal crashes."

The list of eligible technologies was crafted with the support and assistance of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance and is designed to target the causes of approximately 60 percent of commercial motor vehicle accidents, as identified in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Large Truck Crash Causation Study.