The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will hold...

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will hold a March 12 meeting at the U.S. Department of Transportation in Washington to discuss upcoming guidelines on driver distraction from portable and aftermarket devices. The meeting will bring together “vehicle manufacturers and suppliers, portable and aftermarket device manufacturers, portable and aftermarket device operating system providers, cellular service providers, industry associations, ‘app’ developers, researchers, and consumer groups to discuss technical issues regarding the agency’s development of Phase 2 Driver Distraction Guidelines,” said NHTSA in a notice to appear in Wednesday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/1cq5MPd). Written comments are due May 12. NHTSA’s “Phase 1 Driver Distraction Guidelines,” released in April, applied to in-vehicle original equipment electronics. The Senate Commerce Committee held a daylong summit Thursday on distracted driving, where Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., challenged industry to resolve problems of distracted driving before the Senate takes a try at it (CD Feb 7 p5).