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Clauses · FAR · Environment and safety

FAR 52.223-18 Encouraging Contractor Policies to Ban Text Messaging While Driving — [Reserved]; text relocated to 52.226-8

Does the regulation require it to flow down?

No

Primes still cite 52.223-18 out of template inertia; the enforceable obligation is 52.226-8's, if that is the one incorporated

A clause can reach your subcontract without a mandate. Once it is in your document, it is a contract term all the same. The missing mandate is a fact about the regulation. It is not a ruling on your order.

Checked against acquisition.gov on 2026-08-04 · edition [Reserved] since FAC 2025-05 (effective 2025-08-07); last version under this number: JUN 2020 · base v0.9.3 Read the text ↗

What it makes you produce

One item for your checklist.

  1. There is no clause at this number

    The number points at a section with no text in it, so there is nothing to follow and nothing to send.

    • There is no clause at this number — 52.223-18 reads Reserved, and the text-messaging policy it used to carry now sits at 52.226-8

      FAR 52.223-18

When it is used

Under the old number: none — 52.223-18 is [Reserved]. The content lives in 52.226-8 (same title), which goes into practically every contract and flows down to subcontracts above the micro-purchase threshold ($15k). A numbering zombie: a template citing 52.223-18 is pointing at an empty address, but the obligation still exists at the new one.

Read closely

A template citing this number is pointing at a page with no text on it, which is a fact about the template and can be handed back as one. What the successor asks for is a policy banning text messaging while driving and an awareness effort sized to the business, with its own flow-down floor at the micro-purchase threshold — so where 52.226-8 is also on the order, that number is the one the duty runs on.

The 11 templates that name it, with the line
143CORPDOC 3A — FAR/DFARS Flowdown Provisions for Fixed Price Non-Commercial Items under a DoD Prime ContractLockheed Martinline 197155CORPDOC 4A — FAR/DFARS Flowdown Provisions for Cost-Reimbursement/T&M Subcontracts under a DoD Prime ContractLockheed Martinline 217233RTX Flowdown of U.S. Government Contract Clauses Under U.S. Government ContractsRTXline 1007105Raytheon TC-002 — Supplement 1: Government Contract Provisions from the FARRTXline 143255GD Mission Systems SCM-TMP-005 — General Provisions, Firm Fixed Price PO under U.S. Government Contract (Non-Commercial)General Dynamicsline 1045243GD Mission Systems SCM-TMP-048 — T&M Purchase Orders for Non-Commercial Items in Support of a U.S. Government ContractGeneral Dynamicsline 1966122GD Mission Systems SCM-TMP-095 — FFP Purchase Orders for Commercial/COTS Products or Services in Support of a U.S. Government ContractGeneral Dynamicsline 1017273BAE Systems Inc. USGOVA — FAR/DFARS Flow Down Provisions for Subcontracts/Purchase Orders under a U.S. Government (DoD) Prime ContractBAE Systemsline 352107Honeywell — Supplemental Provisions Under Fixed Price U.S. Government Contracts for Commercial ItemsHoneywellline 30789AAR Government Services — C40 Purchase Order General Provisions, Non-Commercial Firm Fixed Price Items or ServicesAAR Corpline 2749178AAR Component Services NY — U.S. Government Contract FAR and DFARS Clauses Incorporated by ReferenceAAR Corpline 826

Source: acquisition.gov, FAR 52.223-18 [Reserved] and 52.226-8 (verified 2026-08-04)

This is research, not legal advice. It states what the regulation says about this clause and cites the paragraph behind it. It does not rule on your order, and it does not rule on whether a prime's markings are correct.