Segment 3 Of 6 Previous Hearing Segment(2) Next Hearing Segment(4)
SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
Page 44 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
OVERSIGHT OF THE OFFICE OF MOTOR CARRIERS
Wednesday, March 17, 1999
U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Ground Transportation, Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met at 10:00 a.m. in Room 2167 of the Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Thomas Petri, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Mr. PETRI. The hour having arrived, we may as well proceed, even if the Speaker hasn't quite called the House into session yet. I'm sure they will.
The Subcommittee will come to order.
We are meeting today to continue our series of hearings on motor carrier safety in the Office of Motor Carriers within the Department of Transportation.
Just yesterday, we were reminded of how catastrophic a lapse in transportation safety can be. An Amtrak train hit a truck that was crossing the track, resulting in a loss of at least 14 lives.
Today's hearing will focus on recent studies of the Office of Motor Carriers conducted by the Department of Transportation Inspector General's Office, and the General Accounting Office.
This information we receive will be helpful as we consider the future of the Office and look at other recommendations or proposals at future hearings.
Next week, March 25th, we will have a hearing where outside interests give their perspectives on motor carrier safety.
With that, I yield to the Ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee, my distinguished colleague, Nick Rahall from West Virginia.
Page 45 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I don't have much in the way of opening.
Just to poke a little fun, I guess, and to extend my appreciation of course to the GAO and OIG for all the work they've done in the area of motor carrier safety.
However, I would hope, Mr. Mead, if you leave government service, I hope you won't follow in the footsteps of your predecessor.
Specifically, I hope you don't go around planting fake bombs on tanker trucks to see if inspectors are doing their jobs, and if they can detect them, as she allegedly Columbus, Ohio, recently at an airport.
I'd also like to avoid, at all costs, seeing a sequel to her book, Flying Blind, Flying Safe, entitled
''Trucking Fatigue, Trucking Hungry.'' I hope we don't see anything like that.
But as I said, IG has done a great deal of work on the carrier safety issues.
I realize this is a cash-in type of town, but I think we need to maintain at least a modest amount of decorum.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. They must have been so pleased that they caught her at that.
In any event, I'd like to welcome our panel, and turn the floor over to the Honorable Kenneth M. Mead, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation, who'll be followed by Phyllis F. Scheinberg, the Associate Director, Transportation Issues, Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division, U.S. General Accounting Office.
Mr. Mead?
TESTIMONY OF KENNETH M. MEAD, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; AND PHYLLIS F. SCHEINBERG, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, TRANSPORTATION ISSUES, RESOURCES, COMMUNITY, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIVISION, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Page 46 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
Mr. MEAD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Rahall. I guess I should dispense with the normal opening of the testimony and just say, in response to the point you made, as you know, those facts are still under investigation. But take it from me, when you try to do penetrations of security, I think that's a matter that's best left to the proper law enforcement authorities.
As for writing a book, you won't see me writing any books. I can't do too much about my predecessor, though.
But thank you.
I do want to say I think that it's great that you're having this hearing today. It's a major public safety issue, and I'm really delighted to be here, as I know my colleague from the GAO, Ms. Scheinberg, is.
I do want to say that I can personally attest that Secretary Slater views transportation safety as the North Star, the number-one strategic goal.
The Department, I think, is marshalling its resources with renewed vigor in this particular area.
We've had a good year in commercial aviation, and until yesterday, sadly, we had a very good year in passenger rail as well.
We ought to be able to say the same for all modes of transportation, but we can't. There are over 445,000 interstate motor carriers. Most are good companies who comply with safety rules, and I won't be talking about them today.
I'll be talking about a small portion of the industry that puts profit first, safety second, and creates a risky environment on the roadways.
We need to do a better job to get those carriers to change their behavior or get them off the road promptly. We need to send a strong message.
Page 47 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
This issue is not new. In 1966, motor carrier safety was taken away from the Interstate Commerce Commission because Congress concluded that oversight there was not effective.
In 1987, a year in which 5,600 people lost their lives in truck crashes, Senator Hollings and 19 co-sponsors proposed taking motor carriers from FHWA and creating a separate motor carrier administration.
Both times, the debate centered on the fact that too few trucks were inspected, too many of those inspected were placed out of service, and driver fatigue was a major cause of crashes.
Let me share the highlights of what we found in our recent audit.
First, the goals for motor carrier safety need to change, they need to be made more bold. We must show that over 5,000 deaths a year involving large truck crashes are unacceptable. Those 5,000 deaths annually equate to a major airline crash of about 200 fatalities every two weeks.
DOT's measure of truck safety is currently based on a reduction in what is known as the fatality rate.
But with the growth in the industry and the increase in truck miles, the current goal can be achieved, even with an increase in the number of fatalities.
I'll illustrate with this chart. The red line in the chart shows the upward trend and the number of large trucks involved in fatal crashes. It's 4,800.
The blue line shows the number of fatalities in large truck crashes, over 5,300.
The green line shows large truck vehicle miles traveled. The fatality rate has been flat since 1995, about 2.8 per hundred million vehicle miles traveled.
While that rate has remained the same, the number of deaths in large truck crashes increased by over 400 between '95 and '97.
Page 48 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
FHWA is proposing a change to the current goal so that the goal has the affect of reducing the absolute number of fatalities.
I think that's a step in the right direction.
We conducted a survey of the safety investigators in the Office of Motor Carrier and we got a very high response rate with very forthright, straightforward responses.
Over 70 percent of the investigators responded. Sixty-six percent of them responded that truck safety overall was good to excellent. Twenty-nine percent responded fair and five percent responded poor.
That ought to be some cause for concern.
We would be reluctant to board an airplane if the safety inspectors at FAA said airline safety was only fair.
Second, the Office of Motor Carriers has shifted emphasis to a more collaborative partnership approach with industry. That approach has enforcement as a last resort.
That is fine so long as the partnership and collaborative approach works, but it doesn't with some motor carriers.
For example, repeat violators warrant, but often do not receive, stiff and swift enforcement actions to have a deterrent effect. Violations that we are most concerned about include matters like requiring drivers to drive excessively long hours. Fifteen to 20 hours at a stint, is not uncommon to find.
We've found fraudulent logs that falsify the hours driven, mechanical problems like defective brakes, steering systems, controlled substance, and testing irregularities.
We found that during fiscal years '95 to '98, over 800 motor carriers were subject to multiple enforcement actions. Of those, over 100 had multiple violations of the same regulation each time the investigators came by. Most were allowed to continue operating. The average fine was about $2,500.
Page 49 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
Also we found that investigators performed over 6,000 compliance reviews of motor carrier operations. They reported spending about 55 percent of their time doing compliance reviews.
A majority responded that compliance review quality has in fact improved over the past several years, but that more needed to be performed.
Compliance reviews were not performed on nearly 300 of the top 1600 worst carriers identified by OMC in the country.
Now, for the 6000 carriers that were subjected to compliance reviews this past year, almost 1,000 were rated unsatisfactory, 2600 satisfactory, and 1800 conditional.
In '95, nearly 1,900 carriers were assigned unsatisfactory and conditional ratings, and still had unsatisfactory and conditional ratings at the time of our audit in November.
Since 1995, 650 of these same carriers were involved in crashes that killed 132 people and injured 2,200 more.
We found that most violations of the 29 most significant safety regulations did not result in enforcement actions.
The red bar on this chart shows that 25,000 violations were found during the compliance reviews. The blue bar shows that enforcement actions--that is, fines--were processed on about 3,000 of the violations found.
And as the chart shows, in a small percentage of cases where fines were imposed, they were settled for 46 cents on the dollar, down from 67 cents on the dollar several years ago.
The average settlement is now about $1600. Some carriers correctly see the chances of being fined as low, and if they are fined, correctly see that as a cost of doing business.
Page 50 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
In our survey, nearly half of the OMC investigators rated the enforcement program as poor to fair. Over 90 percent responded the program would be moderately to much more effective if unsafe carriers were put out of service, and larger fines were imposed for repeat offenders.
Over 85 percent of the investigators responded more enforcement actions should be taken.
Mr. Chairman, since '97, OMC has been referring carriers with the most egregious safety problems to our office for investigation. By the time these cases get to us, the motor carrier involved has been operating in violation of various safety rules for a long period of time, sometimes several years.
We got 32 convictions in '97, about $1.6 million in fines. We've got 35 criminal investigations ongoing. Most of these cases involve carriers who grossly violate drivers' hours of service rules and create an environment in their company where the drivers feel compelled to drive excessive hours--which of course results in fatigu--and the drivers maintain fraudulent records to conceal that.
I do want to give some credit where credit is due. OMC is using, let's call it the SafeStat System, to target motor carriers with poor safety records. That's a major improvement over what they had several years ago.
But that system is only as good as the data that goes in, and major improvements are needed.
A word about border crossings.
We reviewed safety oversight of trucks coming into the United States in the commercial zone. About 44 percent of the trucks entering the U.S. didn't meet safety standards when inspected, a figure of nearly 50 percent in Texas. That rate is pretty high when compared with about 17 percent for Canadian trucks, and 25 percent for U.S. trucks nationwide.
Page 51 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
California has a very good, well-staffed inspection program, and because the program is well-staffed, you'll see that the trucks entering Mexico have an out-of-service rate that's very comparable to U.S. trucks.
One example, in El Paso, Texas, we have only one inspector where 1300 trucks cross a day. He can do about 14 inspections a day. It's time to establish a strong inspection presence at the border.
I want to close on the organizational issues. This is a difficult policy issue. We don't pretend to have an answer.
I know actions by OMC's leadership show that an arm's length relationship with the industry didn't always exist. That has damaged OMC's credibility, but leadership and management can change, and new leadership can take actions to help restore credibility.
We do have one concern with OMC's placement in FHWA: that is that the focus of FHWA's primary mission is infrastructure in the billions of dollars. And we're worried that the safety mission might become subordinate.
I don't mean to suggest for a minute that the emphasis on infrastructure is inappropriate, it's just that how do you balance that when you have a number one safety issue here?.
Twenty percent of the OMC investigators responding to our survey expressed opposition to a move, just 20 percent.
Thirty-two present didn't favor or oppose a move.
What we do know is that regardless of OMC's organizational home, left where it is, or combined with NHTSA, or creating a Motor Carrier Safety Administration, in our view, is just shuffling the chairs around on the deck or changing the sign over the door.
You need strong leadership and an arm's-length relationship with the industry regulated and a willingness to pursue strong enforcement action where it's warranted.
Page 52 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
I truly hope that the debate on organization, on where to place the safety function, isn't seen as a substitute or a panacea for a range of other safety actions that have to be taken.
Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Ms. Scheinberg?
Ms. SCHEINBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Rahall, other members of the Subcommittee.
I'm here today to discuss GAO's on-going work on the effectiveness of DOT's Office of Motor Carrier and Highway Safety in improving the safety of large trucks. Specifically, I'll discuss recent increases in fatalities from crashes involving large trucks, the need to better understand the factors that contribute to these crashes, and the Office of Motor Carriers need for better data and quicker action in order to be more effective.
In summary, despite decades of federal oversight, more than 5,000 people continue to die each year in crashes involving large trucks. We believe that the Office of Motor Carriers needs to be more focused and aggressive in its efforts to reduce these fatalities.
First, let's look at the trends. For each mile that they travel, large trucks are involved in fewer crashes than cars, but truck crashes are more likely to result in fatalities and most of the time, and the fatalities are occupants of the cars. Of the nearly 42,000 people who died on our nation's highways in 1997, about 5400 died from crashes involving large trucks. This is illustrated in the top line of the chart to my right. As you can see, fatalities increased by almost 900 or 20 percent between 1992 and 1997. Fatalities may be increasing in part because trucks are driving an increasing number of miles each year.
As shown by the bottom line in the chart, the fatality rate measures the number of fatalities per 100 million miles driven by large trucks. This rate decreased from 1988 to 1992, but since then it has remained fairly constant at about 2.8 to 2.9 deaths per 100 million miles traveled.
Page 53 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
As shown on the next chart, if truck travel continues to follow the recent trends, and the fatality rate is not reduced, the annual number of fatalities could increase to 5800 this year, and to more than 6,000 next year. Also shown on the chart is the goal that the Federal Highway Administration has established for reducing fatalities this year to about 5100. This goal is substantially below our projected figure of 5800.
To reduce fatalities from large trucks, it's important to understand why these crashes happen. Unfortunately, no definitive information on the causes of fatal truck crashes exists. However, there is an existing database that contains some information on the extent to which driver behavior, the type of road, and weather conditions may contribute to crashes. For example, errors on the part of drivers have been cited frequently as contributing factors to fatal crashes between large trucks and cars. In 1997, errors by car drivers were reported in 80 percent of these crashes while errors by truck drivers were reported in 28 percent of these crashes.
The problem with the existing database is that it contains data only from fatal truck crashes which are about only one percent of total truck crashes, and it does not rely on a thorough investigation of the crash scene. The Office of Motor Carriers plans to design and fund the development of a database that would contain more detailed information on the factors that are most likely to contribute to truck crashes. This effort is estimated to take two to three years to complete at a cost of $2- to $3 million. Industry groups are suggesting that the studies should include input from other research groups to improve its design. While including this additional input would increase the amount of time and money needed to complete the study, it would also increase the study's credibility.
The Office of Motor Carriers has undertaken a number of activities that are intended to improve truck safety. While these activities could have a positive effect on truck safety over the long term, their effectiveness is limited in the short term for three reasons.
Page 54 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
First, too much of the data that the Office of Motor Carriers relies on to target high-risk trucking companies are incomplete, inaccurate, and untimely. For example, one important factor needed to more accurately target high-risk companies is the number of crashes in which company trucks are involved. In 1997, Office of Motor Carriers estimated that the state did not report about 38 percent of all crashes and 30 percent of fatal crashes involving large trucks. Without this information, Office of Motor Carriers cannot know for sure which truck companies have the worst safety records, and some of the worst companies may be going completely undetected. In addition, Office of Motor Carriers would not have an accurate count of the existing trucking companies or the number of large trucks in operation.
We also found that several of the Office of Motor Carriers' activities that could improve large truck safety will not be completed for several years. For example, Motor Carriers plans to develop a method to track the number of citations received by drivers in order to more accurately target high risk carriers. However, it does not yet have an estimated date for implementing this plan.
Representatives from both the trucking associations and safety groups agree that Motor Carriers is too slow in implementing measures to improve truck safety. For example, in 1995, Congress directed DOT to establish a database to consolidate information on Motor Carriers and update it every year. The final rule on this information system was due over a year ago, but has not yet been issued, and probably won't be issued for at least another year.
Finally, Motor Carriers has not developed any way to measure the effectiveness of its no-zone campaign that was launched in 1994 to reduce crashes between large trucks and cars. This campaign, which aims to educate car drivers about the limitations of large trucks, has a goal of reducing such fatalities by ten percent over a five-year period. However, as evidenced by the overall increase of fatalities since 1994, the campaign apparently is not making any progress towards its goal.
Page 55 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
These are some of the initiatives the Office of Motor Carriers is undertaking, either by itself or in partnership with the states that could have a positive impact on large truck safety issues over the long term. However, Motor Carriers needs to be more focused and more aggressive. It cannot effectively focus its activities on reducing fatalities unless it knows why the crashes happen. The proposed study to develop better information on the factors that are most likely to contribute to crashes is crucial, and it should be a top priority.
Motor Carriers also needs to develop a sense of urgency in improving the accuracy and timeliness of the data needed to target unsafe truck companies, and it needs to move faster in implementing improvements to truck safety.
Mr. Chairman, this summarizes our findings to date. I'll be pleased to answer any questions that you or members of the Subcommittee may have.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. Thank you both for your opening statements.
Are there any questions?
Mr. Rahall?
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mead, by all accounts, including your testimony, the number of compliance reviews and level one inspections are on the decline.
As you are aware, OMC is primarily responsible for compliance reviews while the states can duck the majority of level one inspections.
According to the CVSA, these basic enforcement tools are being dropped by the wayside due to a shift in federal policy toward a more performance-based program, or what the IG terms a collaborative approach to safety.
CVSA also maintains the OMC has promoted greater emphasis on level two and three inspections due to the state enforcement plan review process.
Page 56 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
Could you elaborate a bit on why this collaborative approach to safety is causing a decline in level one inspections?
What exactly does this shift in federal policy entail?
Then a second question. I would appreciate your comments on why OMC is backing away from conducting compliance reviews.
Mr. MEAD. With respect to the first part of the question, the answer is the level-one inspections are more intensive than the other types of inspections. It takes a lot of time to perform a level-one inspection and the states don't always have the personnel to provide that amount of time, which is about 45 minutes an inspection.
As to the second part of your question, I think it's because OMC is stressing other things rather than the number of compliance reviews it's performing.
I think that 55 percent of the investigators' time is spent on compliance reviews and enforcement activities.
I think you could increase that percentage fairly substantially.
Also, you have your MCSAP program. That's the one where the state does compliance reviews also. That's a very valuable program. It's grown over the years.
Of the 6,000 compliance reviews I mention, Mr. Rahall, the states performed about 2,000 of those. That's a program that could be strengthened too.
Mr. RAHALL. I guess what I'm after is a better explanation of what the collaborative approach is to which you refer?
Mr. MEAD. Under the collaborative approach, we try education, talking to people, encouraging them, having seminars and things of that nature, which is fine.
But what our work is showing is that there's a portion of the population where those types of activities don't work. And for those types of activities, you need to use the enforcement hammer.
Page 57 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
That approach has clearly been deemphasized. I can point to internal memoranda from OMC that say, enforcement should be a last resort, and that's what the investigators were telling us in the survey results, and they are on the front lines. That enforcement has been deemphasized and needs to be reemphasized for the portion of the industry that's causing the problem.
Mr. RAHALL. Does the GAO have any reason to believe that the establishment of the Office of Motor Carriers, as an agency within the DOT to the same degree that the FAA, FRA, and FTA are established would improve truck safety?
Ms. SCHEINBERG. Mr. Rahall, I think there is a need for a greater emphasis on safety, truck safety, in the Department of Transportation, whether the Office of Motor Carriers stays in highways or, as you suggest, a separate agency, or as some folks have suggested, be combined with NHTSA.
The Department needs to put a higher emphasis on truck safety and it really needs to come from the top of the Department and all the way down through--whether or not it's separate or with another agency.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Mr. Duncan, do you have any questions?
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mead, you say that the Office of Motor Carriers is not doing enough truck inspections and compliance reviews. How far short are they falling?
Do you have some specific number? Are they doing, in your opinion, half as many as they should be doing?
And is there a way to get more and better inspections?
For instance, could we pay, in your opinion—would it be better if we gave some of these employees some incentive, and paid them more if they did more inspections, if they completed more reviews?
Page 58 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
Mr. MEAD. I'm sure they could use some additional investigators. I mentioned the MCSAP program earlier.
I think the number of inspectors and investigations you have is certainly a function of the number of inspection and compliance reviews that can be performed.
However, I would point out that in 1995, with roughly the same level staff, you had 9,240 compliance reviews. They have declined to 6,473 in 1998.
I can only explain that by saying that there has been a shift of emphasis, and I think that shift of emphasis needs to be changed.
Mr. DUNCAN. They've fallen from roughly 9,000 and something to 6,000 and something?
Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir.
Mr. DUNCAN. Do you have a lot fewer employees doing these inspections and reviews now?
Mr. MEAD. No, sir.
Mr. DUNCAN. Have either one of you given any thought, or do you know of any thought that's been given to the possible privatizing of some of these inspections?
I mean, a lot of states allow vehicles to be inspected for exhaust or mechanical problems in private gas stations. I'm just wondering if there is any state or anyplace where they have any type of private inspection program that you know of?
Mr. MEAD. We reviewed that several years ago, and that was one of our suggestions, that it be explored. The Agency chose not to pursue that.
I think it's one of the options, as they are revisiting their strategy towards compliance with motor carrier safety rules, that they ought to revisit again.
But I would point out that I think there is more involved here than just the number of compliance reviews that are done and the number of people that are out there doing them.
Page 59 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
I think that once you have a compliance review and you judge a carrier to be unsatisfactory, there has to be some consequences. The penalty that's imposed is important. If you assess $1500 for a whole series of violations, that's not a lot of money. That really doesn't send a message.
If the motor carrier investigator is out there and he goes and visits the same firm time and time again, finds the same violations over and over again, and still doesn't come down with swift and firm penalties, there's no message being sent.
And that's part of the problem here. That is part of the core problem: that the consequences of getting unsatisfactory ratings or getting picked up in a roadside inspection and being placed out of service—
Mr. DUNCAN. I'll tell you that I agree with you on that, but I also think that one of the problems throughout government is that those who work hard, a lot of the times are paid the same as those who work easy.
And there ought to be some measurement standard that those who are doing more should be paid more.
Thank you very much.
Ms. SCHEINBERG. Mr. Duncan, could I just add some information on your question?
Part of the reason that the number of compliance reviews has gone down over the years is because of the Office of Motor Carriers has been targeting some high-risk carriers, whereas in the past, they weren't going primarily after the problem carriers. We had reported on this a few years ago, and recommended to them that they go after the folks who have a series of bad records.
They say that because they're doing that now, it's taking longer; that these compliance reviews are taking longer, and therefore, with the same number of staff, they can do fewer of them. So, that's part of the explanation of why the numbers of compliance reviews have gone down.
Page 60 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
The other issue that you raised is about privatizing the compliance reviews. It's certainly possible to do that because both the compliance reviews and the inspections are done according to federal guidelines. Even when the state folks are doing these inspections and compliance reviews, they're following federal rules and guidelines, and it's very established how to go about one of these reviews.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. If I could just follow up on Mr. Duncan's line of questioning with Mr. Mead, very, very briefly.
I mean, there is private inspection if you require insurance, and there are penalties if you are unsafe in that your rates go up. Couldn't we rely more on that?
I assume that if someone is insuring a company, they want to make money doing it, and, therefore, if it's unsafe and they end up losing money, they raise the rates or pull the insurance.
If we have an insurance requirement, we can get a lot of private inspection done by the people whose money is on the line with those carriers, or is that a false premise?
Mr. MEAD. No, I don't think that's a false premise. I think those things need to be explored.
It's very clear that we need a stronger inspection and compliance presence. If the private sector and the insurance companies provide an option, I think we ought to explore that.
At the same time, I believe that there has got to be very swift and firm consequences when we find carriers operating in an unsafe way.
And if we do not change the approach to enforcement and the penalties, the shutdown orders and things of that nature, I don't think all the inspections in the world will materially change the situation.
Page 61 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
Mr. PETRI. If you can't operate without insurance and they pull your insurance because of your bad record, then you're out of business then. So that's an interesting observation.
Mr. Holden, do you have any questions?
[No response.]
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Horn?
Mr. HORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm delighted to see such two competent witness before us. It shows our wisdom of 20 years ago in creating the Inspector General, and we already have GAO as part of the Legislative Branch.
I have been fascinated by your testimony, but I've got three issues that concern me. You might have covered them before I came in, but did any of you happen to see the U-Haul franchise problem on poorly kept equipment that was on 60 Minutes? Did anybody bring that to your attention?
Ms. SCHEINBERG. No, I don't think so.
Mr. MEAD. No.
Mr. HORN. You're not a 60 Minutes watcher? They have such high ratings. If the GAO and Inspector General aren't looking at them—
Mr. MEAD. My Chief Investigator is here, and he saw it. Mr. HORN. Okay.
Well, what I wonder is, has the Motor Carriers Group ever looked at that situation? Millions of Americans saw it, and when we go in—I don't know if they classify a trailer that you put half your house in as the equivalent of a part-truck or most-truck or whatever, but I wish the Inspector General would take a look at that at GAO.
At this point in the record, Mr. Chairman, we might have an insert from them, and see, was there any followup on that.
Page 62 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
Mr. Chairman, if I could have a little space in the record here and have answers from them?
Mr. PETRI. Sure.
Mr. HORN. The next thing that concerns me is the alcohol situation, and the .08. A number of states have that; a number of states don't.
To what degree did your investigation and review of motor carriers take a look at the effect of alcohol on these accidents?
Mr. MEAD. I think I can answer that one. As a matter of fact, in the fatal crashes, we do have a pretty good record of whether alcohol was involved. And the motor carrier industry has a very good record.
Just to give you a frame of reference, roughly, I believe, it's in about one percent of the fatal crashes involving motor carriers--that is large trucks--alcohol is involved.
Now, for passenger cars, accidents, fatalities, it's about 18 percent. For motorcycles, it's 27 or 28 percent.
All those numbers have gone down over the years. I believe it used to be 26-27 percent for passenger cars. So, it's still too high, but when you look at the motor carrier industry, in those fatal crashes, alcohol is very rarely involved.
Mr. HORN. Any comment by GAO?
Ms. SCHEINBERG. I would agree, and, Mr. Horn, GAO is undertaking a study at the direction of the Congress right now on the different effectiveness of .08 versus .1. The study requirement was included in the TEA21 legislation.
Regarding motor carriers and large trucks, as Mr. Mead said, the percentage of alcohol-related fatalities is much lower for trucks than for passenger cars. The only other thing I want to add is, when we looked at the charts that we had up before, in the years from '88 to '92, fatalities really decreased significantly. Those were the years for both passenger cars and for truck drivers, that alcohol became more under control. Alcohol use was reduced, and I think it made a difference in the number of fatalities in those years. Unfortunately, those numbers have leveled off and increased in more recent years.
Page 63 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
Mr. HORN. Thank you. On that, I want to ask last question on the large truck issue. I don't know how we define it; is it the third unit? Some states permit that. California, thank heaven, does not permit that.
But what have we found about those types of trucks with one, two, and three units, which I believe is the maximum?
Ms. SCHEINBERG. You're talking about longer combination vehicles?
Mr. HORN. Exactly.
Ms. SCHEINBERG. Right now, those vehicles are operated under very controlled conditions, only on certain roads with certain drivers. Actually, we have done some work on this, and found that they were actually under those controlled conditions, very safe. The Congress has decided to keep those controlled conditions where they are, and not expand them. Under the best road conditions and with the best drivers and the best companies, it's been very safe. But the question is, what to do beyond that?
Mr. MEAD. That's very true, the fact that they're highly controlled. And I would recommend that you keep highly controlled conditions for those trucks.
They don't drive in lousy weather. The drivers tend to be top notch, and I just think that controls are very important. If you lifted the controls and had many more of these trucks going in all kinds of different conditions, I think the safety profile would be materially different than it is today.
Mr. HORN. Thank you. I appreciate your answers.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Mr. Rahall?
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just had a follow up question to something you alluded to earlier, Mr. Mead.
Page 64 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
Is it the OIG's view that OMC's shift away from enforcement, its apparent inability to promulgate necessary rules, even when mandated by Congress, are primarily occurring as a result of management of mismanagement of the OMC?
Mr. MEAD. I would say it's a management direction. We need to get serious about this. If the Congress of the United States says go do this, OMC ought to stand up and go do it.
Ms. Scheinberg mentioned one example involving data, and hours of service is another one. Hours of service is clearly associated with this fatigue issue. I don't know what more Congress can do to instruct and to direct the Office of Motor Carriers to fix the hours of service rules.
And I think that's a management direction, because the message could not be more clear when Congress itself passes a law that says do this.
Mr. RAHALL. I think you've answered my question.
Mr. MEAD. I was trying to distinguish it. It's not inadvertence.
Mr. RAHALL. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Representative DeMint, do you have a question?
Mr. DEMINT. I have a couple of questions, Mr. Mead.
You mentioned electronic logs in your statement. Have you seen a direct correlation between electronic logs and safety, or are there recorded benefits for using electronic logs versus the manual approach?
Mr. MEAD. I can't correlate that empirically with a study that says, yes, there are safety benefits. I can report to you, sir, what I've been told by speaking to people in the field.
For example, not long ago we visited with a major trucking company. With these electronic recording devices, you can tell exactly where that truck is. It is not possible to file a false log, because these devices are absolutely accurate. You know where that truck is, and you know how long that truck has been going.
Page 65 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
There are those benefits. I know there is some controversy about this on, one--for example the cost of installing the devices in each truck. A smaller firm may question the benefits of doing it.
Secondly, there are some privacy considerations in that you know exactly where a particular person is at a particular hour. But I think these firms, are going to find over the years that even if the Federal Government doesn't mandate them, larger firms at least, and medium-sized firms will find it to their economic advantage to have these electronic recording devices for their own purposes.
Does that answer your question?
Mr. DEMINT. Yes, it's a start.
I have one more question, if that's okay, and this is for Ms. Scheinberg.
Other than upstate South Carolina along the I-85 corridor, which has the highest concentration of trucks per capita, as I understand it, in the nation—we call it Death Row—there are a lot of fatalities between Charlotte and Atlanta in South Carolina on 85.
Just from observation, it appears that the cause would be highway construction, four-lane Interstate instead of six lanes, just the overall concentration of trucks and cars.
I know you talk about the lack of data, but my guess in that area would be that inspections probably are low on the list as far as causes of wrecks.
What ways do we have to try to record the situation around an accident so that we can prioritize how we focus our safety efforts? I know inspections are an easier target, but what are the prospects of really trying to weigh the dangers?
Ms. SCHEINBERG. Mr. DeMint, there are a couple of things that can be done. One is to actually do some investigations into some of those crashes. Right now, none of the crashes are being investigated beyond what just goes on at the moment in the sense of the patrolman at the site. There is a need to do some investigations to really find out what the contributing factors are of these crashes.
Page 66 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
The other thing that I wanted to bring to your attention is that the Office of Motor Carriers is beginning to encourage states to look at high-risk corridors, and that's exactly what you're talking about: to sort of target their efforts. It's a performance-based issue. Instead of spreading all your resources thinly, target your efforts where they are needed--where the highest risks are. Both the high risk carriers and the high-risk corridors--places where the accidents occur over and over again--that's where the attention should be given and there should be investigations into those accidents to find out why they're happening.
Mr. MEAD. I'm hopeful that one of the things that will come out of the Committee's deliberations on this is attention to the causes of these accidents and getting that information.
That requires the cooperation of the state, but it's truly needed, as Ms. Scheinberg points out.
Ms. SCHEINBERG. Unfortunately, there are truck accidents that result in 5400 fatalities each year. So you can't investigate each one of these. It's not like an airline crash that, thank goodness, there are so few of.
But you can go and target some places, the corridors, and certain crashes that are very unfortunate, and really go behind what's going on in those crashes, and look into the contributing factors, as we call them.
Mr. DEMINT. It would seem that we could map the clusters of fatalities to identify the high-risk corridors, as you mentioned. Is that being done at this point?
Ms. SCHEINBERG. It's being encouraged. A lot of things that the Office of Motor Carriers does is encouraging the states. They don't use the leverage that they do have through the MCSAP grants. There is some leverage that could be had to do some of these things. So it ends up being up to the state, whether or not the state wants to take on this initiative to look at the corridor or not. The good news is that now they're get encouragement. In the past, it was not even an issue.
Page 67 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
Mr. DEMINT. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Shows, any questions?
[No response.]
Mr. PETRI. Ms. Kelly, any questions?
[No response.]
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Quinn?
[No response.]
Mr. PETRI. Then we're about to conclude. I remember I had one followup question for Mr. Mead.
You point out the decline in the number of inspections, I think, from somewhere like the 9,000 to 6,000 range, over the years, where the number of staff has remained about constant.
I wonder if it's fair to just look at that, given the magnitude of the universe that has to be inspected. I think there is something like 500,000 trucking companies, and six million drivers out there.
So, clearly, we can't inspect all of them anyway. And the issue has to be more whether we're putting in place systems to identify problem areas and then to focus on that.
I mean, you could double the number of inspections, but they would be just looking at, say, state trucks, and states have all kinds of programs that they pull aside and check trucks anyway for weight. We need to not just look at what the Federal Government is doing, but how we're organizing or marshalling our society's resources, either government or private, to promote and maintain safety in trucking transportation.
Could you comment on that? Is it the number, or is it the quality of the programs that they're putting in place? You say resources have been diverted from inspections. Where are they putting them, or are they just sitting around the office drinking coffee?
Page 68 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 3 Of 6
Mr. MEAD. I think, as I mentioned, the SafeStat program, which is the key way you target carriers, you are quite right. There's no way we're ever going to have enough investigators to inspect everybody as often as we would like and as completely as we would like.
Every safety oversight agency, FAA, FRA, has that problem. I believe that a real improvement in the targeting that you mentioned could be had by perhaps increasing resources on the MCSAP Program and tightening up the data that's going into your SafeStat program and making sure it's more accurate.
For example, I think that in a recent year, about 35 percent of the accident data was missing. There were firms that had very bad records that weren't even in SafeStat because they forgot to enter certain data fields--for example, how many power units or how many trucks they had.
And they therefore weren't included in the system. So, the states provide a great deal of that information, and they would need an incentive or requirement to provide that information.
But I think that would be an enormous help to getting towards the targeting goal that you're recommending, sir.
Mr. PETRI. If there are no further questions, we'd like to thank you both for your testimony and the effort that went into your presentations.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:55 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[insert here]
Next Hearing Segment(4)