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OVERSIGHT OF THE OFFICE OF MOTOR CARRIERS
Thursday, March 25, 1999
House of Representatives, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Subcommittee on Ground Transportation, Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in room 1267, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Petri [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Mr. PETRI. We will start the hearing and get my opening statement out of the way, and then we may have to recess for a vote, and Mr. Rahall and other Members may have opening statements.
We are meeting today to continue our series of hearings on motor carrier safety and the Office of Motor Carriers within the Department of Transportation. In light of last week's fatal accident involving a truck and an Amtrak train, this Committee also intends to examine ways of preventing similar tragedies from happening again in the future.
Today, representatives of the motor carrier industry, highway safety groups, and others, will give their perspectives on motor carrier safety. This information will be helpful as we consider the future of the Office of Motor Carriers and look at all the recommendations and proposals presented today and at previous hearings on this topic.
Do you want to give your opening statement?
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this, the third hearings on the Office of Motor Carriers, I would like to make a couple of observations in the beginning. The first, it is a fact that compliance reviews and inspection activity has declined, while the number of trucks on the road continues to increase.
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Second, the fatality rate and accidents involving trucks remains significant. Moreover, these fatalities are not given nearly as much attention as airline crashes. Even though the number of lost lives far exceeds any other type of transportation accident.
Third, the Office of Motor Carriers has been unable to promulgate necessary regulations, many of them mandated by Congress. Further, management direction at the OMC, at least over the past few years, has not placed emphasis on fundamental enforcement techniques.
Fourth, Congress has provided the OMC with the necessary funding and authority to undertake its mission. So, with that noted, Mr. Chairman, I would say the question before us is whether the problems plaguing the OMC can be fixed by new management through administrative measures, or does recreating OMC programs or a new agency within another agency offer us the best options? With that, I end my observations. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you, and additional statements from the Chairman, Mr. Shuster, and Mr. Oberstar will be made a part of the record, if presented. Are there any other opening statements?
[No response.]
Then we will proceed with the first panel. I know almost all of you are expert testifiers, so you know that your full statements will be made a part of the record, and we would ask you to try to summarize in about five minutes, and the lights will help you realize when you are getting to that point.
We are pleased to have a panel consisting of Walter B. McCormick, Jr., who is President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Trucking Associations; John McQuaid, who is President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Private Truck Council; Timothy P. Lynch, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Motor Freight Carriers Association; Mr. LaMont Byrd, Director, Safety and Health Department of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; Todd Spencer, the Executive Vice President of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association; and Ms. Rita Bontz, who is the President of the Independent Truckers and Drivers Association. Welcome, all of you, Mr. McCormick, would you like to begin?
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TESTIMONY OF WALTER B. McCORMICK, JR., PRESIDENT AND CEO, THE AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATIONS, INC.; JOHN A. McQUAID, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NATIONAL PRIVATE TRUCK COUNCIL; TIMOTHY P. LYNCH, PRESIDENT AND CEO, MOTOR FREIGHT CARRIERS ASSOCIATION; LAMONT BYRD, DIRECTOR, SAFETY AND HEALTH DEPARTMENT, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS; TODD SPENCER, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, OWNER-OPERATOR INDEPENDENT DRIVERS ASSOCIATION, INC.; AND RITA BONTZ, PRESIDENT, INDEPENDENT TRUCKERS AND DRIVERS ASSOCIATION
Mr. MCCORMICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Rahall, Members of the Committee. Thank you for asking us to testify before the Committee today.
I am Walter Mccormick, the President and CEO of the American Trucking Associations. ATA is a federation that consists of over 3,000 direct dues paying motor carrier members, 50 affiliated state associations, and 14 conferences that represent every segment of America's trucking industry. Combined, ATA is a federation of over 35,000 trucking companies.
Mr. Chairman, ATA has a continuing commitment to improving highway safety. When trucking was deregulated in 1980, there was a concern that the lowered barriers to entry would lead to a burgeoning of new entrants and marginal operations and that there would be a dramatic increase in truck crashes and truck fatalities. That has not happened.
During the past 20 years, while truck mileage has increased an astounding 77 percent, the fatal crash rate has declined by nearly 50 percent, and the actual number of people killed annually in collisions involving large trucks has dropped by 10.5 percent.
How did this happen? How was this progress achieved? It was achieved through a partnership between industry and government that involved this Committee, the Congress, the Clinton, Bush and Reagan Administrations, in a real commitment to fundamental safety reforms. In fact, the American Trucking Associations has supported or initiated every single significant safety reform in the motor carrier industry since 1980. Those reforms include the establishment of a commercial driver's license, the banning of radar detectors, legislation requiring alcohol and drug testing, the elimination of commercial zone exemptions, and the establishment of the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program, a program of roadside truck inspections that now calls for the inspection of over 2 million trucks a year.
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We have made substantial progress, but more can and should be done as we enter the 21st Century. This was a century that began without trucks and it ends with the American trucking industry having become the most efficient, the most economical, the most profitable, and the most dependable form of freight transportation the world has ever known. And as we enter the new century, trucking controls 82 percent of freight transportation revenues, and our share of freight transportation revenues and the country's dependence upon truck transportation is growing.
So, as we go forward, we believe that there needs to be a new approach, a more comprehensive approach, to truck safety, and there needs to be a new commitment on the part of the industry and government to further improvement.
Mr. Chairman, recently, the American Trucking Associations announced an eight-part plan, a comprehensive plan, as we enter the new century, that is aimed at further improvements in truck safety.
It calls for, first, the fundamental reform of the hours-of-service regulations governing fatigue. The regulations that are currently in place are over 60 years old. They are not based on science. They are inconsistent with the human body's own metabolism, and they do not fight fatigue.
We call for the building of more truck stops so that when truck drivers are tired, they can pull over and sleep. We call for further increases in enforcement. Today, there are over 450,000 trucking companies registered with the Department of Transportation. We need to have more enforcement on our highways, and so ATA is calling for a 100 percent increase in the resources devoted to enforcement.
We want to further strengthen the drivers license program. We want more money for research. And we want to increase funding for highway safety education programs.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, we support law enforcement's call for a separate modal administration. At a time when trucking represents 82 percent of freight transportation revenues and all other modes represent 18 percent, it is an irony that every other mode—rail, maritime, pipeline, and air—has a separate modal administration, and trucking is the only freight transportation mode that is regulated by a small office within a larger agency.
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So, we are supporting law enforcement's call, and we urge you to think ''outside of the box'' as we approach a new century with new challenges. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you, Mr. McCormick.
Mr. MCQUAID. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. Good morning, Mr. Rahall, and other Members of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the members of the National Private Truck Council.
I have addressed our concerns on OMC and the matter of a new, separate motor carrier administration in our written statement, and I would be happy to answer any questions on that statement or my comments this morning at the appropriate time.
My focus this morning, Mr. Chairman, concerns truck-related crash fatalities. Much has been made of the rise in truck-related fatalities in recent years, an increase primarily attributable to the significant increase in the number of vehicle miles traveled. VMT by heavy trucks has risen from 135.6 billion to 191.3 billion over the last decade, an increase of 41.1 percent.
If we examine the most recent year's statistics, miles traveled increased by over 4.7 percent. Fortunately, the fatal accident involvement rate over the last decade has declined from 3.767 to 2.546 for 100 million vehicle miles traveled, and for the last three years, the fatal accident involvement rate has remained somewhat static at 2.55 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.
While the fatal accident involvement rate is improving, fatalities are on the rise because of the increase in truck miles traveled. In effect, higher exposure—more trucks and cars traveling more miles—leads to more accidents. However, excusing the rise in fatalities due to more miles traveled is absolutely inappropriate. In real terms, that approach allowed truck- related fatalities to increase by 213 from 1996 to 1997, even though the fatality rate decreased slightly.
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NPTC concurs with DOT Inspector General Kenneth Mead, who in February 23 testimony before another House subcommittee, suggested that his agency should focus on the absolute number of truck-related fatalities, not the fatal accident rate.
In our view, embracing such an approach can lead to reversing the troubling rise in truck-related fatalities. Such an effort will challenge government and the trucking industry to constantly raise their safety performance bar as VMT increases due to the demands of expanding domestic and global economies.
One way to limit crashes and related deaths would be to reduce the number of truck miles traveled. However, this is neither a realistic nor workable remedy since private and for-hire trucking companies account for 80 percent of the Nation's freight bill through the transportation of America's consumer goods. In fact, between now and 2006, freight volume is expected to grow by 16 percent, clearly indicating that demand for trucking services and truck vehicle miles traveled will continue to increase well into the next decade.
Rather than imposing unrealistic operating restrictions on trucks that would negatively affect the economy, the Council suggests that the focus on truck safety efforts be shifted toward motor carriers and drivers who may have a higher probability of being involved in a crash. Research has demonstrated that certain performance factors are related to crash rates. Recently, researchers at the John A. Volpe National Transportation Center conducted an effectiveness analysis of SafeStat. SafeStat is the mechanism used by OMC to target motor carriers that have the worst on-the-road safety performance for focused enforcement efforts.
The Volpe researchers evaluated the effectiveness of identifying a motor carrier's ''crash likelihood'' by targeting each of the following four safety areas—accident, driver, vehicle, safety management. That research revealed that motor carriers previously identified with excessive crash rates exhibited 198 percent higher crash rates during an 18-month post-identification period than their non-identified counterparts.
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It also showed that motor carriers previously identified with excessive driver out-of-service rates exhibited 98 percent higher crash rates during an 18-month post-identification period than their non-identified counterparts.
Motor carriers previously identified with excess vehicle out-of-service rates exhibited 17 percent higher crash rates during an 18-month post-identification period than their non-identified parts.
Thus, according to the research, prior crash involvement is the strongest predictor of future crash likelihood; driver performance factors, such as violating the hours of service rules, or driving with revoked or suspended licenses that cause drivers to be put out-of-service following inspections are also a very strong predictor of crash likelihood; past vehicle out-of-service rates are a predictor of crash likelihood, although not nearly as strong a predictor.
Another recent study examined the relationship between a motor carrier's safety records and the number of traffic violations that were received by the motor carrier's drivers. The study revealed that driver violation rates are not randomly distributed among carriers and that higher driver violation rates among carriers are associated with higher carrier crash rates.
Given the predictive power of past crash involvement, it is tempting to say that crash rates are the only information needed to identify the most dangerous trucking firms. However, there are several flaws with this approach.
One is that it relies on accident data that comes after a crash rather than before and, second, crash events occur much less frequently than press reports and public opinion may lead one to believe. For example, a recent sampling of the Federal motor carrier safety database revealed that only 19,201 of the more than 440,000 registered private and for-hire trucking firms had two or more recordable accidents on their records. That is less than 5 percent of the carrier community.
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The accident data within the current Federal database is limited to those accidents meeting the National
Governors Association reporting standards, and this presents a little bit of a data sufficiency for use of this information. The data does not include information on less severe accidents. Furthermore, a 1995 study concluded that many accidents are attributable to small firms that travel few miles per year. As a result, NPTC recognizes that underreporting of crash history has serious implications for using past crash history as a predictor of future crash likelihood.
Mr. Chairman, I notice my time is up, but I would like to mention one other thing that we think is significant in the context of trying to use some of this data that is out there as a way of mitigating against the continuing growth in on- the-road fatalities involving trucks, and one of those has to do with getting data on driver activity.
Ideally, in a perfect world, when a driver who has a CDL gets a ticket, the information would automatically be given to employers and would go into a database at the home state that would then be available to other states. That is not always the case.
There was a recent CDL effectiveness study that revealed that 15 states have conviction masking programs which clean the record of individuals that attend prescribed education and treatment programs, that non-CDL convictions are frequently lost from the driver's record when he or she applies for a CDL in a new state, and that local enforcement officers do not have access to the National CDL Information System, or CDLIS. And since states do not have the National Information System to check the background of non-CDL applicants, it is possible for CDL holders to apply for and obtain a non-CDL in a neighboring state. This second incense could then be used to spread traffic convictions while driving a personal vehicle or a truck weighing less than 26,000 pounds.
The bottom line here, Mr. Chairman, is that we have to get our arms around the issue of making sure that anyone who holds a CDL that has any kind of violation associated with driving, whether it is a personal vehicle or a commercial vehicle, that those kinds of citations are permanently on the record and pass through the system to other states and to other prospective employers in a timely manner so that they have full and complete information on which to base hiring decisions, and that way maybe we can start to deal with some of the higher risk drivers and the higher risk carriers that are operating out there. I thank you for your time.
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Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Mr. Lynch.
Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Tim Lynch, and I am President of the Motor Freight Carriers Association. I will briefly highlight my written statement and ask that it be submitted for the record.
The Motor Freight Carriers Association is a recently formed trade association with the mission of advancing the economic interests of the unionized LTL sector of the trucking industry.
MFCA member companies are categorized as general freight, less-than-truckload carriers who serve regional, national and international markets. These companies operate through a terminal network in which a driver typically travels from one facility to the next on a fixed schedule and route.
We have experienced, well trained Teamster drivers. We have equipment that is well maintained and regularly inspected. Our drivers operate this equipment over highways and roads with which they have a great deal of local knowledge of road conditions and requirements. Taken together, these factors produce a safety record that is among the best in the industry.
It is no mere coincidence that in a recent Dateline NBC piece on truck safety, two MFCA member companies, ABF and Roadway, were highlighted for their activities in the safety area, ABF for its training program and Roadway for the quality of its driver force.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to highlight four points today. First, it is my firm believe that much of the recent criticism of the Office of Motor Carriers stems from a lack of consensus about what the role and mission of that agency should be. If we have any hope of improving on the safety performance of the trucking industry, we have to come to some understanding with Congress, USDOT, the industry, and the safety enforcement community, about what our approach to truck safety is going to be.
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This Subcommittee heard very compelling testimony from the Inspector General last week about the wide disparity between the goals of OMC's Washington office and the OMC field staff. While something of an over- simplification, this disparity really boils down to a debate over whether OMC should be an enforcement agency, a safety agency, or some combination of both.
MFCA wants a strong enforcement role for OMC. We want the cop-on-the-beat as a visible sign that we are all serious about truck safety enforcement. We would urge Congress to take the initiative following the recent changes at OMC, to clearly define the role of that agency in truck safety.
My second point relates to the application and enforcement of the rules. Several weeks ago, this Subcommittee heard testimony from a Wall Street analyst who painted a less than rosy picture of the future of the unionized sector of the trucking industry. I firmly believe that these unionized carriers not only can be competitive, but can grow their businesses in this marketplace.
Mike Wickham, Chairman and CEO of Roadway Express, has made the observation that a union contract is only a liability in the months leading up to contract negotiation and ratification. After that, it is an asset, and here is why.
In a union setting, both sides know the rules, they play by the rules, and they have a grievance procedure in place to resolve differences. It is a fundamental principle of fair play—you set the rules and make sure everyone is playing by the rules. Unfortunately, it appears that not everyone is playing by the same set of rules.
Last week, the Inspector General cited several examples of virtually no enforcement action against those companies who are not playing by the rules.
It is incomprehensible that a motor carrier is permitted to operate in defiance of the Federal mandate for a drug and alcohol testing program. This is particularly galling to unionized carriers and their Teamster employees who voluntarily negotiated a testing program well before the Federal mandate for such testing; yet, it appears that carriers are operating without such programs. The same holds true for hours-of-service violations. There is arguably no state or Federal regulation that has more to do with truck operations than the hours-of-service rules; yet, it appears that some segments of the industry play by the rules while others simply ignore them.
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If carriers are operating without complying with drug and alcohol testing programs, or repeatedly falsifying driver log books to hide noncompliance with out-of-service violations, they should be shut down.
Mr. Chairman, my third point relates to the need for more research and information on accident causation. New technology should be designed to address specific safety problems that result in truck crashes. In my written testimony, I suggest one area for immediate action, highway work zone safety.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to make an observation about the issue of where to place the Office of Motor Carriers within DOT. This Subcommittee, over the years, has spent a considerable amount of time and effort in advancing safety initiatives in the motor carrier industry. Some of those efforts have involved the driver: for example the CDL program and drug and alcohol testing. Some have involved equipment: MCSAP funding for roadside inspections and anti-locking braking systems. Some have involved the highway infrastructure: designating and funding for the NHS, funding for intermodal connectors.
We think there is a message here: Safety involves the driver, the equipment and the road system. A bad driver, operating bad equipment on substandard highways is a deadly combination. As this Subcommittee contemplates the positioning of OMC, we believe it is important that we not divorce these three elements from each other. Any reorganization play should not lose sight of the need to coordinate all three—the driver, the equipment, and the road surface. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you, Mr. Lynch.
Mr. Byrd.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, my name is LaMont Byrd, Director of Safety and Health for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today on the important issue of motor carrier safety.
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The Teamsters Union represents hundreds of thousands of workers who make their living driving on our Nation's roads. Department of Labor statistics show that transportation workers are employed in one of the most dangerous of all occupations. During the past years of 1996 and 1997, nearly 2200 transportation workers died from occupational injuries. According to NHTSA, in 1997, 4,871 trucks were involved in fatal accidents, as compared to 4,755 in 1996. It is abundantly clear that we must, first, understand the cause of these accidents and, secondly, find ways to significantly reduce truck accidents and related fatalities.
There has been much publicity concerning the recent Inspector General's report, which detailed actions taken by certain OMC personnel to lobby on behalf of the trucking industry. These actions are inexcusable and severely undermine the credibility of the entire department as a watchdog of the industry.
The Teamsters Union would suggest that what is needed is a major culture change at OMC. The office needs to return to its basic mission, that of a regulatory and enforcement agency. There must be less focus on consultative services and partnership, and more emphasis on enforcement. Strong leadership needs to break the log jam of rulemakings that remain uncompleted.
The problems at OMC could not have come at a worse time. By January 2000, the United States faces the invasion of hundreds of thousands of Mexican trucks under the NAFTA cross-border trucking provisions.
The Inspector General's Report on Motor Carrier Safety Program for Commercial Trucks at U.S. Borders showed that almost 50 percent of the Mexican trucks that were inspected had serious safety violations which resulted in them being declared out-of-service. This can only worsen an already bad situation.
The idea for creating a Federal Motor Carrier Administration is not new. The motor carrier industry has grown rapidly in the past two decades. In 1980, for example, there were 165,000 interstate motor carriers and 3 million drivers subject to Federal motor carrier safety regulations. Today, there are over 475,000 interstate truck and bus companies, 7 million registered vehicles, and over 9 million commercial drivers. The trucking industry generates almost $350 billion in annual revenues and controls over 80 percent of the Nation's freight business, according to industry sources. That dwarfs the maritime, railroad and airline industries, which all have dedicated administrative agencies. The sheer numbers make a valid argument for the establishment of a separate agency with an administrator who has a seat at the table where major transportation policy is decided and who has the authority to implement change when it is needed.
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While looking at ways to effect change at OMC and to be assured that the agency does not fall victim to the same type of influence from the industry as currently exists, the Teamsters Union suggests that the Subcommittee look at other agencies charged with enforcement authority. For example, OSHA relies on the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, NACOSH, for feedback regarding its policies and procedures. NACOSH could serve as a model for a similar committee to review policy and performance and advise the Office of Motor Carriers.
The Teamsters Union is aware of recommendations made by the Inspector General at DOT to increase driver accountability and allow authorities to penalize both the driver and the company for out-of-service violations concerning the vehicle. I would caution the Subcommittee that drivers not afforded the additional protections of a union may be reluctant to challenge their employers and refuse to operate an unsafe vehicle. Unlike their nonunion counterparts, if a Teamster driver is terminated for refusal to violate a safety regulation, the driver can rely on the grievance procedure to assist him in getting reinstated in an expeditious manner. The nonunion driver only has the Federal whistleblower protections under Section 405 of the Surface Transportation Assistance Act. However, statistics have shown that decisions under the STAA are not timely and rarely favor the driver.
In conclusion, if we are to work together to reach the goals that Federal Highway Administration and OMC have set for reducing fatalities involving truck crashes, then we must emphasize increased driver training, better enforcement of current regulations, increased Level I inspections and compliance reviews, grater attention to the accuracy, timeliness and completeness of data into safety analysis systems, and continued education of the driving public in sharing the responsibility for safety with truck drivers. Only then will we see an improvement in motor carrier safety. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you, Mr. Byrd.
Mr. Spencer.
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Mr. SPENCER. Chairman Petri, Congressman Rahall, and Members of the Committee. I am Todd Spencer, Executive Vice President of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. OOIDA brings a unique perspective to this Committee. We represent the segment of the trucking industry with the most at stake on highway safety issues. Our membership includes professional drivers, owner- operators, and small fleet truckers usually operating ten or fewer trucks.
The typical member of our organization has nearly two decades invested in professional trucking, drives in excess of 100,000 miles each year throughout many states in all types of weather and traffic situations, spends in excess of 240 nights each year on the highway delivering our nations goods. With this much exposure, highway safety is a very real and personal concern to our members. OOIDA presently has over 40,000 members.
Government approaches to truck safety have been a source of tremendous frustration for us as an organization and for our members for many years. We believe changes are needed.
In the current discussion on trucking safety and the effectiveness of the Office of Motor Carriers, the only barometer used to measure the effectiveness of Federal safety regulation is the number of truck inspections performed each year. We agree that truck inspections are an important tool in promoting safety on our highways, but in many instances there has been too much reliance, in our view, placed on roadside programs that kind of foster a ''turn them loose and try to catch them'' mentality.
Statistics on how often trucks are inspected do not tell you about the need for driver training, or the economic coercion imposed upon drivers to make impossible deadlines, or the lack of sufficient places on the highways for drivers to pull over and get adequate rest, or the lack of state compliance with the conditions of the MCSAP program. These are issues that OOIDA believes the Federal Highway Administration and OMC have failed to address effectively. The goal of safer trucking will more likely be achieved by the creation of a Federal Motor Carrier Administration with a renewed focus on highway safety.
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Currently at OMC, the primary focus seems to be on technological solutions, while meaningful actions on many issues are either delegated to other non-answerable organizations or put on a back shelf to gather dust.
The Department of Transportation is years behind in a report requested by Congress on the issue of driver training. As part of the original ISTEA legislation in 1991, lawmakers directed DOT to assess the level of training given to entry- level drivers and report back.
There are no training requirements for someone to obtain a commercial vehicle that entitles him to operate an 80,000 pound truck. All you need to do is pass a driving test. OOIDA strongly believes that merely passing a test, no matter how difficult, is no substitute for adequate training and a period of on-the-road apprenticeship with a qualified and experienced commercial driver. How else would someone really know what it takes to move 80,000 pounds of truck and freight 3,000 miles across the country?
It is our understanding that the results of a DOT study several years ago showed that less than 10 percent of motor carriers provide an adequate driver training program. This leaves open the question of whether or not the majority of entry-level drivers actually have the needed skills to operate commercial vehicles safely before a motor carrier turns them loose on the highways.
Driver fatigue is a commonly discussed trucking safety issue, but for some reason the Federal Government continues to focus on expensive technological solutions rather than common sense. OMC began spending tax dollars to research this topic more than a decade ago. Current hours-of-service regulations are now more than 60 years old. Most knowledgeable people consider them to be as likely to cause fatigue as to prevent it. Unfortunately, there is little reason for our members to believe positive changes in these antiquated rules are coming anytime soon. There are too many interest groups pressuring OMC for change that fit their individual agenda—not a safety agenda, but a political or economic one.
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The focus of OMC is more and more on roadside inspections and roadside enforcement of out-of-service criteria. These are the criteria by which drivers and trucks operating hazardously may be ordered off the road. OMC has delegated the responsibility of devising out-of-service criteria to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.
The criteria used today are not printed anywhere in the Federal regulations or any Federal publication. If drivers want copies of the rules that they are expected to comply with or be put out of service, their only option is to purchase copies from the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance. We believe this process is wrong.
We will give credit to OMC for publishing an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking asking whether the out-of-service criteria should be adopted as part of Federal safety regulations. Under this procedure, each regulation would be subject to public comment and scrutiny as to whether it serves a legitimate safety purpose. We hope, however, that this action will not fall into the same regulatory black hole as the hours of service regulations or the driver training study.
Another way we feel that OMC has failed is the driver's ''hotline'' that Congress passed as part of TEA–21. OOIDA initiated the idea for this hotline to allow drivers to report pressure being placed on them by carriers and others to violate Federal safety regulations. We are informed that many drivers who call the hotline asking them to leave a number where they can be called back. Most drivers do not leave a message because a return call just would not work. The pressure to violate safety regulations is happening at that very moment.
Without a live person answering the phone 24- hours-a-day who can explain to the driver rights and provide support when he takes a personal risk to report these problems, we have a ''coldline'', not a hotline. A real hotline should trigger investigations so that the driver and others do not face further pressure to violate safety regulations.
Thank you very much, Mr. Spencer.
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Ms. Bontz.
Ms. BONTZ. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to present our views on motor carrier safety. My name is Rita Bontz. I am President of the Independent Truckers and Drivers Association.
The Association has been in existence for 25 years. Our primary goals, improving highway safety and economic stability of owner-operators, continues to guide the organization.
Because of our experience and dedication to safety, we feel comfortable presenting a proposal for improving motor carrier safety. We leave the discussion of other issues to other panelists. Suffice to say, we hope revised hours of service rules will soon be issued and the CDL program will be revised to correct deficiencies.
We also believe FHWA should rethink Office of Motor Carriers reorganization. It has distanced the agency from the people who need it most. And we think it is important that a Motor Carrier Administration be established within DOT as soon as possible.
At one time, trucking matters were shared by the Bureau of Motor Carrier Safety and the Interstate Commerce Commission. One dealt with safety, the other dealt with economic issues. When trucking was deregulated, economic issues were, for the most part, left adrift. We are not advocating reregulation, but we do believe there is a direct correlation between economics and safety.
In the 1980's, when it became easy to enter the industry, there was a huge increase in the number of carriers, many of whom had little or no knowledge of trucking. This caused safety problems. Since then, the Congress has wisely enacted legislation such as the CDL program and the MCSAP program to address safety issues.
Trucking is growing to meet the public's needs, and safety needs are increasing. Are we to rely solely on increased enforcement and roadside inspections? Other actions are needed as well.
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All too often, people entering the industry are not aware of the regulations with which they must comply. We frequently get calls from people who say, ''I want to get into trucking, but I do not know what laws I must comply with. Can you help me?'' If they are from Maryland, we recommend they contact the Maryland State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division. Two of those officers are with us today. The officers are very willing to work with truckers to help them understand how to comply with motor carrier safety regulations. When they are in other states, we refer them to the state enforcement counterpart.
This is our proposal: Require the person or company applying for operating authority to furnish a safety plan. Applicants now need only to have a DOT number, pay a filing fee, and prove they have insurance. The prospective carrier should be required to submit a plan demonstrating an understanding of safety rules and describing their methodology for compliance, such as a method for keeping driver files, monitoring drivers' hours of service, complying with drug and alcohol testing rules, vehicle maintenance and inspection, driver and mechanic training, and so on.
There is evidence to substantiate the need for motor carrier entrance requirements. A study by Professor Corsi and Fanara of the University of Maryland Business School and the Howard University School of Business and Public Administration, respectively, showed that new motor carriers have higher crash rates and lower rates of compliance with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations than established carriers. Additional research, documented by the Office of Motor Carriers, indicates the lack of a prequalification program is one of the most conspicuous limitations in ensuring carrier safety fitness.
The agency's report suggests just such a program should be implemented. Therefore, we recommend a safety prequalification program for new carriers be developed and implemented as soon as possible. No additional safety regulations are needed. This could be an easy solution to a well documented problem, and one that needs immediate attention. Is it an example of what a Motor Carrier Administration could, and should, accomplish.
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We also want to tell you how an industry and government group in Maryland is addressing the truck parking issues. The group's two- week survey using nighttime surveillance found that rather than a shortage of spaces, there was an unbalanced use of spaces. Among other remedies, highway signs are being added to alert truckers to available spaces.
Thank you again for the opportunity to present our suggestions for improving highway safety.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. Thank you all for your statements.
Mr. Rahall, do you have questions?
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Byrd, let me begin by applauding you and say I think you hit the nail right on the head when you alluded to the cultural change that is needed at OMC. I think I did the same in my opening statement. Not only is truck safety buried in a highway building agency, but OMC's head appeared to have been downgraded to a program manager in the chain of command from the field offices is dubious, at best. And I think we have covered that before as well.
Is it the entire panel's opinion that motor carrier safety can be improved by administrative measures, and that new legislation may not really be necessary? As I have said, we have given OMC the necessary money and regulations. Isn't it just enforcing it over there, rather than any new legislation that is really needed?
Mr. LYNCH. I would like to see more money in the MCSAP program. This Committee has through the years, increased the authorization levels, you have continued to push that up. We would like to see the money come out of there——
Mr. RAHALL. Are they using what they have effectively?
Mr. LYNCH. I guess that is the debate, are they using it appropriately or in its most efficient way.
Mr. BYRD. I would agree with Mr. Lynch, that there needs to be more funding provided, but I also think that there should be some additional legislation, some additional rulemaking. There needs to be some improvement upon existing legislation, such as hours of service, and then there needs to be regulations promulgated concerning driver training and the like.
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Mr. RAHALL. Regulations.
Mr. BYRD. Yes.
Mr. RAHALL. Not legislation, then.
Mr. BYRD. Yes.
Mr. MCQUAID. Mr. Rahall, I think, clearly, the change at OMC, I think, has been for the good in terms of direction, but I strongly subscribe to the idea of a separate modal administration. In the face of almost every witness up here is suggesting that trucking at least 80 percent, more than 80 percent, of the transportation revenues in this country, or monies that are spent. How we continue to justify having its regulation pigeonholed into a small, obscure office within Federal Highway is very troubling and puzzling to me. And I think with trucking representing so much in the future in terms of what is going to happen, I think we really have to seriously take a look at that issue as part and parcel of the remedy.
Mr. MCCORMICK. Mr. Rahall, I think that you have heard remarkable consensus on this panel. Every individual on the panel welcomes the Congressional interest in trucking safety, and we believe that because truck safety has been in a small organization buried within another agency, that Congressional direction at this time really is imperative.
You have also heard testimony from the I.G. in your previous hearing. You have heard today that to take it from being buried in one agency and to bury it in another agency like NHTSA makes no sense at all, that what we need to do is, we need to do three things. First, the highway is our workplace. We want it to be safe. So, first and foremost, we need to have a substantive safety package that addresses the need for further inspections, the need for more enforcement, the need to get the bad operators off the road.
Secondly, we need to recognize that nearly 70 percent of the highway accidents involving trucks are not the fault of the truck or the truck driver, and we need to deal with education campaigns on sharing the road so that we can reduce the fatality rate dramatically.
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And, third, there needs to be a clear core responsibility in an agency and direct accountability to Congress, the same kind of accountability that exists with the other modes of transportation that have their own modal administration.
Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Spencer?
Mr. SPENCER. I would echo the endorsement of a separate modal administration for trucking, and we definitely need driver training that goes way beyond—way beyond—truck drivers. Our members have to deal with increasing traffic and congestion and actions of people they share the roads with that are adventurous, to be real nice, whether we are talking about cell phones, or eating, or doing makeup, or whatever. There needs to be a focus on education on how to drive vehicles in the country.
And the third thing that we think is very important is that in so many instances motor carrier safety and trucking is affected by other parties to the transportation move—the shippers, the receivers. We have no control over overweight trucks or, in many, many instances, schedules that violate every safety regulation in the book. And there is no motor carrier that is going to be able to resist when the pressure gets great enough.
And we believe the way to achieve greater highway safety is to involve all of the parties that have a role, and that is the shippers, that is the receivers, that is the freight forwarders and the brokers.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you, Mr. Rahall. Mr. Terry?
Mr. TERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question will start with Mr. McCormick, and then the rest of the panel, if interested, can also answer it. It is really a two-part question, and you are completely correct, there seems to be a complete consensus among this panel for a new entity, but as logical as you have laid it out, how do I go back and sell it to my constituents about being a conservative, small government proponent creating a new Federal agency, in essence.
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And, secondly, regardless of whether it is a new agency or a continuation of the OMC, how important is it that the leaders of that organization actually have a working knowledge of the trucking industry?
Mr. MCCORMICK. Mr. Terry, first with regard to the larger government issue, this is an issue of law enforcement. When Congress authorized the hiring of additional policemen, the country applauded because the goal was to make communities safer. With regard to a separate administration for motor carriers, what we're talking about in terms of more resources is we are talking in terms of more law enforcement to make the highways safer, to make our workplace safer.
Secondly, we do not currently have in the Office of Motor Carriers an agency that has the direct accountability to Congress that the other modal administrations have. It is not a matter of bigger government, it is a matter of a government that works more efficiently, that is more accountable to the Congress.
Secondly, with regard to the leadership of the agency, absolutely. The goal of having regulatory agencies is for Congress to delegate authority to agencies with expertise led by people of experience and judgment. Therefore, what we need to have in the motor carrier area is that we need to have a presidential appointee with experience in judgment and to have his qualifications reviewed by the Congress and to have him confirmed by the United States Senate. Today, you do not have that with motor carriers. You have it with every other freight transportation mode.
Mr. TERRY. Does any other panelist want to address those two intertwined questions?
Mr. MCQUAID. I would like to just expand a little on what Walter said. I agree with him in terms of, I think, the message that he hopefully helped you to take back to your constituents, but I have a concern about how we are fashioning what this new agency would be, and if you look at my submitted statement for the record it has got some more detail on this. But guns and badges are not a panacea with regard to this agency.
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We have talked a lot about enforcement and it being an enforcement agency. I see it being a promotion and enforcement agency, a promotion of safety—highway safety, truck safety—as well as enforcing the laws that are on the books out there.
So, I think we need to take a balanced approach, and I think we need to, ourselves, think outside the box that somehow more truck inspections are going to be the panacea for what we are trying to do because, as I said in my testimony, as a predictor of potential future violations that only represents a 17 percent chance of those people there as opposed to someone who has had a prior crash, of having almost a 200 percent likelihood that they are going to have another crash.
So, I think you have to be careful about where you spend your dollars, how you spend your dollars. I think the inspection issue is important, it is part of a larger package, but it is not the be-all and end-all.
Mr. LYNCH. Congressman, if I could add maybe two comments on that. If the proposal here was to simply move the box from where it is to where somebody thinks it ought to be, or the creation of a new agency, I think you would be wasting your time, and I do not think you could go back to your constituencies and say, ''We did something positive''.
I think you have got to really look—we all have got to look—very carefully about what is the mission of this agency, what do we want them to do.
John makes a very good point, and I am very strong, obviously, in my statement, on the enforcement side. But you have heard the testimony about how big an industry we are. We also have a lot of us. We are all over the place. And it is very hard to keep track of all of us all of the time. As much as we would like to think that every truck and ever truck driver in America are going to be inspected, or at least subject to some level of inspection sometime, it is just not going to happen. There are just too many people that are operating out there.
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So, you have got to have the enforcement agency there to say ''If you do not play by the rules, you are going to get caught eventually, and you are going to pay a heavy penalty for that'', but you also have, as John mentioned, you have to have an educational component to this. Rita spoke very eloquently about the need to get information out to these people so they know what the rules are, but you cannot allow that to kind of lag on.
So, your point about simply moving the box, no. If that is all this is about, then do not bother to do it. But if it is about fundamentally looking at this thing, I think it is a very positive step.
Mr. BYRD. And I would just like to add, I certainly agree with the previous commentors, but one other thing, just in addressing the first question that you raised in terms of selling this to your constituents.
There are literally thousands of people killed every year, involved in accidents with heavy trucks. When you consider the impact that this has on their families, you have the impact that it has on the drivers of these heavy trucks who are oftentimes not the ones who are killed in these accidents. I think that there is an obligation for us to try to resolve these types of situations from happening in the future.
So, I do not think when you look at it just from the human aspect, the fact that there are so many—there are thousands of people who are impacted by these crashes nationally, it should not be that difficult of a sell.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. I guess we will recognize in order of arrival today, so, Mr. Pascrell.
Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I could not help listening and drawing some conclusions before I ask a question, and that is that it would seem to me that the trucking industry itself is at the point where many factory owners were ten or 15 years ago. And we have seen over the last 15 years that perhaps we can clean up our act more so by abating problems than prosecuting them.
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The history of environmental cleanup is a much more positive history when there is working together with the industry, the collective bargaining agents, in even forming the rules under which we will live.
So, prosecution and law enforcement is critical, but I think much more important is abatement of the problem, how are we going to deal with that. And to those who think that we can do this without some governmental intervention, then they do not understand what the real statistics are out there on the road. So, our point here is not to point blame, but we all be on the same track in trying to correct it. And I think this is absolutely necessary.
I am very concerned, having experienced some things myself, of what the trucking industry—what the Federal Government—because sometimes we are our worst enemy—in attempting to achieve this objection which we all say we have of truck safety.
In moving hazardous waste in this country, as an example, these trucks do not have to be inspected for three years. That is absolute insanity, crazy. I do not believe it is overreaching, overregulation. We are talking about people's lives. We are talking about citizens. I think it is an example that we can work together to come to some resolve.
On the question of Mexico and what is about to happen in 2000, that is a fascinating door you have opened. We can imagine a situation where trucks are coming into this country not only uninspected, but the contraband that we know exists now could simply be twofold or threefold. Very, very serious problem. And I do not care what NAFTA says, we cannot allow a cavalier attitude, a poke-and-hope attitude of plucking one truck out that is crossing the border in order to inspect it and concoct something about what the conclusion is about all the rest of it. I think that is absurd, and it does not work. I do not believe that you can get the sufficient numbers of Members in the Congress to support that. We do not want that to happen.
Our people are very important to us, and their safety is very important. The people who drive the trucks are very important. And I would ask, through the Chair, that we address this issue, and we address it very carefully. While we live in a global economy, we do not have to put ourselves at risk, and that is what we are doing right now, and it will only accelerate when we move to the new millennium.
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So, I am glad you brought that up, Mr. Byrd, and I think that working together, the truckers and the industry itself and the Federal Government, I think we are going to, in many ways, resolve things that have not been resolved for a long time. So, creating a new agency, I agree with what Mr. Lynch said, and just moving boxes is not going to change very much, and we could feel good about creating that new agency and accomplish nothing.
So, I am concerned about working together in resolving these issues. They are serious, they are not going to go away, and pointing fingers is not going to help. I think we created the situation ourselves, by the way, to a large degree, those of us on this side of the desk. I mean, we permit sometimes multiple vehicles in areas that just cannot afford in terms of public safety to have those vehicles on the road. And if we say that this is OK in certain areas of the country, regardless of what accidents occur and what lives are put in jeopardy, we are creating the situation and we are just as guilty as anybody else.
So, we either are going to work together or form a regulatory commission that usually is not going to be able to fulfill its own obligations because it does not have enforcement powers or enough people to inspect and enforce the law.
So, I can support a new agency only with the parameters that you have laid out, all of you. I think that is very important. But we are all in this together. We cannot continue to pass laws directly or indirectly connected to the trucking industry that inevitably make the problem worse.
So, if we are going to do something different, we need your input. We need the input of the collective bargaining folks who represent our truckers. We need the best expertise, and that is why I commend the Chairman for having these hearings. This is a very delicate subject, a very sensitive subject. Moving people and product is not easy, but we need to have some parameters within which we operate, and then enforce the law. But if we all start out contributing to those parameters, I think we will be far better off, whatever the agency is or whatever we wind up with.
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I want to thank the panel, and thank the Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. Mr. Bateman, do you have any questions?
Mr. BATEMAN. No, Mr. Chairman, I am in my listening mode today.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. Mr. Shows.
Mr. SHOWS. I appreciate the panel coming in, I apologize for getting here late. I do have a little background with the industry, being the Transportation Commissioner of Mississippi for ten years, plus my dad was a truck driver for a while and my brother was a truck driver for a while. I was too dangerous to get on the road, I guess.
Mr. LYNCH. Congressman, I was a truck driver, too, and I was too dangerous. Now I am a lobbyist.
Mr. SHOWS. Well, let me say that I do agree—one of the problems I see in our states is the problem about each state having their own different agency that truckers have to go to get their inspections and their weight enforcement officer. Back in Mississippi, our weight enforcement is handled by the DOT. Our inspections are handled by the Public Service Commissioners. I know every state has a different arena that you have to abide by, and I think one thing that would help is if we get our states together and have a consistent place that truckers and organizations have to go to one state agency to help work those things out.
Secondly, about creating a new agency or Federal agency to help in education, and one of the problems that I see out there is that there seems to be a shortage in the supply in the requirements right now for a commercial drivers license, and I do not know how you motivate men and women to be truckers when it seems to be hard to attract enough truckers right now for—qualified truckers or drivers, I guess—that we need to help this industry because it is such a big industry for our country, and that is something we need.
In response, I just think that any input that you would have into reorganization or more enforcement—I do think we do need more enforcement, more money for these particular agencies that we are talking about that is going to handle the enforcement, and in educating these drivers and the trucking industry itself, for the safety inspection and so on.
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All I am saying is I want your input because, with my background and experience, I believe I can sift through a lot of the other statements that are made and really come out with something that I would feel comfortable with. And I do appreciate your coming here today, and it is not much of a question, but more of a statement that we do need your input. I can always go back and ask Dad what he thinks, but thank you.
Mr. MCQUAID. Mr. Shows, if I could just elaborate on a point you made for a moment that is a concern for us. We think data—particularly as we get to the new millennium, and data being such an important issue in everything we do—that one of the areas where we really need to work with regard to the states is creating mechanisms so that we have—we started down that path, I think, in T–21, with a pilot project about data exchange between the states on driver information and those kinds of issues, but we have a long way to go.
As I said in my testimony, 15 states have masking programs that basically if a driver who has a CDL and has a moving violation and goes to a class, can have it removed from his record. And our view is that these are professionals, professional drivers, and nobody with a CDL should be able to remove anything from the record for the long-term because I think it gives you a clear and concise long-term resume, if you will, concerning their ability to drive and their ability to do the job.
Now, Mr. Spencer and I had a little colloquy before the hearing today about speeding tickets and things like that, but I think the kinds of violations we are looking at, I think, perhaps go to a higher level, with crashes and other kinds of violations beyond just working off speeding tickets. So, I wanted to assure Todd that we are not trying to drive them all out of business.
Mr. SPENCER. I am sorry, now that my name is mentioned, I have to maybe defend my honor, or perhaps set the record straight, or whatever. I seldom mention it anymore, but for eight years I made a living as an owner-operator trucker myself, traveling all over the country and, as I mentioned in my statement, the average member of our organization drives in excess of 100,000 miles, but we also have many members that driver around 120,000 miles. Now, that is a lot of exposure to conditions on the highway, radar and things like that, and, of course, Mr. McQuaid and I were debating the relative merit of what does a speeding ticket mean. I averaged getting a speeding ticket every year in a commercial vehicle, one a year. And in that time, I had no accidents, none whatsoever. I do not want to say it is an occupational hazard, but truckers deal now in certain states where they have a slower speed limit for a truck and a higher speed limit for an automobile. They drive at the flow of traffic, they are subject to getting a speeding ticket every day, and is that an indicator of an unsafe operator? Is that an indicator of someone that is going to have an accident? In a lot of instances, it clearly is not. But I will concur that we do need to focus more on accident causation, and we would like to do that as far as trucking, but we need some help from states in those areas because right now state officials are not going to investigate accidents, and I had a state patrolman tell me straight out one time, ''Accident investigation and causation is the responsibility of an insurance company''. I think that is kind of amazing. Thank you.
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Mr. SHOWS. Well, that is one thing we have done in Mississippi, we have set the speed limit the same for trucks and automobiles, like you say, if you have a truck that is going a slower speed than the traffic, you cause problems that way. So, it kind of made it a level playing field.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. Mr. Mascara?
Mr. MASCARA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I commend you and Ranking Member Rahall for holding these hearings. My question and statement is related to the safety issue. I just happen to drive the Pennsylvania Turnpike every week, coming down here to D.C., and 70 and 270, so I feel like it is a combat zone. I follow truckers—God bless them, I know they work hard—and they go off on those rumble strips, and they are sleeping, and they are back on again. Let me say this, I generally oppose the heavy hand of the Federal Government increasing their presence into the private sector, but this is something near and dear to my heart because I do have people in my district, truckers who own trucking businesses, that are concerned about the lack of uniformity. And some of my colleagues attempted to address that. But my question is, are trucks being inspected uniformly across this country, since the states, as you indicated, are responsible for investigating accidents and what have you. Is there a presence of motor carrier offices across the country where, say, a person in one state would be inspected on the same level and to the same degree as a person in another state? Because I have some businesses back in my district that are saying no, and they are unable to compete because some states are lax, some states are ignoring what is going on. And my question is to those who would not want to expand the Federal Government, if the states cannot do it, someone needs to get a hold of what is going on across this country, and apply the rules and regulations uniformly. Would anybody want to talk about regulations by states, and how they differ, and what impact that has on the trucking industry, and safety specifically?
Mr. MCCORMICK. I think all of us would say that one of our biggest concerns with the reorganization of the Department of Transportation has been that we had hoped that there would be a real focus on the uniformity and consistency of enforcement across the 50 states. And we have all expressed concerns that we fear that the new structure that is being put in place does not put appropriate emphasis on that. So, your concern is well taken.
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Mr. LYNCH. Congressman, I think this is—and this goes really to the heart of the issue here—the MCSAP program and Federal and state cooperative efforts on enforcement have been perhaps one of the first real effective models for a cooperative Federal-state relationship. It gets messy at times, and there are oddities and there are situations where there is a lack of uniformity there.
A truck driver gets a speeding ticket, he does not get a Federal ticket for speeding, he gets a state ticket. A trucker gets an overweight violation, he gets a state ticket. There is no Federal police force, if you will, that is out there doing this job. And it gets back to what we have been talking about.
If you want OMC or any Federal agency to do that, to have their police force, to have them out there, I would daresay, not only are we talking about a doubling of the MCSAP funding, but you are talking about a thousandfold increase in MCSAP funding, and I am just not sure that that is really ultimately where it is going to make the best effort. I mean, I think it has to stay at the state level, but you are going to get a certain degree of nonuniformity or the oddities that come out.
Mr. MASCARA. One other observation. How do you control the amount of hose that a driver is in a truck, and is the driver or the company able to alter those logs? I guess you call them logs, I do not know what the esoteric term is. Is that a problem?
Mr. MCCORMICK. I would like to respond to that. The hours-of-service requirements and the logbooks that deal with the hours-of-service requirements have been an issue for 60 years. The larger issue is this. It has been an issue for 60 years. The hours-of-service rules today are based on an 18-hour clock that is not consistent with the human body's metabolism. They are no longer a safety regulation. What we need to have is a regulation that goes directly at truck driver fatigue, and make sure that there are not tired truck drivers driving down the highway. And everybody on this panel has called for the Department to move forward with fundamental reform of the hours-of-service rules, to deal with violations, and to make sure that those rules address fatigue.
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This month was the date by which Congress directed the Department to have a new hours-of-service rule out, finalized, and they still have not even promulgated a proposal. So, this is an area, Congressman, in which there needs to be real attention.
Mr. MASCARA. I see my time has expired, but I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming, and I hope that we can get to the bottom of this. And if I can call on my academic training, that those who oppose the Federal Government intervention, that President Madison said, ''If men and women were angel, there would be no need for government and regulations''. So, I will close on that. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Millender-McDonald, any questions?
Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and the Ranking Member, and again let me also give my kudos to you for convening such an important hearing.
Ofttimes we criticize truckers and their taking charge of the road, and we sometimes criticize them unfairly. And os it is good for them to be at the table. We have with us the freight carriers, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the independent truckers and drivers, and the owner-operators. Everybody is at this table today, and it is good to see that because it is good to hear first-hand your concerns, and hopefully we can address that, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member.
I did hear one of the persons mention the uniformity and consistency of the DOT standards, and I think we should absolutely urge them to make this essential focus in their reforming of the regs or standards as they apply to the motor carriers because it is important that we have uniformity and consistency if we expect anyone to behave or be in compliance of the laws that we pass.
So, I would like to urge the Chairman and the Ranking Member to ensure that there is a central focus with DOT, and urge them to do so.
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I do want to just raise a question with perhaps Mr. McCormick, of the American Trucking Associations. As most of you perhaps know—and maybe none of you do, and that is all right, too—that I represent Southern California, and absolutely the Alameda Corridor which is going to be a central artery going through from Long Beach to Los Angeles, throughout the State of California and throughout this Nation, and so my district starts at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach down to the railyards of Los Angeles.
Given that we are constantly having traffic—you know about Los Angeles traffic, the freeways and highways are loaded with that—Mr. McCormick, you have mentioned and indicated that safety is your number one priority, and so perhaps you can share with us again—and perhaps you have done this before I got here, and I apologize, but I was in another hearing. It seems that we have hearings all over the place—if you can give the Subcommittee some sense of the types of safety and education that ATA has engaged in with its members in order to promote and increase safety within your industry, and certainly California, where you will be a central part of the intermodal transportation.
Mr. MCCORMICK. Thank you, Congresswoman McDonald. Yes, I would be delighted to. Given your district, you see the commerce of the Nation flowing. And as our country succeeds, you see that commerce growing. And we all want out country to continue to grow economically, and so that means more traffic, more freight to move, and we have to do so safely and efficiently.
For us, as I said before, the highway is our workplace. So we have put forward an eight-part proposal aimed at making the highway safer. Part of it deals with making trucking safer, and dealing with those companies that are not responsible and getting them off the road.
Other parts of the program deal with education. It is so important that we understand that the highways are shared by trucks, by cars, by motorcyclists, by bicyclists, by pedestrians, and we all have to understand that we have to share the road, and therefore education programs are extraordinarily important.
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Nearly 70 percent of the accidents involving a crash between a heavy truck and an automobile are not the fault of the truck or the truck driver. Therefore, we need to educate people about the physics of trucking so that they can protect themselves. We educate children to look both ways before they cross the street. We need to educate people about how to safely share the road.
And so we have submitted to the Committee an eight-part plan.
Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Will we get a copy of that, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, this eight- point—I thank you so much, Mr. McCormick. In fact, I am going to do a regional transportation planning hearing. I would invite you to participate in that, and I will certainly send you the invitation because I think all of California needs to have what you have in your eight-point plan, and also to ensure you and everyone else that safety is number one, but we all must share to ensure that safety. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. I had one quick question, I hope it is fairly quick, we have to go and vote, of Mr. McCormick. You referred several times to the outdated hours-of-service rules. What specific changes do you think we ought to be making? I know there have been studies, but do we require legislative changes to authorize the Department to update its regulations so that they do reflect modern science instead of being 60 years old?
Mr. MCCORMICK. Mr. Petri, that is the crux of it, that the hours-of-service regulations need to be directed at the safety issue, and the safety issue is fatigue. We have learned an enormous amount about the body's own physiology and what causes fatigue over the last 60 years. There have been studies done by the military, by NASA, by the FAA, by the Federal Highway Administration, and they all come to the same conclusion, that the best way to fight fatigue is by assuring adequate rest. Therefore, we need to turn the rules around. The rules need to be based on assuring the truck drivers have adequate rest, that they have opportunities for rest, and that they understand the body's own metabolism and what to do when they start to get tired, to take fatigue countermeasures.
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You have previously directed the Department to move forward on hours-of-service reform and, as I said earlier, the Department was supposed to issue its final rule this month. The Department has not even issued a proposal.
So, we would welcome a call from this Committee to direct the Department to move forward expeditiously. We had called for along the lines of what Mr. Pascrell said, we had called for regulatory negotiation, to have all the parties sit down at the table and work it out, but that has not happened either.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. Mr. Rahall.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to conclude with a question to Mr. McCormick that I have been asked to ask by our colleague, Representative Borski, from Pennsylvania.
On page 5 of your written testimony, you state that at least 28,000 additional parking places are needed on the interstate highway system. Does this figure take into account parking at privately owned truck stops?
Mr. MCCORMICK. I could provide that information to you for the record. I am not sure whether that 28,000 does include the privately owned truck stops.
Mr. RAHALL. We would appreciate that, as well as evidence you could provide the Subcommittee that establishes a link between available truck parking places and safety.
Mr. MCCORMICK. Be happy to do that.
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Mr. PETRI. Mr. Terry.
Mr. TERRY. I will make my comment or question quickly, and probably get up while you are answering, so if you want to submit a written answer that would be fine. My question goes to technology, especially with what one of the trucking companies in my district, Werner Enterprises, is doing with fatigue, specifically with electronic log books now. My question goes to some of the discussion we have had with the philosophy of whether the OMC or whatever new agency we create, is either a police force or an oversight force. And I personally want to put more of the responsibility back on the trucking companies and independents versus creating a police agency.
Is there an electronic means that we can use to adopt in the trucking industry that would simply allow OMC, or whatever modality, to become an oversight agency? And I really believe in the use of electronics and electronic log books and electronic safety checks that could just be downloaded to the OMC or whatever oversight we create. Do you agree with that, is that possible?
Mr. MCCORMICK. Mr. Terry, Werner Enterprises is one of our companies, and they are indicative of the kind of companies that are members of the American Trucking Associations, their commitment to safety.
We firmly believe in technology, but the frustration for our companies, and the frustration for Werner as well, is that that technology is not a safety technology. You can measure hours-of-service and compliance with the rules, but the rules do not fight fatigue. And so if there is going to be a technology requirement, we believe that the technology should be a safety-based technology that measures fatigue rather than simply measures something as arbitrary as hours- of-service.
Mr. TERRY. Well, it could also directly record safety inspections and send them back. There is just a variety of things we could do. I agree that the rules have to conform and comply to reality.
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Mr. MCQUAID. I would just like to add one thing, Mr. Terry, and that is to remember that more than 90, maybe 95, percent of the companies in this country are run by entrepreneurs who own five trucks or less. So, any idea of a mandated technology with regard to these kinds of things would really put people who are probably living on a day-to-day basis in a very difficult situation. So, there is a balance that we would have to do there in terms of any ultimate decision that would have to be made.
Mr. PETRI. With that, unless there are more questions—I do think there probably are some technologies that could be incorporated in new trucks and rolled out, having to do with blinking and the movement of the vehicle and so on, that might be of assistance at least to drivers or others in monitoring opportunities for fatigue rather than an automatic ''18 hours and you are out'', or some other thing. So, I hope that they do pay some attention to these new technologies. I know a lot of research has been done. If it is rolled out gradually, it would not be that much, if any, additional cost, it could be incorporated gradually in new equipment. We do it with automobiles, and I know they do it in other areas.
Mr. MCCORMICK. There are dramatic improvements in technology, and we have great interest in many of them, and we would be happy to discuss those with you at some point.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. We have another panel, so I guess we will adjourn for 15 minutes, and come back at 20 to the hour for our next panel. The Subcommittee is recessed.
[Recess.]
Mr. PETRI. The Subcommittee will come back to order. On our second panel we would like to welcome Mr. Harry Eubanks, who is President of Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance; Ms. Joan Claybrook, who has testified often before this and other committees of the Congress, who is the President of Public Citizen and Consumer Co-Chair, Program Committee, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety; Ms. Daphne Izer, Co- Chairperson, Parents Against Tried Truckers; Ms. Jennifer Mooney Tierney, Board Member and Survivors Network Volunteer, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways; Ms. Susan G. Pikrallidas, Managing Director, Government Relations, American Automobile Associations; and Mr. Lloyd Parker, Past President, Florida Association of Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics for the Coalition Against Bigger Trucks.
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We welcome you all, and assure you that your full statements will be made a part of the record, and ask, if you could, to summarize them in about five minutes, and this little device will help you keep track of that time. Mr. Eubanks, would you like to begin.
TESTIMONY OF HARRY EUBANKS, PRESIDENT, COMMERCIAL VEHICLE SAFETY ALLIANCE; JOAN CLAYBROOK, PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC CITIZEN AND CONSUMER CO-CHAIR, PROGRAM COMMITTEE, ADVOCATES FOR HIGHWAY AND AUTO SAFETY; DAPHNE IZER, CO-CHAIRPERSON, PARENTS AGAINST TIRED TRUCKERS; JENNIFER MOONEY TIERNEY, BOARD MEMBER AND SURVIVORS NETWORK VOLUNTEER, CITIZENS FOR RELIABLE AND SAFE HIGHWAYS; SUSAN G. PIKRALLIDAS, MANAGING DIRECTOR, GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION; AND LLOYD PARKER, PAST PRESIDENT, FLORIDA ASSOCIATION OF EMTs AND PARAMEDICS FOR THE COALITION AGAINST BIGGER TRUCKS
Mr. EUBANKS. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee. I am Harry Eubanks, President of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance. CVSA is an alliance of law enforcement jurisdictions within the United States, Canada, and the Federal Governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico. I am here today representing thousands of men and women across this country who, on a daily basis, are involved in the administration and the enforcement of the motor carrier safety regulations.
You have my written comments before you, so I will not summarize those in much detail. I will, however, be happy to answer any questions you may have on some of the issues that we have raised within that text, and any of the suggestions that we have.
CVSA and its member jurisdictions have worked very closely with the Office of Motor Carriers over the years to develop procedures and strategies for dealing with motor carrier safety issues. Since the early 1980's, under the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program, that state and Federal partnership has had some real success in improving motor carrier safety on our Nation's highways.
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That partnership, I think, is still an important issue. However, it gives me no pleasure to come here and be somewhat critical of our Federal partners, but our overriding and abiding concern is for motor carrier safety, and we do have some serious concerns about the direction of the reorganization that Federal Highway is taking with the Office of Motor Carriers. We have some concerns that the integration of various functions, such as highway infrastructure safety along with motor carrier safety and some of the other functions of Federal Highway, that focus on motor carrier safety issues is being diffused.
We think there needs to be a very strong line of authority from top to bottom in terms of the responsibility for motor carrier safety issues and accountability for making sure that the programs and issues are dealt with successfully in terms of what we need to do for safety.
That leads us to believe that in order to really preserve safety and what we have accomplished, and to make sure that we deal with the growing problems that we see out there today, that a Motor Carrier Administration is probably the best way to do that. Should that not be possible that OMC in the end ends up staying within Federal Highway, we are committed to work with Federal Highway and OMC to try to help refocus their efforts on enforcement. We need a very strong and aggressive enforcement presence.
The states work very hard at doing compliance reviews and vehicle inspections. We need a strong Federal presence to deal with interstate motor carriers through the compliance review and civil enforcement process. If that is not possible, we do not see that kind of possible change, then we will renew our push for a new modal administration because we believe that is the only way that we can truly—and I think to the extent it needs to be focused on motor carrier safety issues—that will elevate it to the degree it needs to be within this country.
But I would urge you that if we are going to create a modal administration, that we do so for the right reason. Let us not create a modal administration merely because the transportation industry transports the largest amount of freight. The modal administration should not be an advocate for the industry. The modal administration should be an advocate for highway safety, for motor carrier safety. It should be an advocate for those thousands of people who daily work very hard to administer and enforce those safety regulations, and it should be an advocate for the millions of highway users, car drivers and truck drivers alike, who have a right to expect a safe trip.
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That concludes my remarks. I will be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Ms. Claybrook.
Ms. CLAYBROOK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this opportunity to testify today. We are here to discuss a very serious problem, as you know, one that we believe needs immediate action by this Congress. The fatality statistics, by any measure, whether you use the fatality rate or the number of fatalities, would never be tolerated if this were an airline or railroad industry. And I am sure that you would acknowledge that, Mr. Chairman. If we had airline crashes increased, with large numbers of people killed, then I think that everyone would react with horror.
An increase of 450 deaths has happened in the last three years. There were 5355 truck-related fatalities in 1997, and the estimates are 6,000 by the year 2000. The GAO has addressed this issue and has reported to this Committee, as has the I.G., spelling some of this out. There was a 16- percent increase in truck driver deaths alone in one year between 1996 and 1997. This is the most dangerous occupation in America, and I think that we cannot sit lightly by and watch this continue to happen.
Last week, 11 people were killed in an Illinois Amtrak and truck crash which you all referenced at the beginning of this hearing. Every day, at least that many people die in truck crashes in this country, but they do not all die at the same time, on the same day, at the same place, and by the same truck, and thus they get very little attention.
And that has been part of the problem with the Office of Motor Carriers. It has gotten very little attention inside DOT. And as a result, it has a culture that was spelled out by the Inspector General, a culture of close relationship with the industry and a failure to do its job.
The GAO, the USDOT Inspector General, the National Transportation Safety Board, have all been examining the Office of Motor Carriers and identifying major deficiencies, defects, and problems in their regulatory and enforcement program. We have submitted a lengthy list of OMC failures for the Committee which we would like included at this point in our testimony, if that would be permissible.
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Mr. PETRI. Without objection, it will be included in the record.
Ms. CLAYBROOK. They include, for example, ignoring Congressional directives for rulemaking on entry-level and LCV driver training programs for some years; pilot programs and waivers that will make the Federal truck safety rules look like Swiss cheese; muffling public participation in regulatory proceedings by issuing interim final rules—interim final rules means that the public does not get to participate until after the rule is issued—conducting flawed research and then using it as a basis for rulemaking; inadequate inspection and compliance reviews; assessing such low penalties for violations that they are merely a part of the cost of doing business; agreements with the regulated industry to forego the use of precise electronic data that would verify safety regulations—one question was asked by Rep. Terry: Aren't there electronic systems that could be used? Yes, there are, but they are not used. They are available. This is not the horse-and-buggy days of truck activity anymore, it is now the electronic age in the 21st Century, and I believe this Committee should be on top of that.
Other failures include undermining roadside inspection programs and reducing Level I inspections, which is the full inspection, to a perfunctory survey of driver and vehicle adequacy and, of course, the documented failures of OMC to ensure safety at the NAFTA border-crossings, which you have already mentioned.
OMC's regulatory enforcement failings have been compounded by Congressional enactment since 1984, of more than 35 special interest provisions to benefit some favored state or segment of the trucking industry. Some of these provisions exempt certain carriers from complying with the rules, while others are intended to promote trucking productivity.
And I am submitting for the record a list of these specific exemptions that include exceptions from Federal hours-of-service rules, from truck weight rules, from the LCV freeze and hazardous materials rules. And I would appreciate if we could submit those at this point in the record.
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Mr. PETRI. Without objection.
Ms. CLAYBROOK. Thank you. The OMC has proceeded with a zero-base regulatory review which operates on the assumption that all standards are defective and susceptible to major revision or recision. To advertise this zero-base review, OMC published a brochure showing on its cover all the safety standards being bulldozed while inside pages portrayed OMC personnel dumping a box of motor carrier safety regulations over a cliff. Now, I may want to do that, too, but to upgrade them, and not just to let them fall over the cliff.
Why do we need to move the OMC to NHTSA? I believe that this is the only solution to the problem because what we have is a cultural problem at OMC. It is a problem where there has been a 30- year culture of inactivity, nonactivity, avoiding activity, avoiding public participation, withholding information from the public record, not allowing the public to get access to information, and I think it needs to be shaken up. I agree that moving boxes on a chart does not necessarily solve a problem. I agree with that, but I do believe that there needs to be a major cultural change in this agency, and I believe that moving it to NHTSA would work.
ATA has recommended a separate administration because they say we are another mode of transportation and we have this huge freight carrying responsibility, 80 percent of the freight of America. But the Office of Motor Carriers is a safety regulatory agency, it is not a freight regulatory agency. It has absolutely no responsibilities for regulating freight. And so how much freight they carry is rather irrelevant. It is like saying how many people are carried in cars is relevant to NHTSA. The issue is what is happening with the safety rules that we have in place, and are they being carried out, and are they sufficient, and are they being enforced.
So, when one of the prior representatives from the industry suggested that—I'm sorry, my time is up, but could I just finish that part—one of the prior representatives from industry suggested that this new modal administration should have freight and safety responsibilities, I thought this Committee felt fairly strongly about that issue in the FAA, and if it does not apply in the FAA, why should it apply in the trucking industry? There are no promotional responsibilities, virtually, in the Department of Transportation for trucking, and we believe that the better course is to look at the vehicle safety regulatory responsibilities of the Department of Transportation, and those reside in NHTSA. Remember, NHTSA already has truck regulatory responsibility in its authority to issue new truck safety standards. And this is an old idea, it is not a new one, to put it here. It was proposed by Secretary Volpe, and then not adopted because of objections. It was proposed by Secretary Elizabeth Dole, and then not adopted because of objections. And I believe that the combination of the vehicle expertise in NHTSA—by the way, in crashes involving a truck and a passenger vehicle, trucks mostly kill passenger car occupants, they do not kill truck drivers, even though driving a truck is a very hazardous occupation—NHTSA research is beyond reproach. OMC has had a terrible problem with research. NHTSA data systems are excellent. They are not perfect, but they are excellent, and there has been a terrible problem in OMC with adequate data. And NHTSA has a long, long history of working on highway safety.
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So, I hope that the Committee will not look specifically at the way this idea came on the public docket this year, which is through another subcommittee, but rather take a look at the merits of the issue. And I appreciate the opportunity to come and testify, and I appreciate the fact that you are having these hearings because they have not been held in this Committee for many, many years. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Ms. Izer.
Ms. IZER. Thank you. Chairman Petri, Congressman Rahall, distinguished Members, I testify before you today as a wife, a school nurse, a taxpayer, a safety advocate but, above all, the mother of a child who was killed by a truck driver asleep at the wheel of his 80,000 pound rig.
Jeff picked up his friends that October night, set out for a fun time, a haunted hayride. But, instead, four lifeless bodies got a horror ride in a crushed car covered by a blue tarp on the back of a flatbed truck. Five families lives changed forever.
I want to say up front that I could not be angrier at the lack of movement on new hours-of-service rules and enforcement actions by Federal Highway Administration. I have to say I could not be more disheartened and denigrated as a parent of a child who lost his life to a truck driver who was violating outdated hours-of-service rules.
Mr. Chairman, we sat across the table from senior OMC officials on many occasions. They assured us that they were doing everything possible to see that another family did not have to lose a loved one on a dark, cold highway due to truck driver fatigue. To find out that the people who have the responsibility to ensure safe roads for all of us were actually working with the American Trucking Association lobbying against the actions of a U.S. Congressman working to improve highway safety sickens me. We were betrayed by the very people whose responsibility it was to save lives and not promote the productivity of the trucking industry.
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Can anyone on this distinguished Subcommittee tell me why, of all the research that takes place on the trucking industry, why a certain percentage has to be conducted by ATA? The trucking industry has a clear economic interest in the outcome. They receive funding from my Federal taxes. They work side-by-side with Federal highway researchers and ''Beltway Bandits'' to delay, obfuscate, and prolong research that turns out to be faulty from the beginning.
In February of 1995, the former Associate Administrator of OMC commissioned several recognized sleep and behavior scientists to evaluate research projects dealing with truck driver fatigue, sponsored by the Office of Motor Carriers. One of the main studies that the group reviewed was a seven-year, multi- million-dollar fatigue and alertness study. One of the experts stated it did not meet its major objectives at all. This is OMC's own expert panel, a group of recognized experts who are not affiliated with any Beltway Bandit or beholden to the American Trucking Association.
Meanwhile, truck drivers, children, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, entire families, continue to die due to Federal Highway's lack of action on hours-of-service rules. Inspections and educational programs against fatigue, sleep disorders, and other safety issues need to be taken care of. How can the ''powers that be'' even look at themselves in the mirror knowing this continues to happen? Can anyone tell me when this insanity is going to stop?
Earlier this month, a driver for a trucking company from Kansas killed an innocent motorist in Maine. The trucking company got an unsatisfactory rating in 1995. Since then, the trucks and drivers greatly exceeded the out-of-service rate above the national average. This is a blatant disregard for human safety which you or anyone else should not tolerate, and it continues to happen.
Why was this allowed to happen with this company? Where was the OMC? This agency is seriously understaffed. A move to NHTSA must be made sooner rather than later.
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Mr. Chairman, finally, I urge you and this Subcommittee, please do not forget your constituents and all of us. It is time for Congress to take a long, hard look at this industry and make it safer. We must take steps now to save lives, do not wait for thousands more to die.
Mr. Chairman, I may be viewed as no match for the hordes of trucking industry high-price lawyers who spend their days in the halls outside these doors, but PATT is here to stay, to see changes made and lives saved. I have discussed many other issues in my written statement, and I urge you to read the entire statement. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Ms. Tierney.
Ms. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Jennifer Tierney. I represent CRASH, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways. This nationwide, grassroots, nonprofit organization representing 40,000 Americans was formed in 1990, to help end the devastating, unnecessary deaths and injuries caused by truck crashes every years. CRASH represents the millions of Americans who travel the Nation's highways every day, including truck drivers, motorists, crash survivors, and families of truck crash victims. Our goal is to make safety as important as productivity in all U.S. trucking operations.
I am a CRASH Board member and a member of the CRASH Survivors Network. That means that I can personally attest to the fact that commercial truck safety is a life and death issue. It affects real people and real families.
I am here today with my mother, Peggy Mooney, because I lost my father and she lost her husband. The course of my life changed drastically one night 15 years ago, when my father, James William Mooney, Sr., was killed in a senseless, preventable side underride crash with a big rig truck on a dark country road in North Carolina. This is a picture of Daddy. He had beautiful eyes, but they never saw that truck backing up across both lanes of the road because there was no reflective tape on the sides of that truck. Since that night, I have dedicated my life to preventing this tragedy from happening to others.
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For 15 years, I have struggled to solve the problem of truck conspicuity and many other dangers of unsafe trucks and trucking practices. I continue this work even when exhausted and outraged by the well financed trucking lobbyists' demands for bigger and heavier trucks and less stringent work rules. The number of people personally affected by commercial truck crashes is staggering and it grows every year. Yet the trucking lobbyists, the trucking media, even government officials charged to uphold safety, hide behind their spin on the terrible statistics by saying the numbers of crashes, deaths and injuries are up because the traffic is up. They say the fatality rate per vehicle miles traveled is down, so they are proud of the great job they are doing of making the highways safer. 5,355 killed, 133,000 injured, 660 children killed, 15,160 more injured in 1997—that is nothing to be proud of.
For many years, CRASH has felt that there existed a nearly insurmountable bias in the OMC in favor of the industry they are responsible for regulating. Time and time again we have been frustrated that common sense, life-saving recommendations have not been implemented by this agency. Now the rest of the country at least knows what CRASH has known for a long time, that OMC has no credibility to regulate an industry that it has such close ties to.
The list of OMC regulatory and enforcement failures goes on and on, but there is one that fuels my personal frustration—the OMC has failed to issue and enforce standards for reflective tape on big trucks to make them more easily seen by motorists. The rulemaking has been pending for five years, and could allow nonconforming trucks up to ten years to comply.
My Daddy has been dead for 15 years, and I know this problem was being studied 15 years prior to his death. Over the past five years, I have met with OMC and DOT officials many times to discuss this issue, and have been promised by both Secretary Slater and Secretary Pena that the solution would soon be at hand. How many more years, how many more deaths will it take, before this agency finally gets it right instead of buckling to industry lobbying.
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If my Dad had been killed in a TWA crash, I would have had the NTSB, the FBI, and other government agencies spending millions of dollars to find out what happened and then immediately fix the problem. Unfortunately, my Dad died in a big rig truck crash in North Carolina, on a day when 14 other people also died in different truck crashes, in different communities, and in different states, and the Department of Transportation does nothing.
We can no longer tolerate the status quo, and CRASH says that it is now time for change. It is time to move the OMC out of Federal Highway Administration and into NHTSA which has a strong safety culture.
A restructured, revitalized OMC can take more efficient and effective steps to reduce the pain and suffering of all motorists including truck drivers, and to restore balance to our Nation's system of safely transporting people as well as freight.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving CRASH and me this opportunity to submit this information to the Subcommittee. Moving the OMC to NHTSA will facilitate and expedite the lifesaving truck safety rulemaking that CRASH advocates. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Ms. Pikrallidas.
Ms. PIKRALLIDAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of AAA and our 41 million members, let me thank you for the opportunity to testify at today's hearing. We commend the Subcommittee's decision to examine issues relating to truck safety and oversight. AAA has several recommendations for Congress to consider as it seeks to address the issue of improving truck safety. However, I will focus my remarks today on AAA's proposed truck study.
AAA's central message is one that all panelists in today's hearing share. Our sole concern is safety—improving the safety of motorists and truckers on our increasingly busy highways.
We learned a long time ago that the secret to improving the safety of automobile travel was to thoroughly understand the problem. We invested in databases such as the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, and the National Accident Sampling System, to gather the knowledge needed to provide answers. Unfortunately, the same quality of research which supported the advances in automobile safety does not exist when it comes to truck crashes.
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Let's look at what we do know. Most deaths occur in car/truck crashes, not truck-only crashes. They rarely involve alcohol use by truck drivers, and the vast majority of deaths and injuries in a car/truck crash involve the occupants of passenger vehicles. Simple logic tells us that the sheer size differences between cars and trucks dictate an approach that emphasizes crash prevention. Once the crash occurs, it usually means car passengers have become fatalities. Simply stated, the challenge is to prevent the crash from ever occurring.
To do that, we need to know more about the factors that contribute to truck crashes—the carriers, the drivers, their vehicles, other vehicles that are involved, the environment, roadway, conditions at the time of crash, precrash events. We need a detailed, in-depth study of car/truck crashes—a nationwide, comprehensive survey unlike anything done to date.
The objective of this study would be to identify major causal factors in crashes involving large trucks, with an emphasis on identifying factors that contribute to their occurrence. The study would collect detailed information on a nationwide sample of truck crashes of all severities, not just fatal accidents. Included would be the collection of exposure information to help better understand how truck usage patterns contribute to the safety with which they are operated. The specific results of this study would provide the traffic safety community with the information needed to develop policies, programs and regulations that would address known crash factors. Data obtained in this study would also provide the safety community with the information needed to objectively measure the effects of efforts to improve truck safety. Existing data systems provide neither of these capabilities.
Because the high injury-fatality rates in crashes involving large trucks are primarily a result of differences in the mass of trucks and cars, any real gains in safety can only result from preventing those crashes from occurring in the first place. For this reason, the proposed study would concentrate on acquiring data about the factors that contribute to crash occurrence. That is not to say that injury and fatality data would not be collected, rather that the greater emphasis of the study would be on factors contributing to the occurrence of the crash.
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About 2,000 to 3,000 crashes would need to be investigated to produce sufficient data to identify the major causal factors in truck crashes. AAA estimates from three to five years would be required to conduct the study and produce the results. AAA recommends the Transportation Research Board be tasked with designing the study. We anticipate the cost will be approximately $5 million. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration should have the responsibility for conducting the study and compiling the results in a manner accessible by the larger traffic safety community.
Mr. Chairman, data show that passenger car driver behavior is a contributing factor in 80 percent of truck/car fatal crashes. Some in the trucking industry use that data to argue that in 80 percent of car/truck fatal crashes, motorist behavior is the cause. That simply is inaccurate. Data do not attribute fault or cause.
Moreover, a recent report by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute states: ''The evidence is much less solid in nonfatal crashes for evaluating the relative contribution of passenger vehicle drivers and truck drivers to truck-passenger vehicle collisions...Nevertheless, it does appear in nonfatal truck-passenger vehicle crashes that truck drivers may contribute somewhat more than passenger vehicle drivers, though this conclusion is tentative''.
We believe AAA's proposed in-depth investigation of crashes specifically designed to identify crash causation will provide the data to answer those questions.
As the largest organization representing the Nation's motorists, AAA recognizes that we have a responsibility to educate our members about driving safely with big trucks. AAA cannot, and will not, abdicate our responsibility to provide safe driving messages to our members and the general public, including messages on driving safely with trucks, but truckers must remember that they are the professionally trained drivers on the highways, not motorists. As professionally trained drivers, AAA challenges truckers to assume the greater responsibility for creating a safe highway environment. AAA further challenges trucking companies to ensure their trucks are well maintained and in compliance with all safety regulations, before they are allowed to share the road.
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Even if motorist behavior is a contributing factor in 80 percent of car/truck fatal crashes, this does not mean that truck drivers cannot do something to prevent those crashes. Keep in mind, truck behavior is a factor in 28 percent of fatal crashes. That is just too high because the stark reality is that when cars and trucks collide, the machine that almost always kills is a truck, regardless of whose behavior was a contributing factor.
Mr. Chairman, AAA enthusiastically endorses the Subcommittee's efforts to improve truck safety. Your commitment to highway safety and the need to elevate truck safety is one that America's motorists applaud. We look forward to working with you to make our highways safer for all who drive them. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Mr. Parker.
Mr. PARKER. Mr. Chairman, my name is Lloyd Parker. I am an Emergency Medical Service Battalion Chief and Paramedic with Indian River County, Florida, Department of Emergency Services. I represent the Coalition Against Bigger Trucks, and my state affiliate, the Florida Coalition for Safer Highways. I am also speaking on behalf of the Florida Association of Professional EMTs and Paramedics, which I am their immediate Past President, and the National Association for Emergency Medical Technicians as a member of their Board of Governors.
If I may, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit a complete list of the Florida CABT members for the record.
Mr. PETRI. Without objection.
[insert here]
Mr. PARKER. In the course of my 24-year career in emergency services, I have responded to the scene of hundreds of truck crashes. What I bring before you today is my personal experience observing what can happen when a heavy truck collides with an automobile. That experience is why I decided to come here and make a difference in highway safety by fighting to maintain existing, common sense Federal standards with respect to truck size and weight.
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The truck size and weight is an issue. According to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute study, gross combination weight is the only vehicle characteristic showing a clear association with the overall fatal accident rate. From my perspective as a paramedic, this is an obvious point. The kinetic energy involved in a crash between an 80,000 pound truck and a 3,000 pound automobile spells serious trouble for the occupants of that automobile.
EMS textbooks relate a physics equation which states mass divided by 2 times velocity squared equals kinetic energy. More simply put, the larger the truck is, the more severe the related injuries are, and the more likely a fatal crash will result.
The Florida Association of Professional EMTs and Paramedics and the National Association of EMTs support existing common sense Federal limits on size and weight, the limits Congress chose to set. We are, however, concerned that these limits set by you are routinely ignored. In fact, according to a USDOT Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Study, the number of permits issued by the states for trucks to operate above these limits grew 60 percent from 1985 to 1995. These permits, which individual states issue by the thousands annually, exempt motor carriers from Federal weight limits for as long as a year at a time. OMC oversight of size and weight has not kept pace with the boom in overweight permitting.
The huge increase in the number of trucks operating in excess of Federal weight limits concerns my Coalition members and me, because of the overwhelming evidence that heavier trucks are more dangerous. Whether it is done by permit or legislation, allowing trucks to get even heavier will lead to more serious crashes and more fatalities.
EMTs and Paramedics are also concerned about another kind of bigger and heavier truck, longer combination vehicles. LCVs can weigh up to 75 percent more than trucks on the road today. That means more kinetic energy delivered in a crash, meaning more serious crashes, more injuries, and more fatalities, the fact that was brought out in the same DOT study I mentioned earlier.
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This chart from that study shows that if multi- trailer trucks operate as widely as single trailers, accident fatality rates would be at least 11 percent higher.
Mr. Chairman, it is frightening for me to imagine these vehicles being permitted on Florida's highways, or any other highway in this country.
In closing, understand that there are many more factors and positions related to the Committee's work here today. Some other issues of concern to the Florida Coalition membership include infrastructure decline, poor handling characteristics of LCVs, and increase in size of crash footprints of LCVs, but to Emergency Medical Service professionals, our primary concern is the enforcement of current Federal regulations which are routinely circumvented by state permitting practices allowing overweight trucks to operate on our highways and to maintain the freeze of LCVs as adopted by Congress.
It is our position that larger and heavier trucks are dangerous and result in a marked increase in morbidity/mortality rates secondary to truck crashes if allowed to operate beyond the scope of the current law.
On behalf of the CABT, Florida Association for Professional EMTs and Paramedics and National Association of EMTs, thank you for the opportunity to appear here today.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much.
Mr. Rahall.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Eubanks, at our last hearing, the GAO indicated that compliance reviews have declined in part because troubled carriers are being targeted, and that the reviews take longer. Does CVSA share this view, and does it not make sense to target the bad actors?
Mr. EUBANKS. No, I think it makes very much sense to target the bad actors. My state, as an example, Oregon, we do compliance reviews also. We share that responsibility with OMC's local staff. We handle basically the Oregon-based carriers and we share the interstate with the OMC staff.
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I think that focusing on the poorly performing motor carriers is merely good business. We try to use the information as effectively as possible. We all have limited resources. We have got to find ways to focus those efforts on the carriers that need it the most. So, I understand where OMC is coming from.
I think part and parcel of the reduction that we see on interstate carrier reviews that are done by OMC may have some complex reasons. We are seeing within this integration, the reorganization that they are doing now is bringing together people with motor carrier experience with people from the Federal aid side. You mix those two functions together. What you are doing is diffusing the motor carrier expertise, that expertise that you need to have from top to bottom. Particularly, I think that happens with their enforcement of the civil monetary penalties against carriers. If those penalties are seen by their staff to not be effective, eventually I think they will lose some of their energy in going out there and doing those compliance reviews.
That regulations are more complex is true. When we go out to do a compliance review, we need to be very accurate when we go out there to assess a carrier's compliance that results in a rating that has a very dire effect on a carrier's operations.
So, we need to be very accurate. So that has probably increased the length of time it takes to do compliance reviews and perhaps has had an effect of reducing the numbers, also.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you. Joan, let me ask you, why not an independent OMC? I mean, it appears that truck safety is apparently not receiving the priority it deserves at FHWA. The airlines have the FAA, railroads have FRA.
Ms. CLAYBROOK. Well, I think that one of the representatives of the last panel said quite clearly what they want, which is not a safety agency, what they want is a promotional agency for trucking that would do safety. And that is one issue.
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A second issue is that we believe that there is not only a culture of understanding the regulatory process already in existence at NHTSA, but it has the systems in place that OMC has apparently never been able to put in place over all these years. So, all you would be doing by creating a separate agency is taking an agency that has failed again and again and again, and putting it in a different box without any other influence.
And our view is that NHTSA would have a lot of influence on the way trucking regulation occurs, through the research expertise that this agency has. NHTSA has done landmark research for years and years that has changed the course of safety in many, many, many different ways, whether it is in drunk driving, whether it is understanding that in enforcement you need both public relations as well as actual police activity, or whether it has been in their motor vehicle program. So, their research expertise is very, very large, and OMC virtually is, as I said before, in the horse-and-buggy days in that area.
In terms of data and data analysis used to substantiate and evaluate what they do, NHTSA has been doing evaluations for 25 years. They issue motor vehicle safety standards and evaluate them about every five years, and look at them, and they go out and measure the data and they look at the systems being used by the companies because, of course, it is performance standards so they do not determine the design, but they look at the designs that have been used in order to evaluate.
I am not saying NHTSA is a perfect agency. As someone who worked there for a number of years, I know its warts, and I also know that I remain an outside overseer critic of that agency as well. But the two are—you know, the difference in rating between a zero and an 80, that OMC is zero and NHTSA is 80, and it is because NHTSA understands the regulatory process.
You know, regulators are not the most popular people in the world. So, OMC has a culture of ''working with the industry'', doing education, which is essentially doing nothing. That is what those two things add up to. And NHTSA at least, even though it puts its foot in its mouth every once in a while and steps in some big potholes, at least it gets a lot done, and it has changed the safety of our Nation's highways.
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So, I just feel that the cultural change that would occur with this would be enormous.
Mr. PETRI. I think you all pretty well expressed some concern about setting up a separate truck safety administration and supported moving it to NHTSA, but we have five or six different modal safety overseers, whether it is FAA for air, or all the others, do you see any merit at all in thinking about setting up a safety administration for all the modes as opposed to having some, like the Coast Guard that looks at maritime, and RSPA looking at its area, and OMC, and so on?
Ms. CLAYBROOK. Well, you could organize DOT either one of two ways. Either you could do it by that kind of a functional way, which is safety, freight, and so on, or you could do it by—and moving people—or you could do it the way it is done. I think that taking on that task, Mr. Chairman, is even larger than the one that we have suggested. And it might take five or ten years to do that. To us, we see an emergency situation here. And I think the record that we have put together in combination with the reports by GAO and the I.G. indicate that there are some very severe problems here.
So, our view is that there already is a vehicle safety administration in the Department of Transportation, and we see no reason for having two of them, which is essentially what the ATA proposal would be.
On the other hand, we do see a strong need, as you suggest, for coordination of the safety activity across the modes, and I view that as the responsibility of the Secretary of Transportation.
If you look at the FAA, they have far fewer hours-of-service requirements, far stronger hours-of-service requirements, than does the OMC. Or if you look at the railroad, it is somewhere in between. Well, I do not see that pilots have any less ability to work long hours than do truckers and, in fact, I think it is the other way around because you have automatic pilot, for example, in aircraft, and if you take your eye off the sky for a minute, you are not going to have a crash, but you could in a truck. So, I think there does need to be that cross-coordination, and we have urged that, but I think that that is a function of the Secretary of Transportation, to make sure that the modes work together and, in fact, Secretary Slater has created a Safety Council where those kinds of issues can be discussed, and I think that is a good way of assuring the cross-pollination and the use of each other's research and the sharing of ideas, and closer coordination in terms of hours of service.
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Mr. PETRI. Thank you. Mrs. Fowler.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank the members here before us. I was at another hearing, but I luckily had your testimony because the staff gives it to us, and I was able to review some of it, and I want to thank each of you for being here, particularly the Floridian down here, Mr. Parker, who has been so involved in so many of our efforts down in Florida, and we appreciate all of his work.
I just have a couple of questions. Mr. Eubanks, in going through some of this, I saw that you had testified earlier that the recent reorganization by the Federal Highway Administration had severely hampered the chain of command in the Office of Motor Carriers, particularly from field staff to headquarters.
So, in light of those concerns, how critical is it that action be taken on this this year?
Mr. EUBANKS. Well, I think the issue there is that as part and parcel of the reorganization plan that I think is probably well intentioned. However, we think that the way it has been done actually tends to diffuse the focus on motor carrier issues. You have functions, unlike functions that are being integrated together. So, when you do that, I think eventually the motor carrier issues can get lost in larger nonsafety issues. That is one of the things.
I think it is unclear, the lines of authority and accountability and responsibility, who is going to be accountable within the organization for motor carrier safety, when you mix things together in Office of Motor Carriers and Highway Safety. It seems also that the focus on safety is somewhat reduced from an administrator level down to a program manager level. So, there is some concern there that the issues that we are all talking about here, that are calling for more focus on safety, are not being met by that reorganization.
Mrs. FOWLER. Well, I think we all are concerned about having our highways be as safe as possible because we all want to get to the same end result.
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I was reading a report that the DOT Inspector General had released just last week, in which he said that NHTSA had nowhere near the necessary field structure or enforcement mission to maintain effective oversight of the motor carrier industry. So, I am concerned, are we just going from one problem to another rather than addressing where we are and fixing that problem. You know, throwing the baby out with the bathwater sometimes does not get it because you just jump into hot water over here, and I do not know if you have seen that report yet, but that concerned me when I saw that. Why not try and make what we have better and make it more of a focus on safety, rather than getting over into another organization that seems to have its own problems.
Mr. EUBANKS. Well, that was one of the options I think we talked about earlier in my testimony. We are willing to continue working with Federal Highway to try to address those issues, to make sure that motor carrier issues are focused from the top to the bottom, that there are clear lines of authority and accountability, that enforcement is something that is on the top priority, that it is an aggressive enforcement program. That being the case, if that cannot be done within its current structure, we feel there is no option but to move it. Our concern is safety, primarily.
Mrs. FOWLER. Yes.
Mr. EUBANKS. And I have been an advocate for a new modal administration because I see that as a way to get the best elevated view of safety, elevated to where it should be in this country.
Mrs. FOWLER. We all want to get to the same place, it is just which way to do it and what is going to work best.
Ms. CLAYBROOK. Could I comment on the regional issue because I think it is important to say that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has maybe 120, 130, or 140 staff in the field, and the Office of Motor Carriers has about three times that number. And on the other hand, I would say that the current structure, the way it is in the Federal Highway Administration, has very little oversight of the OMC staff in the field. In fact, they have them in four major sections as opposed to all across the country, and it does seem to me that because NHTSA has a regional administrator who is a fairly high level individual in each of the ten regions, that that would heighten the relationship between oversight and the OMC work because you have ten high-level individuals who are responsible for highway safety in the field. So, I just wanted to point that out.
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Mr. EUBANKS. Well, I agree. My concern is when the Inspector General is saying looking below the top people, that there is not enough field structure as an enforcement mission to do what we all are hoping to have done, it does give me pause, and that is why the Chairman is having these hearings, to decide what is going to give us the best result and where we need to be.
Mrs.FOWLER. I just have two other quick questions, Mr. Chairman, because I know you have a commitment. This would either be for Ms. Tierney or Mr. Parker. Again, in reading some, I understand that law enforcement has been opposed to some of this transfer, and the Inspector General has, again, as I said, been questioning this void here in the enforcement capabilities and experience. So, I am not sure why we have got—good law enforcement wants public safety, too. Again, what we all want is safety. And if they are concerned about the ability there, too. Have you been working with law enforcement on trying to resolve some of these differences?
Ms. TIERNEY. I personally recognize that law enforcement does and is interested in safety, and I certainly feel that the personal experience that I have had with law enforcement is that they would not be in opposition, but I have to say that that has been on more of a North Carolina level, though.
Mr. EUBANKS. If I might comment on that, CVSA represents the law enforcement people around this country who are dealing with motor carrier safety issues on a daily basis. Our membership has basically fallen in line and agree with CVSA's view that we want safety elevated to its proper role, and we feel that means creating a modal administration, at least elevating it to where it should be. If it moves to NHTSA, we can still work with that, however, our preference is that motor carrier safety is elevated to its proper location within this country.
Mrs. FOWLER. [Presiding] Did you have anything, Mr. Parker?
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Mr. PARKER. The EMS community has no position on where it should be located, just that the current regulations are enforced.
Mrs. FOWLER. I know you stated earlier why some of you thought that NHTSA would be better than creating a separate agency when Mr. Rahall was asking his questions, and I do not want to make more Federal bureaucracy, so if we can make what we have work, that is what we are trying to do, and we have got to make it work better, and I think that is what we are all here trying to do.
I just have a couple other questions. My understanding is that OMC had proposed along the way to adjust up or down each state's allocation of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Grant funds—you know, we have this carrot out there that sometimes we can use—and they would base this on the state performance in reducing the truck crash rate.
Now, do you believe this would help reduce crashes, or would it just shift more responsibility from the Federal to the state level? I do not know who would want to respond to that. It was just an idea, and I wanted to know what your thinking was on that.
Mr. EUBANKS. I think we are still reviewing some of those proposals. In view of the performance-based program, our commercial vehicle safety plans that the states all submit to OMC now all contain elements that we refer to as performance-based, which just means we are measuring the results of what we accomplish rather than measuring the inputs. We are not counting the number of inspections, we are trying to measure our effect on the highway in terms of reducing crashes. So, that is really what that program focus means. We are totally in favor of that kind of a focus. I think that is the smart way to go. We should all be using information to help focus on the carriers that need the attention the most, and to kind of husband our scarce resources as best we can, use them as most effectively as we can.
Mrs. FOWLER. We might get some of our states to focus in a little bit better because I gather some do a better job than others, and we have found dollars is a way to get their attention sometimes. If they are not going to get the dollars they thought they were going to get, they might do a better job.
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Mr. EUBANKS. True. I think part of that conversation has involved the proposal of using some kind of incentives also, and, in effect, that is kind of what you are talking about there. States who are successful in reducing crashes, in effect, would probably receive some extra funding versus states that may not.
Ms. CLAYBROOK. Could I comment on that? One of the important factors in being able to do that is having good information. And one of the problems is that OMC does not have good information. A lot of the states do not report all the crashes, and so you have incomplete information. And, of course, these carriers are often interstate, and so you have to have national information that comes from the bottom up into a national database so that everyone can access it, and then evaluate how they are going to allocate their enforcement resources.
And I think it is one of the things that we are the most critical about and most concerned about, is that it is very hard to run a good program either in terms of prevention or in terms of enforcement, if you do not have a good data system. And they have been promising for years to have this happen, and it has not. So, I think that is a major factor, and one of the reasons we are concerned about their leadership and oversight.
Mrs. FOWLER. So, no matter where it is, we need to make sure that there is a better data system so that we can use it with the states, but we have got to have the right data to use it with.
In looking at aviation, they really rely heavily on their accident investigation when they are determining what cause of the crash is. Do you think we need to be advocating some more in-depth accident investigations of these fatal truck crashes? I do not know if you think that is sufficient or not, I was just wondering.
Mr. EUBANKS. If I might take a stab at that one, two of CVSA's member states, Michigan and Minnesota, have begun kind of a pilot where they are doing some very in-depth post-crash investigations and inspections on commercial vehicles. We hope to take the best results that come out of that pilot project and to expand it across our entire membership so that we begin the process of improving that information system on which we base so many of our decisions. That is a very important piece, and CVSA is directly involved in trying to help that piece move forward.
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Ms. PIKRALLIDAS. Madam Chairman, if I could interject a comment. Acquiring better data is essentially what AAA is proposing in our testimony. The focus of our recommendation is a nationwide study of car-truck crashes-not just fatal crashes, but crashes of all severities—to try to get at what are the contributing factors to these crashes.
Mrs. FOWLER. I was interested in your testimony. I am a member of AAA, and you all do a great job—long-time member.
Ms. CLAYBROOK. If I could comment on that, Mrs. Fowler. I think that the important issue, though, is not to stop what OMC has failed to do effectively. There is a long list of regulations that OMC has promised to finish and has not done, ones that are mandated by statutes that are incomplete, others where there is a crying need for them where they are way far behind, and that is what much of the testimony has been about today. And I would hate to see us wait while we are doing studies before we finish things for which we already have sufficient information. I just wanted to make that point, not that we are opposed to more information. Of course, we are always in favor of that.
Ms. TIERNEY. I think a perfect example of that is the reflective tape issue. I have got evidence, clear evidence, of 15 years prior to my father dying in 1983, of them studying the issue of truck conspicuity, and here we are 15 years since his death, so you have got a total of 30 years where they have known about the issue. There was a proven and simple way to make trucks more visible at night, and it still has not happened. So, I would have to agree that hopefully—I mean, some things have already been studied to death, and more deaths and injuries are occurring, and a lack of action on the part of OMC is the cause of that.
Mrs. FOWLER. Well, it is not endemic to just Federal regulations. I mean, I have been to meetings with FAA on things about the wiring where we have had these flights where the wiring has burned, and the military has gone to rules on putting the wiring in that does not burn. We have yet to do it on our commercials. And how many have we had crash due to that? They had a group that were worried instead about bags falling on your head. I am not as worried about a bag falling on my head as this plane catching on fire because the wiring is going to catch on fire. So, it is an endemic problem, I think, to the Federal bureaucracy that trying to get some of these things through, and that is what we are all about, is trying to make it work more efficiently.
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Ms. CLAYBROOK. I would point out that NHTSA issued a regulation on retroreflective tape for new trucks where it has authority about six years ago, and the Federal Highway Administration took four years—I mean, the Office of Motor Carriers and the Federal Highway Administration took four years to look at it further. Then it took another year to issue a proposal, and it still has not issued the final rule, and it costs about $100 a truck, and its proposal is to allow ten years for compliance. So, it is not just bureaucracy, I think it is a cultural issue, that they do not see themselves as regulators and as one who was, you are not popular when you do this but, on the other hand, you save a lot of lives. And so you have to take what your function is, and under the statute that is their function.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you. Mr. Rahall?
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Madam Chair, I do not have any questions. I would just ask for unanimous consent, due to the fact that we are under time constraints to excuse the last panel prior to the first vote of the day, that I be allowed to submit some questions for the record for the Teamsters, and that their written responses be made a part of the record and, as far as that goes, any Member to ask any witnesses questions for the record.
Mrs. FOWLER. I agree, and I would like to add that for me, too, so done.
Ms. CLAYBROOK. Madam Chairman, I would like to submit one more thing for the record. This is an article from Transport Topics, and it is written by an individual who worked at the Office of Motor Carriers for 24 years. And he says that he is convinced that ''we will never fix the problem....that we have always had speeding, reckless driving, driving while fatigued'', and that ''will never be fixed unless the driver compensation system is changed. Hourly compensation and removal of time- and-a-half exemption would do more for highway safety than all the regulations currently administered by OMC''. This is in the American Trucking Associations' Magazine, and I would just like to put it on the table for the benefit of the Committee.
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Mrs. FOWLER. That will be included in the record, thank you, Ms. Claybrook.
I want to thank each of you for all the work that you have put into this and for coming here today, and we just look forward to continuing to work with you and making sure that we have safer highways. Thank you so much. The Committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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