Congressional Panel Hears Calls For Improved Truck Safety

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional panel Tuesday heard pleas to improve truck safety by reducing drivers' hours, increasing their required sleep and expanding inspections of big rigs.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA.), who called the hearing, contends the Motor Carrier and Highway Safety business unit (formerly the Office of Motor Carriers) is too cozy with the trucking industry, and he has filed a bill to transfer supervision of trucks into another Transportation Department agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

"It is clear that the federal programs, as they are currently constructed and administered, are not doing enough to prevent unsafe operators from traveling on our highways and becoming agents of death," said Wolf, chairman of the House Appropriations transportation subcommittee.

Kenneth Wykle, head of the Federal Highway Administration, said all Transportation Department agencies are committed to truck safety.

In their testimony, truckers said they favored creating a separate government office to oversee them, much like the Federal Aviation Administration oversees airlines.

"While these other modes have their separate administrations, the safety and efficiency of the trucking industry — which dominates freight transportation — is regulated by a small office within FHWA, the nation's highway building agency," said Walter B. McCormick Jr., president of American Trucking Associations.

A state police trooper also testified that car drivers have to be more respectful of trucks, staying out of a trucker's blind spot and the buffer he's left between the car in front of him.

Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Mike LaPointe, a truck inspector, said the country also has to build more highway rest stops and allow truckers to sleep in them so they can get the necessary rest.

Currently, truckers are limited to 10 hours behind the wheel. They then must stop driving for eight hours. Some 20 states have laws limiting truckers to two hours in a rest stop.

Daphne Izer, co-chairman of Parents Against Tired Truckers, said the laws should be changed to require that drivers sleep during their down time — not simply step away from the wheel — and also not work loading their trucks before they get start driving.

Several panelists said states must fund more truck inspectors.