Editorial: Getting Ready for the New Year

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img src="/sites/default/files/images/articles/printeditiontag_new.gif" width=120 align=right>The exclusive report on the front page of TT that the Department of Transportation is about to float its latest plan for reforming hours-of-service rules for commercial drivers is another reminder of the long agenda trucking faces in the new year.

Based on what we saw in the last, misguided attempt to revise these 63-year-old regulations, we need to study the new proposal very carefully when it emerges.

The last attempt to rewrite the rules, you will remember, was met with almost universal disdain, and Congress shelved the proposal in late 2000, much to trucking’s relief.

While we expect that the new proposal will be more even-handed and practical, we need to make sure that it would improve safety on the nation’s highways and allow trucking to increase its productivity.

Reports are that the new proposal will be narrowly crafted to deal with the primary issues it was supposed to address: namely safety and productivity. The last offering suffered from its attempts to reach into many other aspects of trucking operations.

DOT Secretary Norman Y. Mineta indicated that the new hours proposal will be perhaps the final act of Joseph M. Clapp as head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Clapp will leave the agency around year's end, and apparently he is going to be replaced by Annette M. Sandberg, who has just been named as Clapp's deputy. Now she is expected to be nominated to succeed him.

Sandberg has served as deputy administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since February, after six years as chief of the Washington State Patrol.

So trucking will also be getting to know a new administrator at the same time it deals with the next hours-of-service proposal.

The new year may also bring a new attempt by the federal government to adopt new ergonomics standards to cover workers, which could have a major impact on trucking and related industries.

These things are in addition to the challenges we all already face in these trying economic times. While there have been a few hopeful signs that the national economy is improving after two years of recession, there are still troubling signs of weakness.

Thus it seems that we should all take advantage of this holiday season, giving thanks for what we have, and fortifying ourselves for the year to come.

This article appeared in the Dec. 2 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.