Editorial: Safe Trucking and Open Minds

Highway safety is an issue that just won’t go away, and rightfully so. The state of safety on our roads affects all Americans, and those of us in the trucking industry most of all.

Sometimes it seems that “they” are all out to get us. “They” blame trucks for the woeful state of speed enforcement on the nation’s highway system; “they” blame truckers for causing most of the serious accidents on the nation’s roads; and “they” blame trucking for ever-increasing congestion that is turning many of the nation’s roadways into parking lots.

This kind of scapegoating has driven some in our industry to knee-jerk resistance to every proposal that comes from groups or agencies that are perceived to be anti-trucking, and has led to institutional opposition to initiatives that might well improve highway safety at reasonable cost and inconvenience.

If trucking is to retain a major voice in the discussion over highway safety, it must embrace the safety issue wholeheartedly, and it must listen to all the voices in the debate.

Consensus is possible. Many of the groups that are pushing for improved highway safety are not merely tools of the railroad industry looking to place new impediments in the way of trucking’s financial success.

Rather, they are people whose hearts beat faster when a large truck looms in their rear-view mirror or whose windshield wipers are put to the test when a tandem-trailer passes them on the freeway.

If we don’t reach an accommodation with those other highway users, the trucking industry will be vulnerable to draconian measures in Congress and elsewhere.

That means that if Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) proposes moving the Office of Motor Carriers from the Federal Highway Administration to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, we have to maintain an open mind, no matter what our gut is telling us. The responsible approach is for an open exchange of information on the effect of such a change, and a review of the alternatives available.