Opinion: Time for a Motor Carrier Administration

Throughout 1997 and the first half of 1998, motor carrier safety enforcement and industry alike faced a critical period in the reauthorization of the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program in the highway bill. It was a remarkable time. The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, industry groups and, yes, even some safety groups that sometimes are not allied with us, worked together to support a significant increase in funding for motor carrier safety. As we all know, the effort was successful.

The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century provided a significant increase in funding for MCSAP and related programs. Congress recognized that MCSAP has been successful over the last 15 years in dramatically reducing truck accidents and in improving the operating condition of commercial vehicles on our highways.

Throughout the entire reauthorization process, very little time was spent on defending the past. However, CVSA recognized, as Congress certainly did, that the rate of progress in reducing accidents had slowed or had begun to plateau in the last few years. The increased funding in TEA 21 came with some conditions, the most significant of which was the directive toward true performance-based safety enforcement. Congress said that for states to share in this increased funding, they would have to clearly demonstrate that their safety programs were reducing accidents. A simple and basic concept, but a new approach for a federally funded program. Also, inherent in this new directive is the idea that if the additional funding is not put to good use over the next few years, and if the overall record does not show a significant decrease in accidents, MCSAP could be given close scrutiny in the next reauthorization process.

After TEA 21 came the fiscal 1999 appropriations process for MCSAP. House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf (R-Va.), while supporting funding MCSAP at record levels, chose to exercise what he felt was his oversight responsibility. He suggested there might be a better organizational structure in the Department of Transportation for motor carrier safety programs to carry out the intent of TEA 21 than now exists. He called for transferring the Office of Motor Carriers from the Federal Highway Administration, where it is now, to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Also, he was aware that accident rates had begun to plateau and suggested that a more intense focus on the part of DOT was needed to continue the momentum that MCSAP had enjoyed in its earlier years.

At first, CVSA had the same reservations about the idea of transferring OMC that most industry groups did. But after discussions with Mr. Wolf and his staff, and a recollection of some history — the idea had been proposed before — we took another look. FHWA, where OMC is housed, is primarily a roadbuilding agency, administered by highway engineers. The $100 million budget of MCSAP, though significant, is small compared with the overall multibillion-dollar FHWA budget used to build and maintain our nation’s highways. The more we thought about it, the more we were convinced that a better idea may be to create a separate Motor Carrier Administration within DOT.

Motor carrier issues are so important to the country that they deserve equal treatment with the other modes: auto, rail, transit and air. We think our proposal deserves serious consideration. Perhaps even better ideas will surface. The real solution will probably result from a melding of several proposals.

Also, the key to a real solution will be the same spirit of cooperation by all interested parties that was so evident less than a year ago when TEA 21 was being debated. Perhaps all of the energy being spent in the current conversation regarding the proposal to move OMC to NHTSA takes away from focusing on the future of truck and bus safety and how to continue the remarkable progress made in the 1980s and early ’90s. Other congressional committees, in addition to Mr. Wolf’s, will be closely studying all of the reorganization ideas now on the table. If all of us in the safety community and the industry are as unified and consistent in pursuing our goal as we were in the TEA 21 process, motor carrier safety will be the winner.