Video: Truckers Criticize FMCSA's New Initiatives

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John Sommers II for TT

This story appears in the April 11 print edition of Transport Topics.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Dozens of commercial drivers and industry stakeholders criticized federal trucking regulators’ initiatives at a Mid-America Trucking Show forum here April 1.

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration officials set up a daylong listening session at MATS so drivers could have a platform for sharing their views about the agency. The session’s focus was the agency’s still-not-finalized “Beyond Compliance” program, but drivers raised issues on other rules and proposals.

Mike Miller of Wisconsin-based Mikies Justa Trucking told regulators he did not have an expectation that Beyond Compliance and the mandate on electronic logging devices were making his job safer. Miller, who said he’s been driving professionally for 37 years, also said he did not think FMCSA officials were receptive to his remarks.



COMPLETE COVERAGE: 2016 Mid-America Trucking Show

A dozen more drivers spoke publicly at the session to express frustrations over certain regulations. Pamela Rice, FMCSA’s division administrator in Kentucky, took note of comments and represented the agency at the forum.

Beyond Compliance is a voluntary-compliance incentives program created under the 2015 FAST Act. It requires FMCSA to develop and adopt a reward system for carriers and drivers, using Compliance, Safety, Accountability safety scoring methodology. The carriers and drivers would need to demonstrate consistently high safety records for the recognition.

While rewards are supposed to be granted for achievement, as yet the agency has not specified what they will be.

Also in December, the agency published its final rule requiring nearly all interstate drivers to use ELDs as way to enforce hours-of-service regulations starting in December 2017.

“Their minds are made up. Their minds are made up,” Miller told Transport Topics after addressing the  FMCSA officials. “This is all a commerce issue. The safety part, they can sit and talk about it all they want, but you know what, it’s not about safety,” he added.

Miller recalled how last year he approached FMCSA acting Administrator Scott Darling at the truck show to share his concerns about overregulation. A year later, as the agency continues to proceed with myriad regulations, Miller said he felt betrayed.

“He didn’t listen to what I had to say,” he added. “They did what they wanted to do anyway.”

Miller’s brother Bob, also a trucker, took to the microphone after Mike spoke to tell agency officials his concerns over privacy and the agency’s HOS rule. Bob Miller’s point on HOS was that drivers must be afforded flexibility “in certain situations” during their driving time to boost safety. The HOS rules should not be strictly enforced.

Jerry Gould, an owner-operator out of Belfast, Maine, also focused his frustration on the agency’s hours-of service rules.

“They need to have flexibility like the other gentleman said,” Gould told TT after the forum. “If you get into a place where there’s traffic jams, you’re going to be [stuck] for two to three hours, you should be able to go off-duty like it used to be.”

“You’re driving through rush-hour traffic when you should’ve stopped and maybe avoided an accident,” Gould added.

Under the current rule, once a driver’s shift starts, he or she must stop after 11 hours of driving or 14 total hours. An earlier rule allowed drivers to clock in and clock out.

In December, President Obama signed a fiscal 2016 omnibus funding bill into law that requires a study of the HOS restart rule to show how the rule offers improvements “related to safety, operator fatigue, driver health,” as well as work schedules.

The HOS restart rule has been suspended while officials study it.

Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, also spoke at the session. Spencer told Rice the “Beyond Compliance” voluntary-compliance incentives program “ought to be something more than bells and whistles” if it is to gain acceptance industrywide.

“We need to recognize good performance, safe performance, and reward it. Maybe we have a different hours-of-service regulation, maybe we do a lot of things different,” Spencer said. “But assuming everybody is a bad guy is a flawed strategy because there’s never going to be enough money, never be enough time, never be enough resources and that doesn’t really accomplish anything anyway.”

Spencer also told officials the agency’s “lots of scores for lots of different reasons aren’t necessarily an accurate reflection.”

As FMCSA finalizes Beyond Compliance, officials will hold their next public listening session on the program April 25 in Chicago.