DOT Eyes Options to Roadability Rule

November 23, 1999 10:13 AM, EST

NEW YORK — Several parties in the “roadability” debate came to the third in a series of “listening sessions,” but participants used the occasion to air long-standing grievances rather than to focus on the issue at hand, leaving some observers to think that the government might seek another avenue to deal with the matter.

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Moderator William W. Wood, a senior transportation specialist at the Department of Transportation, seemed to reinforce the observers’ view when he took care to emphasize that a decision to engage in rulemaking on responsibility for the operating condition, or roadability, of intermodal containers and chassis had not been made. He also said the department “would be glad” to act as a mediator after a participant suggested forming a private-sector task force to negotiate a solution.

“I think the DOT is confused by the complexity of the issue,” said Tom Malloy, executive director of the Intermodal Conference at American Trucking Associations, which filed a petition in 1997 to seek federal regulations to make companies handing off a container chassis or trailer to a motor carrier responsible for the equipment’s condition.

The Intermodal Conference, which has complained that truck drivers and trucking companies have been fined and penalized for operating unsafe intermodal equipment that they cannot be responsible for, amended its proposal in 1999.

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