Editorial: An End and a New Beginning

Amid all the millennium hype, which has generally absorbed and replaced the seemingly endless Y2K hype, a few moments of reflection reveal that 1999 was a very busy and productive year for trucking.

Early in the year, there was widespread concern in the industry that trucking was going to lose even more federal attention when the government realigned responsibilities within the Department of Transportation. It appeared that the highway safety engineering office might draw more resources at trucking’s expense.

But as the year ends, the government is about to roll out the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the first federal agency designed to focus solely on the safety issues of truck and bus operators.

This was a major – and long-sought – milestone for the industry, and its achievement took some of the sting out of the government’s failure to modernize the archaic hours-of-service rules that have governed driver work time for more than 60 years. Hours-of-service reform remains near the head of the list of things that need to be done in 2000.

As for the next events in the new agency’s evolution, DOT has to flesh out the structure and appoint the officials who will craft the administration’s path. We trust that the new regulators will work with trucking to shape the agency and improve safety in our workplace, the nation’s highways.

Also in the forefront of trucking’s agenda for the new year is how to deal with the increasingly tight labor market, which has exacerbated an already difficult situation as trucking companies work harder to fill the cabs of their vehicles. It’s getting more and more difficult to attract drivers, and nearly as hard to keep them on the payroll.

Driver pay is clearly heading upward in early 2000, joining sharply higher diesel fuel costs and skyrocketing insurance premiums in what seems sure to be a round of freight rate increases. Shippers, who are demanding ever higher levels of service at the same time that trucking’s costs are rising, must be prepared to pay for what they want.

Truckload carriers didn’t do an effective job in passing on their costs to their customers during 1999, pinching already tight treasuries. So there is little fat left on the bones to absorb the rising costs of drivers, fuel and insurance. It’s time for truckers to shift the burden to their customers.