Opinion: Safety and the Politics of Blame

By Daniel P. Bearth

enior Features Writer

It’s a time-honored tradition in American politics. Citizens seize upon an issue and lobby their elected representatives to change the law or put in place policies to achieve their goal.

This is why we have organizations like Parents Against Tired Truckers, a group formed by the mother of one of four teenagers killed when a truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and ran into their car, which had broken down on the shoulder of a highway in Maine. It’s also why we have Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, a group that claims to represent victims of highway crashes involving big rigs but which is largely funded by trial lawyers and rail interests.

Both of these groups have had an impact on the debate over truck safety in recent years and are likely to have much to say about changes in hours-of-service rules proposed by the Department of Transportation that would cut back the number of hours that truckers can spend behind the wheel.

While no one can seriously argue that grassroots organizations like PATT and special interest groups like CRASH shouldn’t have a role in fashioning public policy, the unwillingness of these groups to acknowledge the importance of cooperation with the trucking industry is blocking progress in achieving much-needed reforms of the 60-year-old hours-of-service rules.

Compromise is another cherished tradition of American politics and that’s what is missing from the current rulemaking process.

As proposed, the DOT proposal would drastically alter the economics of truck transportation, boosting freight rates by 20% to 40%, increasing the number of trucks and trailers on already congested roads and throttling efficiency gains in logistics — one of the major drivers of productivity in the United States economy.

Given the serious consequences of the proposal, doesn’t it make sense for regulators to work most closely with people who know how to move freight safely — namely, the trucking industry?

George Reagle, the former associate administrator of the Office of Motor Carriers, had the right idea. He viewed truckers as partners in the quest to improve safety and he wanted to focus enforcement resources on unsafe carriers while rewarding carriers that operate safely.

Reagle was removed from office because he made a mistake — soliciting industry lobbying help to block an attempt to move his agency to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — but that shouldn’t detract from the wisdom of having a performance-based approach to safety.

In an article he wrote for the July 10 issue of Transport Topics ("Hearings on Hours Need Focus"), Reagle questioned DOT’s “come one, come all” public review of the hours proposal and said that the agency instead should embark on pilot projects to test ideas before they become the law of the land.

“This would allow industry and government to be less polarized and work together toward the common goal of improved safety,” he wrote.

After the Exxon Valdez incident, for instance, the Federal Maritime Administration, oil industry executives and environmentalists came together to study the problems that contributed to the oil spill. Among the solutions were new rules on hours-of-service for maritime crews and double-hulled ship technology that resulted in a ten-fold improvement in safety of ships carrying oil over water.

Can the same sea-change in safety occur for trucking?

I believe it can, but only if all of the parties work closely together to address the real world problems that contribute to driver fatigue and highway crashes. However, DOT rejected the idea of negotiating a rulemaking on hours of service with the trucking industry in part because of opposition from organizations like CRASH and others. All the critics could see was a “too cozy” relationship between the regulator and the regulated.

But as the recent problem with Firestone tires suggests, ignoring industry input and reacting to political pressure can have unintended consequences. According to published reports, Ford Motor Co. recommended lowering the tire pressure on its sport utility vehicles to 26 pounds-per-square-inch, due, in part, to criticism by safety groups that SUVs had a tendency to roll over. Now the lower tire pressure is implicated in tire failures that have killed more than 100 drivers.

The same scenario played out in the air bag debate. Pushed through as a way to save lives in crashes, the bags became death traps for infants and elderly passengers in low-speed crashes.

The danger is that we are heading down this same road with the hours-of-service proposal for our industry. Federal officials seem to view truckers as the enemy or, at the very least, self-serving business owners with more regard for profit than safety.

It’s time to stop assessing blame and find common ground.

What changes need to be made in driver hours of service? I’m not qualified to say, but I know who is: the men and women who drive the trucks and the executives who manage the business of moving freight.