[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS
FOR 2000
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND RELATED AGENCIES
APPROPRIATIONS
FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia, Chairman
TOM DeLAY, Texas MARTIN OLAV SABO, Minnesota
RALPH REGULA, Ohio JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky ED PASTOR, Arizona
RON PACKARD, California CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan
SONNY CALLAHAN, Alabama JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
TODD TIAHRT, Kansas JAMES E. CLYBURN, South Carolina
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
KAY GRANGER, Texas
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Young, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mr. Obey, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
John T. Blazey II, Richard E. Efford, Stephanie K. Gupta, and Linda J.
Muir, Subcommittee Staff
________
PART 4
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION:
Page
Federal Highway Administration................................. 951
Federal Transit Administration................................. 1399
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration................. 728
SURFACE TRANSPORTATION SAFETY.................................... 1
________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
61-250 WASHINGTON : 2000
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida, Chairman
RALPH REGULA, Ohio DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin
JERRY LEWIS, California JOHN P. MURTHA, Pennsylvania
JOHN EDWARD PORTER, Illinois NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky MARTIN OLAV SABO, Minnesota
JOE SKEEN, New Mexico JULIAN C. DIXON, California
FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
TOM DeLAY, Texas ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia
JIM KOLBE, Arizona MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
RON PACKARD, California NANCY PELOSI, California
SONNY CALLAHAN, Alabama PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
JAMES T. WALSH, New York NITA M. LOWEY, New York
CHARLES H. TAYLOR, North Carolina JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
DAVID L. HOBSON, Ohio ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
ERNEST J. ISTOOK, Jr., Oklahoma JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
HENRY BONILLA, Texas JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts
JOE KNOLLENBERG, Michigan ED PASTOR, Arizona
DAN MILLER, Florida CARRIE P. MEEK, Florida
JAY DICKEY, Arkansas DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
JACK KINGSTON, Georgia CHET EDWARDS, Texas
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey ROBERT E. ``BUD'' CRAMER, Jr.,
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi Alabama
MICHAEL P. FORBES, New York JAMES E. CLYBURN, South Carolina
GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, Jr., MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
Washington LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
RANDY ``DUKE'' CUNNINGHAM, SAM FARR, California
California JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois
TODD TIAHRT, Kansas CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan
ZACH WAMP, Tennessee ALLEN BOYD, Florida
TOM LATHAM, Iowa
ANNE M. NORTHUP, Kentucky
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire
KAY GRANGER, Texas
JOHN E. PETERSON, Pennsylvania
James W. Dyer, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR
2000
----------
Tuesday, February 23, 1999.
SURFACE TRANSPORTATION SAFETY
WITNESSES
PANEL I
DAPHNE IZER, PARENTS AGAINST TIRED TRUCKERS
BONNIE PIERCE, VICTIM AND CONCERNED CITIZEN
SERGEANT MIKE LaPOINTE, MASSACHUSETTS STATE POLICE
PANEL II
KENNETH MEAD, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
PHYLLIS SCHEINBERG, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR TRANSPORTATION ISSUES, U.S.
GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
JIM HALL, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD
PANEL III
MARK EDWARDS, MANAGING DIRECTOR, TRAFFIC SAFETY SERVICES, AMERICAN
AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION (AAA)
WALTER McCORMICK, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATIONS,
INC.
JUDY STONE, PRESIDENT, ADVOCATES FOR HIGHWAY AND AUTO SAFETY
HARRY EUBANKS, PRESIDENT, COMMERCIAL VEHICLE SAFETY ALLIANCE
BRIAN O'NEILL, PRESIDENT, INSURANCE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHWAY SAFETY
TODD SPENCER, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, OWNER-OPERATOR INDEPENDENT
DRIVERS ASSOCIATION, INC.
EDWARD WYTKIND, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AFL-CIO, TRANSPORTATION TRADES
DEPARTMENT
PANEL IV
KENNETH WYKLE, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
RICARDO MARTINEZ, ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY
ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
CHARLES HUNNICUTT, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR AVIATION AND INTERNATIONAL
AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Opening Remarks
Mr. Wolf. Good morning. I welcome you to the Committee.
Since becoming Chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation
Appropriations, safety has been the number one priority of this
Subcommittee, both with Republicans and with Democrats. For the
past 4 years, the Subcommittee has worked diligently to provide
adequate funding for safety-related activities and at times has
actually added to the administration's request to ensure a
needed safety enhancement.
Safety is an area where you can never do too much. It is
always time to redouble our efforts. I am concerned, however,
that the Department of Transportation can and must do more,
particularly in the area of truck safety. A total of 41,967
people died on the Nation's highways in 1997. Most of these
fatalities occurred in passenger vehicles. However, 5,355
fatalities are the result of truck accidents. Due to the good
work of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and
safety improvements in automobiles, passenger vehicle
fatalities have been declining in recent years. In contrast,
trucking accident fatalities have been increasing at an
alarming rate. For example, in 1997, trucking fatalities
increased 4.5 percent over the previous year, the highest
fatality level in this decade. At the same time, more and more
commercial motor vehicles are driving more and more miles on
our roadways. Trucking vehicle miles have increased by 40
percent over the last decade. Over 20 percent of these trucks,
more than one in five, are operating with safety defects so
serious they should be placed out of service, so unsafe that
they should be towed to a repair facility.
While the number of unsafe trucks continue to rise, the
number of compliance reviews done by the Department of
Transportation has fallen by 50 percent and fines collected
from unsafe trucking companies have fallen to the lowest level
since 1992. It is clear that the Federal programs as they are
currently constructed and administered are not doing enough to
prevent unsafe operators from traveling on our highways and
from becoming agents of death. Without more effective and
aggressive programs to improve truck safety, fatalities will
likely rise and more families will lose their loved ones.
introduction of witnesses
I am pleased to welcome four panels of witnesses today. We
will begin with Daphne Izer, the founder of Parents Against
Tired Truckers, who lost a son in a truck related accident;
Bonnie Pierce, a North Carolina mother who lost her oldest son
in a tragic accident; and Sergeant Mike LaPointe, a
Massachusetts State enforcement officer.
Following the first panel, we will hear from the Inspector
General, and witnesses from the U.S. General Accounting Office
and the National Transportation Safety Board. Each of these
panels will speak about their truck and bus safety
investigations.
The third panel will consist of a variety of witnesses from
the trucking industry, insurance carriers, and the safety
community.
The last panel will consist of representatives from the
U.S. Department of Transportation. We hope as part of the last
panel's presentation, they will respond to the concerns and
criticisms expressed by the previous three panels and address
ways to fix these problems.
While we may hear differing opinions on the course of
action necessary to improve truck safety today, all of the
witnesses, I hope, will agree and I certainly will that 5,355
fatalities are 5,355 too many. We all have a common interest
and a goal today to reduce the number of unsafe trucks
operating on our Nation's highways, and this Committee is
committed to doing everything it can.
Before we recognize the panel, Mr. Sabo.
Mr. Sabo. No.
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Pastor.
Mr. Pastor. No.
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Aderholt.
Mr. Aderholt. No.
Mr. Wolf. Ms. Kilpatrick.
Ms. Kilpatrick. No, thank you.
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Serrano.
Mr. Serrano. No, thank you.
Mr. Wolf. Ms. Izer, you may proceed. Your full statement
will appear in the record. Summarize as you see appropriate.
Panel I Witnesses
DAPHNE IZER, CO-CHAIRPERSON, PARENTS AGAINST TIRED TRUCKERS
(P.A.T.T.)
Ms. Izer. Thank you. Chairman and distinguished members, I
testify before you today as a wife, a school nurse, a taxpayer,
a safety advocate, but above all, a mother of a child who was
killed by a truck driver asleep at the wheel of his 80,000
pound rig. Jeff picked up his friends that October night, set
out for a fun time, a haunted hayride, but instead four
lifeless bodies got a horror ride in a crushed car on a flatbed
truck. Five families' lives changed forever.
I want to say up front that I couldn't be angrier at the
lack of movement on new hours-of-service rules and enforcement
actions by Federal Highway Administration. I have to say I
couldn't be more disheartened and denigrated as a parent of a
child who lost his life to a truck driver who was violating
outdated hours-of-service rules and as a taxpayer who loves
this country. We have sat across the table from senior OMC
officials on many occasions as they assured us that they were
doing everything possible to see that another family did not
have to lose a loved one on a dark, cold highway due to truck
driver fatigue.
To find out that the people who had the responsibility to
ensure safe roads for all of us were actually working with the
American Trucking Association's lobbying against the actions of
the U.S. Congressmen working to improve highway safety sickens
me. We were betrayed by the very people whose responsibility it
was to save lives, not promote the productivity interest of the
trucking industry. Not only should the transfer of the Office
of Motor Carriers to NHTSA receive serious consideration, but a
referral to the Department of Justice for investigation and
possible indictment should be aggressively pursued against
those at OMC who violated the public trust.
Can anyone on this distinguished subcommittee tell me why
of all the research that takes place on the trucking industry a
certain percentage has to be conducted by the ATA? The trucking
industry has a clear economic interest in the outcome. They
receive funding from my Federal Government. They work side by
side with Federal highway researchers and other Beltway bandits
to delay, obfuscate and prolong research that turns out to be
faulty from the beginning. Millions and millions of taxpayer
dollars are being wasted each and every year while the Trucking
Association's employees earn a comfortable living and Federal
employees contract for future jobs after they leave government
service.
In February of 1995, Associate Administrator George Reagle
from OMC commissioned nine internationally recognized sleep and
behavior scientists to evaluate several research projects
dealing with truck driver fatigue sponsored by the Office of
Motor Carriers. One of the main studies that the group reviewed
was the seven-year, multimillion dollar fatigue and alertness
study. This is particularly significant as this study is held
up by the OMC and the trucking industry as the current research
that should form the basis of any revisions to the hours of
service rules. The trucking industry loves this study because
one of the major findings put forth is that the strongest, most
consistent factor influencing driver fatigue and alertness was
the time of day a person drove rather than the number of hours
they drove. However, what is more important is what the OMC's
own peer review panel said about this study and others. The
panel stated the driver fatigue and alertness study suffered
from poor design and an inappropriate statistical approach to
address these major objectives. One of the panelists stated the
study did not meet its objectives at all. The panel also stated
that all four studies suffer from ambiguous objectives and
poorly defined research hypotheses. One of the studies was
found to essentially lack any scientific validity at all. This
is the OMC's own expert panel, a group of recognized experts
who are not affiliated with any Beltway bandit or beholden to
ATA.
peer review report on driver fatigue research
However, the real story about the research partnership with
ATA has to be obtained through a Freedom of Information Act.
Chairman Wolf, I would like to submit the peer review report of
commercial driver fatigue research to the subcommittee for the
official record and encourage members of this body to read it.
Mr. Wolf. Without objection it will appear in the record.
[The report follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Izer. Thank you. Then you will get a clearer picture
how the trucking industry works with OMC to produce bad
research and bad public policy. What this amounts to is OMC
gets one thing else off their desk. The trucking industry gets
to delay and stall any actions on fatigue while they await the
results. And Beltway bandits collect their checks thanks to the
same American public who are dying on the highways due to this
inappropriate partnering. Meanwhile, truck drivers, kids,
mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, continue to die due to
Federal Highway's lack of action on the hours of service rules,
inspections, and educational programs against fatigue, sleep
disorders and other safety issues. Can anyone tell me when this
insanity is going to stop? PATT and other organizations have
fought long and hard to see something done on this issue. I
have testified until I am blue in the face. Congressman Wolf, I
am tired. I urge you and this subcommittee please do not forget
your constituents and us. It is time for Congress to take a
long, hard look at this industry and make it safer. Please take
steps now to save lives.
I am here from Lisbon Falls, Maine, brought here by
terrible circumstances and the desire to see changes made for
my family, your constituents, and truck drivers and their
families. I may be viewed as no match for the hordes of
trucking industry, high-priced lawyers who spend their days in
the halls outside this door but make no mistake about it, PATT
is here to stay to see changes made and lives saved.
I have discussed many other issues in my written statement,
and I urge you to review the entire statement. Please include
it in the hearing record. Thank you for giving me this
opportunity, and I will be pleased to answer any questions you
may have for me.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Izer follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Wolf. Thank you, Ms. Izer. I appreciate very much your
taking the time in coming. As the father of five kids, I don't
know that I understand your situation but I understand your
commitment following your son's death. We will ask you
questions later. We will ask the Justice Department to
investigate this close proximity of OMC and the Trucking
Association with the Inspector General. The Secretary has
assured us they will move on it. The Inspector General will
cover this topic in his presentation, but if nothing is done, I
am sure we will ask the Department of Justice to investigate.
Also, I have introduced legislation to move the Office of
Motor Carriers out of the Federal Highway Administration into
NHTSA. The Committee put that in its bill last year which was
taken out in the closing days of the session. So we will commit
to move OMC somewhere to make sure it is effective and not
having an incestuous relationship with the trucking industry
that you mentioned.
BONNIE PIERCE, VICTIM AND CONCERNED CITIZEN
Mr. Wolf. Ms. Bonnie Pierce.
Ms. Pierce. Congressman Wolf, distinguished members of the
subcommittee, my name is Bonnie Pierce, and I am the mother of
Terry Pierce. I wonder how many can tell me what you were doing
on December 10, 1993. You are probably saying to yourselves,
she's kidding, that was more than 5 years ago. Well, I remember
exactly what I was doing that day. I relive the events of that
day every single day of my life. Even the littlest events of
that day of December 1993 are unforgettable.
I left lunch money on the kitchen table for my son Terry
and I reminded him to make his bed before school. When he came
home after wrestling practice later that afternoon to take a
shower, before he went out for the evening with his girlfriend
Holly, I also reminded Terry to pick his towel up off the
bathroom floor. These were the little routine, everyday things
I did almost on a daily basis, nothing out of the ordinary. I
didn't know I was doing those things with Terry for the last
time. Later that evening, when Terry phoned home to check in
with me, which he always did, he simply said, mom, I am at
Maurice's and I have got Maurice and we are leaving to go to
the coach's house. The distance they had to go was a mere six
miles. They were to meet up with the rest of the team and spend
the night at Coach Stewart's home. Their plan was to get an
early start the next morning for an all day wrestling
tournament. I didn't know I was hearing Terry call me mom for
the last time and I didn't know the last chance I ever had to
speak with him was gone. I didn't know that within minutes of
hanging up the phone, Terry and Maurice would meet up with a
drowsy 61-year-old man driving an 80,000 pound tractor trailer
[he was empty so he probably weighed approximately 26,000 to
29,000 pounds] well into the 16th hour on the road that day.
Instead of passing by Terry on a gentle curve, that tractor
trailer driver drove straight through the back of that curve,
crossing head on into Terry's lane and literally ran over the
Honda Prelude Terry was driving. Terry and his friend Maurice
lost their young lives that Friday night, December 10, 1993. My
husband, Chris, and I lost our precious firstborn son.
Christopher and Tim, our two surviving sons, lost their oldest
brother and best friend. The wrestling team lost their captains
and two of the brightest beacons of hope in a small rural
community were gone.
My life as I knew it in December 1993 was forever changed.
The crash that took the life of my son was just that. It was
not an accident. It was a preventable crash. That fatigued
truck driver not only took the lives of two beautiful and
innocent young men, he destroyed two families and our lives are
forever changed. That change and desire to prevent what
happened to me and my family from happening to another mother
and her family is what brings me here today. Since the crash
that took the life of my son, I have learned of Parents Against
Tired Truckers and their goals, the American Trucking
Association and so much more about the trucking industry in the
United States that I could never have imagined. I have learned
that most of the laws and regulations about trucking safety
have not changed significantly in 60 years and I have come to
realize that the significant area of concern is not so much
changing the regulations, although I do feel there are few
major areas such as hours of service that desperately need to
be reevaluated and changes made but the critical issue must be
enforcing laws already in existence.
I know that my home State of North Carolina has gone from
77 inspectors down to 20 in the past 2 years. Consequently at
the same time, the carnage attributed to heavy truck crashes
has established North Carolina as the fifth deadliest state in
the Union. The United States as a whole, not just North
Carolina, has a serious problem with enforcement of laws
already in place.
The problem begins with annual inspections of commercial
vehicles. Why on God's green earth should we allow an owner of
a tractor trailer to perform his own yearly inspection? Owners
of passenger vehicles do not perform their own inspections. In
1986, automobiles were required to have a third brake light.
The back of a trailer is maybe ten times bigger than a car, yet
the Department of Transportation with the trucking industry's
support finds itself incapable of requiring those trailers to
have sufficient reflective tape so they could easily be seen. I
won't even go into the cost effectiveness of underride guards
that have been required on trucks for years in Europe.
Why was the tired trucker who killed my son on the road
after 16 hours? The answer is simple. The Federal Office of
Motor Carriers is incapable of enforcing safety regulations and
the Federal Highway Administration is incapable of implementing
new, more effective regulations. Current hours of service
regulations are infective and counterproductive. They are not
based on the 24-hour circadian rhythms. They are simply
dangerous.
The trucking industry is asking for hours of service
regulations that will enable a truck driver to drive 14 out of
24 hours. And whether it was due to the alleged cozy
relationship between Mr. Reagle and ATA or not, it appears that
the Federal Highway Administration is anxious to support the
ATA's wishes despite the imminent dangers it will impose to the
motoring public.
The logic of ATA's proposal flies in the face of science
and common sense. My son died because the trucking industry in
the United States does not care. In addition to the devastation
and hope that brought me here today, I sit before you as an
informed voter and cherish your position. You are either part
of a coming solution or part of a deadly problem. Please,
please, take charge of the situation before more families are
devastated like mine, and I urge you to be part of the
solution. I thank you for holding this hearing and allowing me
the opportunity to testify before you.
Please include my statement in the hearing record.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Pierce follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
MIKE LAPOINTE, MASSACHUSETTS STATE POLICE
Mr. Wolf. Thank you, Ms. Pierce. I appreciate your
testimony very much.
Next witness, Sergeant Michael Lapointe, Massachusetts
State Police. Sergeant, your full statement will appear in the
record.
Mr. Lapointe. Thank you, sir. Good morning, Mr. Chairman,
members of the Committee. My name is Michael Lapointe. I have
served with the Massachusetts State Police for 24\1/2\ years,
and I have been assigned to the commercial vehicle enforcement
section for 12 years. I also serve on the Regulatory Legal
Affairs Committee at CVSA, the Commercial Vehicle Safety
Alliance.
I feel privileged to have been asked to testify before this
Committee today and hope that I can contribute to improving
motor carrier safety. I hope that in some small way we can
prevent the tragedies that have been told to us this morning. I
would like to speak on a few major issues from my perspective
as an enforcement roadside enforcement officer. One of those
issues is the mechanical condition of trucks on the road.
Ten years ago in Massachusetts, when we started doing truck
enforcement, the out of service rate was 55 percent. In 10
years, that out-of-service rate has fallen between 23 and 30
percent for level one inspections. I would also like to point
out that the out-of-service rate has pretty much remained flat
over the past 3 years. If you would ask me why the out of
service rate has remained flat, it is in my opinion due to an
increasing number of smaller carriers coming into the business.
When we first see these carriers come on board, their trucks
are in tip top condition and within a couple of years, because
of economic reasons, trucks start deteriorating and are no
longer being maintained and repaired like they were when they
originally came on board. As we have stepped up our enforcement
efforts, many carriers have become proactive in strengthening
their maintenance programs. However, others have not and they
are increasing the numbers.
The other key ingredient to enforcement programs are
compliance reviews, which is a full audit of a carrier's
operations within his terminal. In Massachusetts we don't have
statutory authority to do compliance reviews on intrastate
carriers which might be problem carriers for us. However, OMC
does perform compliance reviews on interstate carriers that are
based within Massachusetts. To the best of my knowledge, in the
last 6 months only one of those compliance reviews has been
performed or completed in the western part of Massachusetts.
The next issue I would like to touch on is the rest areas.
At present, the lack and size of rest areas is a real problem
and very directly related to the problem of driver fatigue.
Most rest areas are too small to accommodate large trucks
forcing the drivers to pull to the side of the road or in the
breakdown lane to get their required sleep. In many cases this
becomes a safety issue because oncoming traffic can strike the
truck, causing injury or death. In most states, the problem
exists across the board. Either the lack of rest areas or the
size of rest areas limit the use, the full use of their rest
area.
Another issue is crash causation. The review of commercial
vehicle crashes investigated by our section in the last 6
months has shown that approximately 30 percent of the crashes
were attributed to mechanical defects, while 70 percent of the
crashes were caused by driver error either by the truck driver
or the passenger car driver. Our best analysis in the majority
of the cases where the driver was at fault, the crash was
triggered by the passenger car driver either making an abrupt
start in front of a large truck in traffic or an abrupt lane
change into the path of a truck or an abrupt stop in front of a
large truck. This is more than likely due to the fact that the
passenger car drivers are not aware of the limitations of the
large trucks that they are starting to pass, et cetera.
All state enforcement officers need to be trained in
accident investigation and causation so they can be done on a
uniform basis in all jurisdictions. This would hopefully lead
to a development of a national and international database.
And finally, another problem we do have as roadside
enforcement people is the problem of the fines and the judicial
system. Many prosecutors, magistrates and judges are not
familiar with the regulations, do not understand the
recommended fine schedules of enforcement personnel and do not
place the same importance on commercial vehicle violations as
they do with criminal law violations. An in-depth and
continuous judicial outreach program should be undertaken. It
is my understanding that Federal Highway has such a program in
place. More time and resources must be committed to this
effort.
Mr. Chairman, I have only touched on a few of the issues
that I consider important. There is no one answer to the
problem of motor carrier safety. It requires many different
measures. Therefore, we have to try them all.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lapointe follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Wolf. I thank you, Sergeant. Mr. Sabo.
out-of-service definition
Mr. Sabo. I thank the panel and I thank the Chairman for
holding this very important hearing. Mr. Lapointe, what does
out of service mean?
Mr. Lapointe. Out of service is a term that is used to
describe a mechanical condition on a vehicle or a condition on
a driver's status that would deadline the truck or prevent the
driver from continuing on. If it is a mechanical defect that is
an out of service defect, it is a part of a document that we
use that describes certain defects that are serious enough or
of the type that would either lead to an accident or breakdown,
it would prevent that truck from going any further. If we
discover that type of a condition, the truck is placed out of
service. The motor carrier or the operator, if it is an owner-
operator, is allowed to either perform the repairs on site or
tow the vehicle to a repair facility and then continue on their
trip.
Mr. Sabo. You were up to 55 percent a few years ago and now
it is still 23 to 30 percent and that is major----
Mr. Lapointe. 55 percent is when we in Massachusetts first
started. Prior to that we did not have inspection authority
roadside. That was done by the Department of Transportation.
But it was 55 percent when we started and we have brought that
percentage down between 23 and 30 percent.
Mr. Sabo. That is still incredibly high.
Mr. Lapointe. It is not all of the vehicles that--for
instance, if we have a weigh station that is opened, it is not
55 percent of the vehicles that come into that weigh station.
When we are set up in a weigh station at full complement, we
will normally inspect approximately 10 percent of the vehicles
that come into our weigh station. And that is not counting the
weight enforcement. That is strictly motor carrier inspection
where we crawl underneath the truck, check for brakes,
suspension defects, frame defects, things like that. Ten
percent of the traffic that would come through on a normal day
will be inspected and right now, 23 to 30 percent of that 10
percent would be placed out of service.
Mr. Sabo. Are those random or are you making choices? You
look and you are suspicious that it might have a problem?
Mr. Lapointe. Most of the roadside enforcement people from
our state are pretty familiar with the truck traffic that comes
through our areas. They are familiar with the different
carriers and they know the good carriers versus the bad
carriers. There are times when we do random sampling for
certain studies we might be doing but on a daily basis, we are
targeting the bad trucks, the bad carriers, so to speak. We are
looking for the bad ones.
out-of-service records
Mr. Sabo. I am curious. How are records kept and what
happens with them and are those kept by driver or are they kept
by company or both?
Mr. Lapointe. Which type of record now, sir?
Mr. Sabo. For out of service or for--where you run into any
other particular kind of problems. Are those records by company
as well as by driver?
Mr. Lapointe. When we do a roadside inspection, we complete
the inspection on an inspection form, either on a handwritten
form and now we have gone to a computerized system. As soon as
we complete that inspection, we sign the form. The driver signs
the form as receiving that inspection. We give him a copy of
that inspection form. He then is supposed to, supposed to,
return it to the carrier. If there are any equipment defects,
the carrier has to make those repairs and then he sends a copy
of that inspection form and any invoices or repair slips for
the mechanical defects, he sends a copy of those to our office
and then we file those in our files. If there are driver
defects such as no medical card or expired medical card, that
type of violation, he would--the carrier, would also have to
send a copy of the inspection form with proof that the driver
has now obtained a new or updated medical examination and form.
They send that to our office and we file that as well. And they
have to keep a copy of it in their office for any future
compliance reviews.
Mr. Sabo. Are they forwarded to anyone else? Are those
records circulating in your office?
Mr. Lapointe. Every inspection we do, is uploaded in what
is called a Safetynet commuter system, which is here in
Washington. All the States that are on Safety Net, all their
inspections are uploaded to Safety Net and all that
information, whether it be mechanical defects or driver
violations, are all within Safety Net.
Mr. Sabo. So they would have data by company and/or by
driver?
Mr. Lapointe. Yes, sir. If you had a name of a company or
if you had a DOT number, they can extract that information by
that--by entering that information, they can give you a
carrier--what is called a carrier profile.
Mr. Sabo. Do you have many cases where somebody gets this
order and nothing happens? Do you have records of that also?
Mr. Lapointe. Of companies that don't comply?
Mr. Sabo. Yes.
Mr. Lapointe. Oh, sure, many. They are allowed 15 days to
return the form. If we don't hear from them within that 15
days, we send them a reminder or a bad guy note or whatever you
might want to call it. They are reminded that they are supposed
to take action on the defects and then return the form to us.
In many cases, especially if it is a driver violation, moving
violation especially, some drivers do not want their carriers
to know that they have been cited so they will take the
inspection form that they were supposed to return to their
carrier and dispose of it. So the carrier doesn't know what is
going on but we do. If the drivers don't advise the carrier,
they haven't complied with their end of the inspection. The
carriers call on the phone and say, ``this is the first time we
have heard of this.'' A lot of times it is very true, they
haven't been notified by the driver. In the case of an
oversight, some companies if they are very large, it may be
lost in the shuffle but they are reminded and they are allowed
that chance to fill out the necessary paperwork and forward it
to us.
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Factors That Contribute to Accidents
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Regula.
Mr. Regula. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Sergeant, you
mentioned a number of things that contribute to accidents,
equipment efficiencies, drivers driving too long and the other
witnesses likewise, that perhaps the enforcement intensity of
the patrol in each of the States, even highway design and
probably deregulation has resulted in some bad equipment
getting out because anybody who can buy a steering wheel and
tires can be a trucker.
I wonder if you can prioritize these. Is there any one
factor that contributes to fatalities as far as big trucks or
is it a whole range of items because in trying to address the
problem, it seems we need to identify where the deficiencies
are.
Mr. Lapointe. It is basically across the board actually. In
most cases that we have investigated strictly a one vehicle
accident or crash involving the truck itself, in most cases, it
is driver error. We find the brakes are within adjustments.
Suspension systems are fine. It is the driver that has either
gone into an off-ramp too fast and rolls over or comes down a
mountain grade and overuses the brakes, doesn't burn them out,
just overuses them. They overheat, expanding the braking drums.
Now there is no braking capacity. They don't run out of air. In
the old days they would run out of air and that was it. They
basically overheat the brakes and go over the curve or go over
the edge and roll over. Once the vehicle cools off, the brake
adjustments are basically where they were originally before
they overheated. A lot of it is driver error.
There is an old saying that a good driver can take a bad
truck and make it go a long ways. Basically it is--if the
driver anticipates, if he knows his area or if he pays
attention to signs, signage that says, you know, steep grade
four miles, use low gear, if they are not doing what they are
supposed to do, then we are going to be at the bottom of the
hill investigating an accident. If it is equipment related,
usually if it is a truck that has struck a fixed object or a
passenger car and it is directly related to vehicles, more than
likely it is going to be brake adjustments and there are
different factors that can affect brake adjustments. It can be
the brake components themselves that are worn or just as they
were worn, they weren't adjusted on a regular basis to bring
them back into braking capacity. Other times there are parts
that do fall off of trucks, leaf springs or spring assemblies,
bolts, nuts and bolts, different parts of trucks may fall off.
We have had brake shoes that have fallen off large trucks and
gone through windshields. Luckily not--just minor injuries but
luckily no deaths. All sorts of parts fall off of vehicles and
fall off of passenger cars as well, but when they come off of
trucks they are much larger so they just do a larger amount of
damage.
Mr. Regula. In your judgment in terms of total miles
traveled, would trucks have a greater percentage of fatalities
involving a truck as opposed to automobiles? The reason I ask
it, I think one of the ladies testified there is something like
5,000 plus deaths from truckers. I think the total number of
highway deaths are in the range of 50,000. I was just curious
whether trucks contributed in terms of miles traveled to a
greater percentage and that would only be judgment based on
your experience.
Mr. Lapointe. I would say that trucks have more likelihood
of being involved just by the mere fact of being exposed to
traffic and more time on the road, whether it is--you know,
they are--the cause of the accident or become part of the
accident. They are just exposed to it just as well as we are
because we are on the road eight hours a day and we are more
likely to be rear ended assisting a motor vehicle on the side
of the road or stopping a motor vehicle on the side of the road
than the average motor vehicle would in its lifetime because
the mere fact that we are in the breakdown lane and people are
going by us and sometimes not paying attention.
So we are exposed to it as well. But a truck, certainly
with the number of miles, exposes itself and the driver to more
possibilities of a crash or an incident.
Log Accuracy Enforcement
Mr. Regula. Is there any real practical way to enforce the
accuracy of logs because it would appear to me that some of
these accidents result from drivers overextending time and
going to sleep frankly. And yet you have to almost rely on the
driver to keep his logs in an accurate fashion, or her. I see
many women driving rigs these days on the Pennsylvania Turnpike
and the Ohio Turnpike.
Mr. Lapointe. Sir, a lot of it is the honor system. The
driver basically has to be truthful in what he is putting down
in his logbook. There are many ways to check that, different
paperwork that we can access to double check the logs. In many
cases there are some carriers that have gone to a computerized
system, satellite systems where they can track their vehicle
and driver on an hourly basis and when they see the driver
approaching his termination in driving, they advise him by
computer. Other carriers do it of course the old fashion way
and the carriers review the time cards and they kind of keep an
eye on what the drivers are doing. And in other cases, some
carriers basically tell the drivers drive or walk. They are
told if they don't drive, they will find another driver for the
truck.
Owner-Operators Versus Major Trucking Firms
Mr. Regula. One last question. Do you have any feel whether
more truck fatalities resulting from trucks is owner-operators
versus the major trucking firms, which are more likely, such as
J.B. Hunt, are more likely to have this satellite hookup?
Mr. Lapointe. If the smaller carriers are involved in more
accidents?
Mr. Regula. Yes, or owner-operators or very small carriers
versus the majors?
Mr. Lapointe. No. We don't--I don't really see it as----
Mr. Regula. You don't sense the difference of the two?
Mr. Lapointe. No. The larger carrier, of course their
equipment is going to be a little bit different. They have more
of a turnover as far as their equipment. They may have a
tendency to replace older equipment quicker than the smaller
carriers but as far as driver violations between the large
carrier and owner-operator, it can be pretty much--you can have
road rage in a large company that has many drivers as in a one-
man operation.
Mr. Regula. Thank you.
Enforcement Penalties
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Pastor.
Mr. Pastor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
having the hearing. Thank you, Mrs. Pierce, Ms. Izer, thank you
for being here and you have my most heartfelt condolences. I
know it is very rough on you. I did notice when Officer
Lapointe talked about fines in the judicial system, both of you
perked up and agreed in terms that you both nodded. I would
like to have your reaction to that point that Officer Lapointe
made on the need, that the judicial system seems to be lacking.
Would you like to comment on it?
Ms. Pierce. I personally think the fines are too low
myself. It is much easier for the carrier to just pay the fine
and let the driver drive on versus losing the revenue. That is
what I see. So I think they need to be much stricter, higher.
It needs to be enforced harder, stronger than it is. And as far
as out of service, I know that the driver involved in the wreck
that took my son's life in a period of 90 days, owning two
trucks, both between the two trucks, he had four out of service
violations, four. And that is a lot. And it took him over a
year to report this December 10, 1993 wreck to the Federal
Highway Administration in Washington. So does it get looked
after? I don't think so. I mean unless someone is going behind
them like myself who said I have got to know what happened, I
need to know what happened. If I had not done that, this wreck
would have ended December 10, 1993, and that would have been it
and nobody else would have asked another question.
Mr. Pastor. Mrs. Izer.
Ms. Izer. Not just the driver should be fined. In many
cases the drivers are scapegoats being pushed by shippers,
receivers and companies, so those are the people too that
should be getting major fines. And when they are audited by
OMC, they get civil penalties which is only cost of doing
business. There needs to be trucking company owners going to
jail just as Gunther did in Maryland and more and more of that
is happening with the IG working with OMC. There are a lot of
cases on the go in this country and that is what it is going to
take.
Driver Training
Mr. Pastor. Officer Lapointe, do you find that just the
training of the driver or lack of training is a factor in many
of these accidents? What are the factors that come into it?
Mr. Lapointe. Where do we start?
Mr. Pastor. You mentioned that sometimes they are coming to
a sign that says a downgrade 6 percent and they tend to just
not follow the information. You would think that for their own
safety and because of better training they would react
differently.
Mr. Lapointe. The training aspect is important--we as
enforcement people, we have to be trained--just for the basic
inspection program, we go through 80 hours of training. And we
have to do a minimum 40 inspections hands on and then we are at
that point, certified to go out and start inspecting. On an
annual basis, we have to be certified to inspect the trucks. We
are not even driving the trucks. We are just inspecting what
might be defects on the trucks, and we are also looking for the
good trucks too because if there is a truck that passes all of
that, they are given what's called a CVSA sticker. They are not
given a green light but for the next 90 days if we see two
trucks come through a weigh station or an inspection site, the
truck with the sticker may just--we may just do a quick walk
around, a peripheral check whereas a truck that doesn't have
that sticker would be subject to a full inspection.
But to get back to the driver, we have to go through all
the training just to check the trucks, but the drivers may go
through a driver training course to obtain a CDL and others do
not. Others learn to drive from a brother, uncle, cousin,
whoever has a trucking business. They get a learner's permit,
learn to drive the way their brother or uncle shows them, and
after a certain period of time driving, where they have a
sponsoring driver, they go for their road test and if they pass
it, down the road they go. They don't have to show a
certification that they have passed a driving test. The only
certification they have to show is license, medical card, and
off they go. But there are some companies that do their own
training because they want their vehicles to go down the road a
certain way. In most cases where the drivers aren't looking--
aren't watching the signs, such as the steep downgrade, it
could be either inattention, they are tired or familiarity with
the area, they think they know the road; that way they don't
have to down shift and use lower gears so they kind of take the
shortcut. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.
Licensing Requirements
Mr. Pastor. Last week I saw a program that dealt with the
problem they had in Chicago with licensing. People were being
brought from Pennsylvania and New York and then supposedly they
were tested and in some cases some of the drivers that were
certified couldn't even read the signs in English or had other
major problems. Is that a problem unique to Chicago?
Mr. Lapointe. No. Actually, it is a problem in most states,
really in most jurisdictions. For us in Massachusetts, we have
a lot of what is called intermodal transfers or intermodal
transportation where you have what looks like a steel box on
the trailer that is transferred from, say, a dock area in New
Jersey and then is transported up the interstate system to go
to the Port of Montreal for whatever reason and vice versa or
coming out of Boston, ports in Boston. A lot of drivers are new
immigrants, they are Polish, Russians, of course the Canadian
drivers. There is a regulation that says they are supposed to
be able to communicate----
Mr. Pastor. Read the signs.
Mr. Lapointe. Read the signs and answer basic questions. In
most jurisdictions if you were to cite someone for that, it
would not go very well because, you know, the person is trying
to make a living, that type of thing. But there is a regulation
in place that says they are supposed to be able to communicate,
at least be able to answer questions from enforcement persons
or be able to read directions and things like that. I don't
know if it really contributes to bad driving habits other than
the fact they can't read the signs. They may have to, I
suppose, make abrupt changes in their route of travel if they
realize they have gone too far. We do find whether they--when
these non-English speaking drivers are on a route to a certain
destination, they will have detailed directions either in their
own language or in numbers, mile markers and exit numbers, and
they will have symbols, the whole thing, just so that they know
how to get from one location to another--that another driver,
put together because they have taken the run before.
OnBoard Computers
Mr. Pastor. You mentioned some trucking companies are
connected to a satellite. One such company is in Phoenix,
Swift, and all their trucks are connected to a satellite
system. The owner of the company said it was for his own
business practices. Number one, because he wanted to minimize
the insurance costs; and he also wanted to make sure that they
could keep track of the drivers. Anywhere that he had a truck,
he could check on the driver and could tell whether or not they
had rested, whether or not they had stopped to eat, and those
kinds of things.
Mr. Lapointe. There are many companies that use an onboard
computer, and they can actually tell when the vehicle brakes,
when it accelerates, the speeds they are traveling. So they can
also see their maintenance, the need for maintenance if there
is a driver that is doing more braking than he should. And
then, of course, it is an indication maybe he is speeding as
well.
Mr. Pastor. Because he is a large company, he can invest
that kind of money, but smaller carriers can't do it. Do we see
any future opportunity for those smaller companies?
Ms. Izer. Excuse me. If the onboard computers were
mandated, the costs would go down and companies would be able
to afford it. It is like anything else.
Mr. Pastor. You are saying, if we mandated that every truck
had a connection to a satellite, that then the volume and maybe
the business practice itself would bring better pricing and
possibly future profits for the trucking company?
Ms. Izer. Yes.
Mr. Pastor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Driver Error
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
hosting this type of hearing.
Sergeant, I think you said--most truck accidents are caused
by driver error, I think you said; is that correct?
Mr. Lapointe. They are triggered by driver error, yes.
Mr. Rogers. Let me explore that with you. When you say
``driver error,'' what do you mean by that?
Mr. Lapointe. Well, depending on what type of crash.
Mr. Rogers. Maybe some of the later panels would have more
statistics on this, but I wanted your reaction to it. I assume
we are talking about one element might be fatigue?
Mr. Lapointe. Right.
Mr. Rogers. Another element might be recklessness or
carelessness or negligence?
Mr. Lapointe. Inattention.
Mr. Rogers. Inattention?
Mr. Lapointe. Right.
Mr. Rogers. Is drugs or alcohol a factor in any of these?
Mr. Lapointe. In some cases. We don't see--it is not a
major problem, but there is a problem with--there is a
connection between driver fatigue and drugs. There is some
correlation that some drivers that are overworked are taking
drugs to stay awake and then become involved in crashes.
Mr. Rogers. Do you have any idea, in your experience, what
percent of accidents are caused by the use of pills or alcohol?
Mr. Lapointe. No, I do not, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Is it a small percent?
Mr. Lapointe. I would say it is a very small percent. In
our part of the country, at least in my State, we--we do get a
few, but we get very few operating under the influence of
alcohol-related accidents as far as the truck drivers
themselves.
Mr. Rogers. Is amphetamines or what they used to call
speed, are those types of things used commonly?
Mr. Lapointe. That seems to be a common drug in some parts
of the country. From what I understand, the longer-haul
drivers, the ones that have to get from one coast to the other.
Mr. Rogers. Trying to stay awake?
Mr. Lapointe. Trying to stay awake, trying to meet the
deadline.
Driver Fatigue
Mr. Rogers. What percent of accidents would you, in your
own estimation, attribute to driver fatigue?
Mr. Lapointe. If it is just a truck crash, singular
vehicle, or combination?
Mr. Rogers. Whatever.
Mr. Lapointe. I would say if it is a singular crash
involving just a truck itself, depending on what time of day it
is, if it is anywhere between say 10 at night and 6 in the
morning, it is probably a 60 percent chance that it is going to
be driver fatigue, because people are not made to be awake at
night. They have a tendency to fall asleep.
And in most cases that we go to at night, it is the driver
that has fallen asleep and didn't realize it, or at the last
second woke up because he was bouncing off of something and
then made an evasive turn and then the truck has either rolled
over or gone into the median. But it is probably 60 percent,
and then the remainder would probably be speed or inattention.
Other things that are going on in the truck, things maybe
falling off the dash, reaching for the item that may have
fallen off and then distracting him.
Mr. Rogers. I am interested in the fatigue category. Is the
cause of the fatigue mostly that those drivers are driving
longer than they are supposed to, or is it the hours that
they--day or night that they are driving that contributes
mostly to that? Or what is it?
Mr. Lapointe. It is probably lack of rest time, rest
period. They are allowed a certain amount of time to drive each
day within a 24-hour period and they are allowed a certain
amount of time to be on duty. And then they are supposed to be
off duty for 8 hours. Depending on how they budget their off-
duty time, nothing in the regulation says they have to be
sleeping for 8 hours, and--that is where the problem lies, I
think, because you could be--or they could be horseback riding
for 8 hours off duty, get right back into a truck and start
driving again. They are off duty because their activity is not
motor carrier-related. As I said, there is no regulation that
says they must sleep. It just says they have to be off duty and
get adequate rest. But how does someone do that, someone get
adequate rest in 3 hours? I don't know if you can do that or
not.
Mr. Rogers. If you could, by a magic wand, change
regulations in the law to deal with the driver fatigue problem,
what would you do?
Mr. Lapointe. Well, first, I think I would increase the
penalties for violating the hours of service, or the driver
hours of service. If there was a violation of hours of service,
they should be automatically built in for the driver and the
carrier if there is a carrier involved.
If it is owner-operator, you really can't--the carrier is
the driver.
Mr. Rogers. The lady said that just adds to the cost of
business and there is no bearing----
Mr. Lapointe. In many jurisdictions that is the case. If
the fines are too low, then the carrier or the drivers look at
it as a cost of doing business. They just pay the fines and on
their way they go. But if you increase the penalties, then you
certainly catch their attention.
License Suspension
Mr. Rogers. What about revoking licenses for a period of
time if they have so many violations, as we do in driving cars?
Mr. Lapointe. Right. That is another possibility too.
Either license suspension for either 30 days, 90 days or
whatever. In some jurisdictions that could easily be done
through State legislation. In other cases, it would--that would
be almost an impossibility because it is someone's livelihood.
In our State, if someone has a problem with their license,
they are allowed to have what is called a waivered license or
temporary license that they can use for employment. Unless it
was written into the legislation that would mandate that they
be suspended for a driver violation, they then would have a
temporary license for work so they would still be working.
Mr. Rogers. Many State legislatures--perhaps all of them, I
don't know, but certainly most of them--have made the decision
that between--if you balance a person's livelihood against
another person's life, preserving the life is more important.
And they have passed for automobile motorists' driver's
licenses a series of laws that suspend licenses for a period of
time, require retraining, revoking licenses even for people who
drive automobiles.
Should that not be the penalty that would be enforced for
truck drivers who wheel these very large machines out there as
well?
Mr. Lapointe. There is a regulation in place right now.
There are certain categories, moving violations, that if a
driver is involved in speeding, 15 miles over the speed limit,
following too close, things of that nature, that if they commit
those type of violations--two within a year I believe it is--
that they--their CDL can be affected, which--certainly it does
affect their right to operate that commercial vehicle. So that
is in place.
If a driver is suspended for 7 days or 15 days, whatever
the case may be, they can find other employment, whatever the
case might be. But usually if there is another part of the
penalty that is involved, monetary or a permanent record on
their license, that seems--because then if they go to another
carrier for employment, they are supposed to advise that
carrier of any previous violations they have. That is where it
really kind of--it does catch their attention.
When our State went to a CDL process, our truck violations,
driver violations while in commercial vehicles decreased
rapidly because they knew whatever types of violations they
were going to commit probably would affect their CDL, which
they never had before; they just basically had an operator's
license. Your CDL, because of the way it is written, moving
violations, it can suspend their CDL for a certain amount of
time.
Mr. Rogers. I thank you for your testimony. My condolences
to the mothers.
Rest Areas
Mr. Wolf. Ms. Kilpatrick.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and for having the
hearing we are discussing today. My condolences are with your
families. Thank you for appearing.
To Ms. Izer, as well as Ms. Pierce, you said quite a bit.
Let me first of all commend PATT and the work that you do. I
appreciate your work, and I think it is long overdue. If you--
you have us all here now--can make one recommendation to us,
other than the service hours that we know that we have got to
do something about, each of you, what will it be? As you have
done the work, you had the loss in your family, you know what
some of the laws are and the impact on our society, each of
you, what would be that recommendation to this committee
legislatively that we might do to address the problem?
Ms. Izer. How many can I say? The lack of rest areas
certainly is a huge problem.
Ms. Kilpatrick. The facility itself?
Ms. Izer. The rest area.
Ms. Kilpatrick. As was mentioned, if the truck pulls in and
because of its largeness they can't stay there, they go to the
side of the road, that is the problem that you speak of?
Ms. Izer. Yes. In 21 States there are limits in rest areas,
Virginia being the one that enforces it the most, 2-hour limit.
When truck drivers go in there, they are awakened by police and
made to move on and ticketed in the process, and they are
sometimes over their hours.
And truck driver pay is another big issue. Right now they
are paid by the mile. They are not making money unless wheels
are turning. And something the general public is not aware of
is that truck drivers spend hours loading and unloading,
waiting to load and unload, that is, hours that are not
documented because it would take away from their driving time.
So in many cases they start out tired.
Truck Inspections
Ms. Kilpatrick. Thank you very much.
Ms. Pierce.
Ms. Pierce. I would definitely have to agree with Ms. Izer
on the things that she said, but to add, also, inspections. It
weighs deep with me because being involved with DMV in North
Carolina, I know that there are approximately 500,000 trucks
registered within the State that I live in. That doesn't count
what drives through the State, but just registered in our
State. And in 1998 out of those 500,000 trucks between weigh
station inspections and roadside, 26,297 inspections were
performed. That is scary, 26,297 on a truck that a driver
yearly inspects himself.
I mean, so on top of what Daphne Izer said, along with
inspections--I mean, without those inspections, you don't catch
the violation of service hours. You don't catch what is wrong
with the trucks. You don't catch any of those things. So
inspections are a major issue.
Ms. Kilpatrick. I come from a State where inspectors have
been severely cut, and as we look across the country, it is
happening all over the country. It is a major problem; and this
Committee is the Committee that can address that, and I hope we
will in this budget cycle.
accident reports
To Sergeant Lapointe, would you refer to me the process by
which--that I heard Ms. Pierce mention? There was an accident
that a year later or sometime later, certainly not within that
next 24 hours, the next 2 days, was then reported to the
Federal Government. What is the rule of law on that? How soon
after the infraction must it be reported?
Mr. Lapointe. Normally, what would happen, if we are called
to an accident or a crash, our people would investigate the
accident. There are certain steps a carrier has to take. He has
to ensure that the driver is either drug tested; and then if it
is a reportable crash, what is called a reportable crash, if
there is injury, death, or vehicle tow-away.
Ms. Kilpatrick. As opposed to what other type of crash?
Mr. Lapointe. Minor, say a minor fender bender.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Fender bender to the truck or to the car?
Mr. Lapointe. Either case. Either one, it is not towed
away, no injuries, no death.
Ms. Kilpatrick. It is not reported?
Mr. Lapointe. It is not a report--what is called a
reportable accident to the Federal Government. In other words,
there is a certain form that we have to fill out. The National
Governors Association accident form. It is an accident form
that all the States are using, with the minimum number of data
fields that the Federal Government wants to collect; and every
State is supposed to fill one of these out for a reportable
accident that fits one of those categories.
If it doesn't, then that form is not filled out. The
accident would still be on file within the State jurisdiction
as far as the DMV would have a record of that accident, because
it might still fall into our parameters as far as an accident,
but it wouldn't fall under the parameters for the reportable
accident for the Federal Government.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Then those that are reportable--you were
continuing, and I interrupted you. You were saying of those
reportable to the Federal Government----
Mr. Lapointe. Of those reportable, that are a reportable-
type accident, then the carrier is supposed to--has to notify
OMC--there is a form that they fill out that they notify the
Federal agency that their vehicle has been involved.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Is there a time certain that it must be
done?
Mr. Lapointe. I am not really sure. There is a time limit,
but I am not sure exactly. I can't remember offhand what it is.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Something less than a year?
Mr. Lapointe. Oh, yes.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Is it less than a month?
Mr. Lapointe. I am really not sure.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Then what happens, reported to the Federal
Government? Some unreportables didn't get reported; they stayed
in State.
Mr. Lapointe. Because it is a smaller type----
Ms. Kilpatrick. Reportables did get reported?
Mr. Lapointe. Reportables get reported. Usually what
happens if it is a serious accident or incident, especially if
it is a hazardous material incident, someone from OMC or DOT
would come out to the scene or at least be in touch with us
because they want to document the accident, the crash,
everything that occurs as far as the hazardous material--if
there was a leak, if there was any type of injury related to
that incident.
So it becomes more involved. But the Federal Government
might send one of the investigators out to either assist us or
get information from us. But the accident and any inspections
that we do is uploaded to Washington to safety net, and there
is supposed to be a mechanism in place that if a carrier has a
certain number of inspections and the percentage of violations
is greater than a certain number, then that would key in the
need for a compliance review for that carrier.
And if there is a certain number--say if there is a certain
number of accidents, that carrier name keeps coming up, then
that would warrant a compliance review to find out what the
problem is, whether it is equipment, whether it is the carrier
that is mismanaging, whether the drivers are all very bad
drivers.
compliance review
Ms. Kilpatrick. The compliance review is done by the
Federal Government on that agency, wherever that is?
Mr. Lapointe. As far as interstate. Some jurisdictions do
interstate compliance reviews, but in most States the
interstate carriers, compliance reviews are completed by DOT or
the Office of Motor Carriers.
Ms. Kilpatrick. In your opinion, is that compliance review
effective? Done timely? Need enforcement?
Mr. Lapointe. ``Effective'' meaning they go through all the
steps that have to be taken. Whether it is timely or not, a lot
of times we find there are problem carriers that should have
had compliance reviews long before their time.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Why did they not? The Federal Government
didn't get to them?
Mr. Lapointe. Either they didn't get to it or they get lost
in the shuffle. Sometimes in our State we have carriers that
are interstate and intrastate, and the only vehicles or part of
the carrier business that the OMC people wanted to look at was
the interstate part of it. Most of our violations were with the
vehicles that were intrastate. So those are the ones that are
kind of missed.
Ms. Kilpatrick. So there is some seeping through the
cracks. You don't get any----
Mr. Lapointe. We are trying in our State to get legislation
to allow us to do the intrastate carriers that are problem
carriers, so there is no carrier falling through the cracks.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Finally, for me, the inspector issue. You
can use Massachusetts. Up to date? Enough? Need more?
Mr. Lapointe. We can always use more.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Give me an idea of what you have today and
what you had 5 and 10 years ago.
Mr. Lapointe. Right now we have a unit that is 44 members
strong, and that is including supervisory personnel.
Ms. Kilpatrick. You don't do inspections? Supervisors do
not?
Mr. Lapointe. Some of us do.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Oh, you do?
Mr. Lapointe. Oh, sure. Depending where the manpower is. If
there is a crash, we certainly have to take care of things. We
can't just let it just go away on its own. To be certified, we
have to maintain a certain number of inspections per year. We
are all trained from the very top to the bottom.
Ms. Kilpatrick. How many trucks in Massachusetts
registered?
Mr. Lapointe. How many?
Ms. Kilpatrick. Yes, that would require inspection every 90
days?
Mr. Lapointe. I couldn't tell you right now.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Roughly? One hundred?
Mr. Lapointe. Oh, more than that.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Five thousand?
Mr. Lapointe. More than that.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Don't keep taking me up. Just give me a
number. You have got 44 inspectors and you have a hundred
thousand trucks?
Mr. Lapointe. Probably close.
Ms. Kilpatrick. That is the point I was trying to make.
Mr. Lapointe. We do a lot of interstate inspections too
because of the interstate highways.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Sure.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, sir.
mechanical defects
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Aderholt.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the hearing
today. Thank you, Ms. Izer and Ms. Pierce, for your testimony.
Sergeant Lapointe, let me just ask you a quick question
regarding the last 6 months' review. I noticed on here you have
got 30 percent of the crashes were attributed to mechanical
defects. Just roughly, is that 30 percent related to the
mechanical defects of the truckers or are there some of those
due to mechanical defects of the automobiles or----
passenger car error
Mr. Lapointe. Some of those defects were passenger car
defects as well. We don't separate it, you know, too far. We
just--we were trying to get some numbers together a few weeks
back, and those are the numbers that we came up with as far as
equipment. We didn't break it down as to types of violations
or, you know, if there were more brake violations with vehicles
or tire violations with passenger cars.
Mr. Aderholt. But there are some above?
Mr. Lapointe. Right.
Mr. Aderholt. Likewise, with the 70 percent, it would go
the same?
Mr. Lapointe. Right.
Mr. Aderholt. Of course, you have it listed that part of it
is automobile driver error and part of it is truck driver
error. Of course, I know you--in getting the statistics
together, I know you didn't break them up further, but in your
opinion, is that pretty much--that 70 percent, is it broken
down 50-50 as far as truck driver/automobile error, or does one
have a greater majority of that 70 percent than the other?
Mr. Lapointe. In that 6-month period that we looked at in
our State, it was--the majority was in a passenger car
triggering the accident of that 70 percent. And it would
probably be--60 to 70 percent would be passenger car error.
Mr. Aderholt. A lot of that is--as you mentioned earlier in
your testimony, they don't appreciate that trucks cannot stop
at a very----
Mr. Lapointe. They just don't anticipate the size of it.
And a lot of it has to do with the congestion, the traffic,
either on the interstate system or on the State highway system.
Mr. Aderholt. That is all I had. Thank you.
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Serrano.
Mr. Serrano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, ladies,
thank you for your testimony. Like Chairman Wolf, I can't even
begin to imagine what you must feel like, but I do commend you
on the fact that you have taken your pain and your anger and
used it to perhaps prevent one of my five children from being
in that situation. I need to appreciate that.
Sergeant, just two questions I have for you, one on your--
in your testimony you say that 70 percent of the accidents are
caused by driver error. And then you say our best analysis
indicates the majority of the cases where the driver is at
fault, the crash was triggered by the passenger car driver who
may be unaware of the limitations of the truck.
Mr. Lapointe. Right.
Mr. Serrano. So now who is at fault? Is it a combination?
Mr. Lapointe. Actually, what it is, some passenger car
drivers will make abrupt turns or stops near or in front of
trucks and large trucks have inherent blind spots on both sides
and in front of the truck where if a passenger car were to come
along the side and make a lane change, the trucks don't see it.
And another--there are a lot of combinations, but if the truck
didn't see that car come into his view, rather than a gradual
lane change, then the truck either makes a turn, say--a lot of
trucks make a wide turn--the cars pull up alongside the right,
they don't see it, and the truck is still making a legal right
turn, but the passenger car is coming up along the right side.
In a lot of cases the passenger cars in traffic will make a
lane change directly in front of a truck and then slow down
abruptly, and the truck has no place to go. And this happens
because of congestion. The trucks, they are allowing distance
between themselves and the car in front and the next few
hundred feet another car cuts in front into that empty spot and
then the truck--in most cases the brakes are fine, the weight
of the vehicle itself just did not allow it to stop in time
before striking that car that pulled in front.
Mr. Serrano. You know, I have a--I always have an
experience--this is probably better discussed with another
panel of truckers, but I am the Member of Congress who has the
longest commute in Washington and of most of the Members of
Congress has the shortest commute back in his home district. I
am a man of extremes.
But it seems to me that no matter what lane I am in, the
truck behind me on 95 always wants to read my license plate up
close, and it is scary. I know it is not because I have a New
York license plate. I don't want to deal with that. I don't
have a congressional license plate. Now that would be a reason.
But it seems no matter what lane I am in, and I have
decided to travel this long route every day--in the evenings
especially--you know, all the way in the slowest lane so that
everybody can go as fast as they want to go. And there is
always a truck on me, and I am not going to go past the speed
limit because how do I know that trucker is not in cahoots--I
don't know.
Why is there always such closeness on the road?
Mr. Lapointe. I don't drive a truck, but I imagine they
don't want to lose their place in line as well. They want to
keep that space and they don't want to keep falling back. What
I am referring to, as far as the distance they try to keep, not
stop-and-go traffic, but in normal traffic where it is 50, 55
miles-per-hour and the passenger car might take--make a lane
change to take an exit and cut across two lanes in front of the
truck, and the truck has no place to go.
We have had trucks jackknife and still strike the car
because of the sheer weight of the vehicle, full braking
capacity, just the whole energy of the vehicle moving, just
does not stop in time and still strikes the vehicle. The driver
tries to do what he can, but he still hasn't stopped in time,
and it has struck the vehicle.
driver logs
Mr. Serrano. Another question is, we were talking about--I
know there are logs that are kept, and there are rules as to
how much time you have to rest and so on. But how do you feel
about the enforcement of these rules? Are they enforced? With
so many trucks on the road, how do we really know that these
folks are even attempting to get the rest, which we have
already established is not enough; but how do we know they are
attempting to do that? And if what we know--the statements
which the ladies made, which we know, Ms. Izer, we know to be
true, that there are so many people, truckers who lose time
loading and unloading and they have to make it up--how do we
know that some folks are not getting any rest at all?
Mr. Lapointe. Some are not. They are just working around
the clock. A majority of drivers that are on the road don't
want to drive tired.
There are a lot of drivers--and I will say this in front of
everybody--that come into our inspection sites or see us
sitting on the side of the road monitoring traffic, that will
stop and ask to have their truck inspected because their
carriers will not repair the deficiencies that they have noted
for vehicles, and of course we oblige them. We take care of
things.
And there are--a lot of those drivers are the same type of
drivers that won't drive tired; they will quit before they
drive tired.
But like I say, the majority of the drivers are very good.
They are hard working. They have business to do, and they want
to do it safely.
It is hard for us. We can only do so much, short of getting
search warrants for every truck to extract information from
these people. Where did you start from? Where are you headed?
Where were you 3 days ago?
It is basically the honor system. Whatever is on their log,
we have to go by. In some cases we call--it is called "funny
books." They have two logs. The real logbook that is keeping
their actual hours is what they are getting paid off of, and
the "funny book" which makes it look good for us roadside
enforcement people, and everything is right up to snuff and all
the perfect hours of off duty and rest.
So it is very hard. Unless we know--we are familiar with
the carriers and the drivers, and we have had dealings with
them in the past, then we have got different ways we can deal
with that. So there are ways they get around the regulations
like anything else.
But the biggest thing is off duty or rest time and how they
budget their time, their rest time.
Mr. Serrano. Thank you, Sergeant. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wolf. Ms. Granger.
Ms. Granger. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. To Ms. Izer and
Ms. Pierce, thank so you much for your efforts. We appreciate
it very much.
Sergeant Lapointe, a couple of things. One thing, I was
surprised that you gave--you said there were so few wrecks
where you felt there were drugs involved. Is this because there
is good drug testing from the companies, the carriers? Are they
policing themselves?
Mr. Lapointe. I am just speaking as far as our State and
what we get involved in as far as investigations. We are a very
small State, so it really isn't too much of--I guess the only
problem we have with long-distance drivers is as they are
coming through our State. We really don't see the drug use, the
type of speed and things like that that the larger States in
the Western part of the country where they have long distances
to travel between either their destination or rest stops or
whatever.
So we don't--we see occasionally marijuana, things like
that, what are referred to as ``personal use drugs'' that they
may use off duty or whatever. But the type of drugs that would
be involved in long-distance driving, we don't see too much, or
at least we don't get involved with it too much.
truck inspection
Ms. Granger. One other thing. I can't get a picture of what
the truck inspection is like. How long does it take and what is
inspected? Can you tell us sort of what that is about? What is
an average truck inspection?
Mr. Lapointe. An average--well, this would be a full Level
One, which is basically we look at every part of the truck
above what we can see walking around the truck. Lights,
windshield washers, horn, steering mechanism, lighting devices,
stop lamps, directionals, head lamps; and then once we have
completed that, we will usually get a creeper and then we get
on the ground and then we crawl underneath the truck and look
at suspension components, brake components, frame members, fuel
systems for leaks. And we also mark the brakes and then we have
the driver give a full brake application, and that is when we
can tell if a brake is out of adjustment by measuring brake
stroke.
While we are underneath, we can also see if the brake
components are worn to where they should be replaced. There is
a certain regulation that brake pads have to be a certain
thickness. While we are underneath, we look at that. We look at
U-bolts that are holding axle positioning parts together. I
really can't--I don't know how many parts there are all
together.
But usually a full Level One inspection, of course,
includes the driver as well. We go through all his paperwork.
We check his license through the computer, medical card. We
do--if he is required to keep a log. Not all drivers are
required to keep logs; if a driver is within 100-air-mile
radius, he is exempt from that log requirement unless he goes
over a certain number of hours driving. But if he is required
to keep a log, then we go through his logbook to make sure he
is not over his logs as far as his weekly total and his daily
total.
That entire Level One inspection should take somewhere
between 30 and 45 minutes, depending on the number of--if it is
a real junker and there are a lot of violations, it is going to
take longer to write up the violations, but usually it is 30
minutes to 45 minutes from the time we stop it until the time
we cite violations, issue the citations and the inspection form
and the driver is on his way.
A Level Two which is a little bit abbreviated; it is
basically just a walk-around. Whatever you can see from
standing or kneeling near the vehicle is what is checked. So a
Level Two, you would not check brake components unless you can
actually see them, but you wouldn't be measuring brakes. We
might not see all the frame components. We might not see the
fuel systems, air system, that type of thing.
Ms. Granger. Thank you very much.
Mr. Wolf. Just a couple questions.
I would just urge the members of the committee, if you get
a chance, to go out on a truck inspection. I went out on one in
October with the Loudoun County sheriff's department on the
border of Fairfax County and Loudoun County. If my memory
serves, I think over 50 percent of the trucks were in such
violation--you mentioned 30 percent in Massachusetts--that they
had to be taken out of service, literally, until a tow truck
came and pulled them away a mechanic had to come out and fix
them. Some had no brakes, bologna skin tires, just amazing.
So to read it or hear it is one thing; but to see it, I
think, makes quite an impact.
compliance review
Sergeant, you mentioned that there was only one compliance
review in all of western Massachusetts for the last 6 months.
Mr. Lapointe. To the best of my knowledge.
Mr. Wolf. Do you think that is sufficient?
Mr. Lapointe. Oh, no. Certainly not. What has happened in
the past, recent past, is that one of the troopers that works
with me is assigned to do compliance reviews, and he has gone
out to do compliance reviews with the representative from OMC;
and at one point there, they were quite busy, and for some
reason, it started reducing in numbers.
Mr. Wolf. Are you aware, the compliance reviews have
dropped from five a month to one a month at OMC?
Mr. Lapointe. I believe it as far as our State. This is
what I know in the western part of the State; in the eastern
part of the State, they may be doing a few more, but I don't
know, I supervise at the other end of the State.
office of motor carriers
Mr. Wolf. Ms. Izer and Ms. Pierce, do you share the concern
that I have that the Office of Motor Carriers is so close to
the trucking industry that it absolutely has to be moved?
Ms. Izer. Yes, sir, we have always felt that way.
Ms. Pierce. Definitely. Without a doubt.
Mr. Wolf. I would urge the committee members to look at the
IG report that was done with regard to the lobbying and OMC.
OMC employees were actually drafting letters for trucking
companies to send to the Members of Congress lobbying against,
in essence, what this committee did last year, which moved the
Office of Motor Carriers to NHTSA. Then they were calling and
doing many others. I just wanted to get that on the record.
Do you share that concern too, Sergeant?
Mr. Lapointe. Certainly if there is conflict, it should be
eliminated. If it takes moving one agency or whatever, it
should be done, because it is a conflict for enforcement as
well.
Mr. Wolf. I want to thank all of you for your testimony
very much and appreciate it. I want to recognize Mr. Regula. I
just thank you for your time. Thank you very much, all of you.
cdl license program
Mr. Regula. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one question:
Sergeant, has the development of the CDL program, a requirement
for the truck drivers to have this new licensing system, do you
think that has helped any?
Mr. Lapointe. Has it helped any? Immeasurably. At one time,
drivers could pull out their wallet and instead of the family
photos, it was licenses from different states. If they got too
many violations from one state, they would stop using that
license for several weeks or months and start using a different
state. We still have problems. The thing on TV the other night
with Illinois issuing bogus licenses, that is a real problem
there. There are problems where someone can get a CDL, even
though they have some nasty driving habits, but it certainly
has improved driver quality.
Mr. Regula. Should the standards be tougher?
Mr. Lapointe. Well, I don't know if they need to be
tougher, but I often thought that because we as enforcement
officers have to be recertified on an annual basis, maybe
drivers should be recertified. But then where do we stop? Do
passenger car drivers have to be recertified at a certain age?
Some of us are getting along and we don't want to face what our
parents did. They told our grandparents ``you can't drive any
more''. Maybe some companies do that. They have the drivers go
through a driver refresher thing. This just shows them the new
updated equipment that might be out there or techniques in
driving, too. Maybe recertification or relicensing or retesting
every 3 or 4 years, 5 years, whatever it might be, might be a
solution.
Mr. Wolf. Thank you very much.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Panel II Witnesses
Mr. Wolf. The next panel will be first Mr. Ken Mead,
Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation; next will
be Mr. Jim Hall, Chairman, National Transportation Safety
Board; and then Ms. Phyllis Scheinberg, Associate Director for
Transportation, U.S. General Accounting Office. All of your
statements will be in the record, the full statement will be in
the record. If you can summarize, we would appreciate it.
Mr. Mead, we will begin with you.
KENNETH MEAD, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION
Mr. Mead. I have two visuals, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, thank you. I
want to acknowledge, first, the Inspector General's staff that
has been working many hours on this particular assignment, and
the forthright responses of the motor carrier investigators
across the country who responded to a workforce survey. Over 70
percent of them responded, which is an unusually high response
rate.
Also, I commend the subcommittee for holding this hearing
today and focusing attention on motor carrier safety. I can
personally attest that Secretary Slater has made it clear to
everyone that transportation safety is the department's number
one strategic goal and the north star for all of DOT to follow.
The Nation, Mr. Chairman, has had a very good year in
commercial aviation and passenger rail safety. We should be
able to say the same for all modes of transportation, but we
cannot. There are over 445,000 interstate motor carrier
companies. Most are good transportation companies who comply
with the safety rules. However, there is a small portion of the
industry that puts profit first and safety second and creates a
risk on the Nation's roadways. We need to do a better job to
get them to change their behavior and get them off the road
promptly when they don't. We need to send a strong message that
unsafe practices will not be tolerated.
Mr. Chairman, the motor carrier issue is not new. In 1966,
motor carrier safety was taken away from the Interstate
Commerce Commission, in part because Congress concluded
oversight was not effective. In 1987, 5,600 people lost their
lives. Senator Hollings and 19 cosponsors proposed taking motor
carriers from the Federal Highway Administration and creating a
separate motor carrier administration. Both times the debate
centered on the fact that too few trucks were being inspected,
too many of those inspected were being placed out of service,
and that driver fatigue was a major cause of crashes.
highlights of inspector general findings
Let me share the highlights of what we found. First, the
goals for motor carrier safety need to change, and they need to
be made much more bold than they are now. We must show that
5,000 deaths a year involving large truck crashes is
unacceptable. As you pointed out, 5,000 deaths annually equates
to a major airline crash, with 200 fatalities every two weeks.
DOT's published measure for truck safety is based on a
reduction in what is known as the fatality rate. However, given
the growth in the industry and increase in truck miles driven,
the current goal can be achieved even with an increase in the
absolute number of fatalities.
I will illustrate with this chart. The red line in the
chart shows the upper trend in the number of large trucks
involved in fatal crashes, over 4,500 fatal crashes. The blue
line shows the number of fatalities in large truck crashes,
over 5,300. And the green line shows large truck vehicle miles
traveled. As that green line goes up, the vehicle miles
traveled increases, and that is why you can say that the
fatality rate is staying the same or even going lower when in
fact the number of lives lost is increasing.
The fatality rate has been about 2.8 deaths per one hundred
million miles traveled since 1995. The number of deaths in
large truck crashes over that same period of time has increased
by 437. Clearly, a consistent or lowered fatality rate does not
equate to a decrease in the actual number of deaths.
Mr. Chairman, the current performance measure ought to be
changed to one that also aims substantially at reducing the
number of fatalities and injuries associated with large truck
crashes. That will send a clear and strong message. The safety
program, regardless of where it is housed organizationally,
would have to take action accordingly.
Mr. Chairman, 66 percent of the safety investigators that
responded to our survey said truck safety was good to
excellent, 29 percent said fair, 5 percent said poor. That
ought to be cause for concern. We all would be reluctant to
board an airplane if the safety inspectors said airline safety
was only ``fair.''
Second, the Office of Motor Carriers has shifted its
emphasis to a more collaborative ``partnership with industry''
approach. This approach to safety has enforcement as a last
resort. This is fine, so long as the partnership and
collaborative approach works, but it does not with many
companies.
punishing repeat violators
For example, repeat violators warrant, but often do not
get, stiff and swift enforcement actions that have a deterrent
effect and ensure sustained compliance. Violations we are most
concerned about include matters such as requiring drivers to
drive excessively long hours, fraudulent logs that falsify the
hours driven, and mechanical problems, such as defective
brakes, steering systems, controlled-substance testing
irregularities and serious driving infractions. We found that
during fiscal years 1995 to 1998, over 800 motor carriers were
subject to multiple enforcement actions by the Office of Motor
Carriers. Of these, over 100 had multiple violations of the
same safety regulation each time the investigators did their
reviews. Almost all were allowed to continue operating. The
penalty amounts averaged around $2,500.
compliance reviews on operations
We also found that investigators performed over 6,000
compliance reviews on motor carrier operations in fiscal year
1998, and they reported spending only about 55 percent of their
time on compliance and enforcement activities. A majority
indicated that in fact compliance review quality had improved
over the last several years and the effectiveness of reviews
would be improved if more were performed. Compliance reviews
were not performed on over 200 of the top 1,600 high-risk
carriers identified by the Office of Motor Carriers.
For the 6,000 carriers that were subjected to compliance
reviews, almost 1,000 were rated unsatisfactory, 2,600
satisfactory, and 1,800 were rated conditional. The remainder
were not rated.
Further, in 1995, there were at least 487 carriers with
unsatisfactory and conditional ratings that still had
unsatisfactory and conditional ratings at the time of our audit
work, which was in November. Since 1995, at least 138 of these
carriers have been involved in crashes that have killed at
least 39 people and injured at least 412 more.
We found that most violations of safety regulations don't
result in enforcement actions. This chart here illustrates the
point. The red bar on the chart shows that 25,000 violations
were found during compliance reviews. The blue line shows that
enforcement actions; that is, fines, were processed on only
about 3,000 of the violations found. As the chart shows, in the
small percentage of those cases where fines were imposed, they
were settled, on average, for 46 cents on the dollar, down from
67 cents on the dollar in 1995.
The average settlement is now about $1,600. Some carriers
see their chances of being fined as low, and they are correct
in their perception. Moreover, if they are fined, some see this
as simply a cost of doing business.
Nearly half of the OMC investigators responding to our
survey rated the enforcement program as poor to fair--nearly
half. Over 90 percent said the program would be moderately to
much more effective if unsafe carriers were put out of service
and if larger, more meaningful fines were imposed for the
repeat violators. Over 85 percent said OMC ought to be taking
more enforcement actions.
Mr. Chairman, since 1997, the Office of Motor Carriers has
been referring carriers with the most egregious records and
indications of criminal behavior to our office. By the time
these cases get to us, however, the motor carrier involved has
been operating in violation of safety rules for an extended
period of time, sometimes several years.
Since 1997, 32 convictions have been obtained, and 1.6
million in fines, restitutions and recoveries has been secored.
We currently have 35 criminal investigations ongoing. Most of
these cases involve drivers who violate drivers hours-of-
service rules, which is directly associated with driver
fatigue. The companies maintain fraudulent records to conceal
these violations. We usually don't go after the driver. We go
after the carrier because the carrier often creates a climate
in which that type of behavior is encouraged.
A third point, OMC is using what is known as safety status
measurement system to target motor carriers with poor safety
records. This system is a major improvement over past practices
and facilitates better targeting of problem carriers. Both
points we recommended in a prior review in 1997. But the system
is only as good as the data that goes in, and major
improvements are needed.
A fourth point, we reviewed safety oversight of trucks
entering the United States from Mexico. About 44 percent of
trucks entering the United States did not meet safety standards
when inspected. That rate is unacceptably high, particularly in
comparison to the 17 percent out-of-service rate for Canadian
trucks and 25 percent for U.S. trucks. Except for California,
which has a good, well-staffed inspection program, there are
simply too few safety inspectors and too few inspections. Just
as an example, at one crossing in El Paso, where 1,300 trucks
enter the United States daily, there is only one inspector. He
can do about 14 inspections a day, and that is for 1,300 trucks
coming across.
It is time to establish a strong inspection presence at the
border.
Finally, I will close on the OMC organizational issue. This
is a difficult policy matter. We don't pretend to have all the
answers or even a clear-cut answer. We know actions by OMC's
senior leadership showed that an arm's-length relationship with
the industry it regulated did not always exist, and this has
damaged OMC's credibility.
Reflecting on the organizational issue, over time,
leadership and management can change and new leadership can
take actions that will restore credibility. Our larger concern
with the placement of motor carrier safety in the Federal
Highway Administration is that the agency's major focus is on
the investments of billions in highways and infrastructure.
That emphasis is legitimate, but does it allow room for the
daily, top-level attention required to improve motor carrier
safety and greatly reduce what we all agree is a totally
unacceptable number of fatalities and injuries?
I don't mean to say that it cannot be done, but it would
require a most extraordinary effort. I should point out that
only 20 percent of the Office of Motor Carrier investigators
responding to the survey expressed opposition to an
organizational shift to the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration. Thirty-two percent said they neither favored
nor opposed it.
Regardless of the organizational home that is settled on,
whether it is left where it is, combined with NTSA, or
established as a new motor carrier administration--just
shuffling chairs around and changing the sign over the door is
not going to do it. Strong leadership and an arm's-length
relationship with the industry it regulates, a clearly defined
safety mission and a willingness to pursue strong enforcement
actions, including total carrier shutdowns, will be needed from
OMC.
I hope the organizational debate today is not seen as a
substitute or panacea for that. Also needed will be other
safety measures, such as revisions of hours-of-service rules,
greater company and driver accountability, and independent
annual inspections of trucks. We are not in a position to
endorse all of those, but they definitely need to be
considered.
Thank you.
[The visuals and prepared statement of Mr. Mead follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Wolf. Thank you, Mr. Mead. Mr. Hall.
JIM HALL, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD
Mr. Hall. Good morning, Chairman Wolf and members of the
subcommittee. It is a pleasure to represent the men and women
of the National Transportation Safety Board before you today on
the subject of surface transportation safety. I would first
like to compliment this subcommittee and the leadership of the
chairman on your efforts to continually address the challenges
posed by these safety issues.
Mr. Chairman, factors that prevent the safe operation of
heavy vehicles on our highways are reaching critical mass. Many
of our interstate highways, which serve as major truck
corridors, are over capacity and are often not ideally designed
for heavy vehicular traffic. Meanwhile, the number of trucks
and the amount of freight they transport continues to increase.
Ten years ago, the motor vehicle industry manufactured
about 130,000 heavy trucks annually, commonly called 18
wheelers. Next year, that number will exceed 220,000. What is
more, trucks today are even bigger and more powerful. In the
mid-sixties, typical semi-trailers were 35 feet long. Today,
they are 45 to 53 feet long and a foot wider than they used to
be. Triple combination units can extend to over 90 feet in
length.
Adding to the problem, the very nature of truck
transportation has moved to time sensitive or so-called just in
time delivery. As industry shrinks inventory, they use trucks
as mobile warehouses for production. The ramifications are
clear: There is even more pressure on operators, shippers,
brokers and drivers to keep vehicles moving to meet demanding
production schedules.
Other factors are also affecting heavy vehicle safety:
Increased speed limits and overall driver shortage and, through
NAFTA, the potential introduction into our highways of Mexican
trucks and drivers that do not meet United States safety
standards.
The Safety Board has learned through its investigations
that regardless of the cause, collisions between automobiles
and heavy vehicles usually result in disproportionate injuries
and fatalities for the car occupants. We are also revisiting
occupant protection on school buses because of 7 fatal
accidents involving school buses and trucks that the Board has
investigated in the past 2 years.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, the Board's primary product is
safety recommendations. Over the years, they have provided the
impetus for some major transportation safety improvements, such
as commercial drivers licenses, better school bus construction
standards, age 21 drinking laws, and second generation air
bags. We have issued other recommendations that, if
implemented, would improve the safety of our highways, and let
me emphasize this, without the need for any additional testing.
hours of service regulations
Let me suggest a few solutions that could be implemented
right now. First, hours of service regulations. Almost 5 years
ago the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that
the Department of Transportation develop new hours of service
rules that reflect the research on truck and driver fatigue.
Specifically, the rules need to provide opportunity for drivers
to obtain eight hours of continuous sleep after driving for 10
hours. The Department of Transportation has yet to make any
changes to this 62-year-old regulation.
collision warning technology
Second, collision warning technology. The Department of
Transportation has yet to act on our 1995 recommendation to
evaluate this technology, which was developed at taxpayer
expense by the Department of Defense. The United States Army is
installing this technology as standard equipment on all its
heavy trucks. Despite the Department of Transportation's
inactivity, small segments of the industry have installed this
technology voluntarily. In my opinion, it should be mandated
for all new trucks, and we are going to examine this issue
closely in our upcoming truck forum to be held in April.
on board recording devices
Third, vehicle recorders. There are no compelling arguments
why heavy vehicles should not be equipped with recorders. We
have made significant progress in other modes. Everyone is
familiar with the black boxes in commercial aviation. They are
in use in rail and marine. However, we have seen very little
movement in the truck and bus industries. We believe that
adequate on board recording devices are necessary to identify
safety trends, develop corrective actions, and conduct
efficient accident investigations.
That issue has been on our most wanted list since 1990, and
in May the Board is going to conduct a symposium to continue to
promote the development and use of recorders in all
transportation modes.
maximum speed governors
Finally, I would like to discuss maximum speed governors.
Recently I saw their potential for benefits for heavy vehicles
while in Australia. They are used extensively in Europe, as
well as by some of our major motor carriers, including Swift
that was referred to by Congressman Olver. Preventing heavy
vehicles from traveling at speeds significantly greater than
posted speed limits makes sense.
On the same visit, I also saw technology in Australia that
allows state road safety authorities to record truck speeds and
calculate hours of service violations using overhead cameras.
The Australians call it safety cam. Something like that could
be used on the Beltway here. Although the technology is still
being developed, we plan to investigate that closely as well.
Effective leadership at all levels is needed to implement
these safety measures now. As I said earlier, we will continue
to see a dramatic increase in freight and passenger traffic on
our highways. As you know, Mr. Chairman, I have requested
additional personnel for our highway safety program. This
reflects the growth of the highway transportation system and
the Department of Transportation's unsatisfactory responses to
many of the recommendations I have highlighted today.
Revisions of hours of service laws, recorders, collision
warning technology, GPS, maximum speed governors, safety exams,
highway design, reflective tape, rumble strips, parking in rest
areas, and rules holding shippers and brokers responsible for
setting reasonable delivery schedules, all can be applied
today. No additional study is required.
Much of the technology I have discussed was developed at
the expense of the United States taxpayer, yet it is being used
today primarily for the economic benefit of the private
industry, not for the safety of the traveling public that paid
for it. It is time, Mr. Chairman, to put safety first in heavy
vehicle transportation.
I appreciate this opportunity to appear before the
committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hall follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
PHYLLIS SCHEINBERG, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, TRANSPORTATION ISSUES,
RESOURCES, COMMUNITY, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIVISION, U.S.
GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Mr. Wolf. Thank you, Mr. Hall. I appreciate your testimony
very much.
Next, Ms. Phyllis Scheinberg, Associate Director, U.S.
General Accounting Office.
Ms. Scheinberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
Subcommittee. I am here today to discuss GAO's ongoing work for
this subcommittee on the effectiveness of DOT's Office of Motor
Carrier and Highway Safety in improving the safety of large
trucks. Specifically, I will discuss trends in the truck
crashes, factors that contribute to those crashes, and the
Office of Motor Carriers' activities to improve the safety of
large trucks.
Despite decades of Federal oversight, more than 5,000
people continue to die each year in crashes involving large
trucks. First, let us look at the trends.
For each mile that they travel, large trucks are involved
in fewer crashes than cars, but truck crashes are more likely
to result in fatalities, and most of the time the fatalities
are occupants of the car.
Of the nearly 42,000 people who died on our Nation's
highways in 1997, about 5,400 died from crashes involving large
trucks. This is illustrated by the top line of the chart that
you see here.
As you can see, fatalities increased by almost 900, or 20
percent between 1992 and 1997. Fatalities may be increasing in
part because trucks are driving an increasing number of miles
each year. As shown by the bottom line on the chart, the
fatality rate measures the number of fatalities per 100 million
miles driven by large trucks. This rate decreased from 1988 to
1992, but since then it has remained fairly constant at about
2.8 to 2.9 deaths per 100 million miles traveled.
As shown on the next chart, if truck travel continues to
follow recent trends and the fatality rate is not reduced, the
annual number of fatalities could increase to 5,800 this year,
and to more than 6,000 next year. The chart also shows that the
Federal Highway Administration's Office of Motor Carriers has
set a goal for reducing fatalities this year to 5,100. We
believe this goal, which is substantially below our projected
figure of 5,800, will not be met.
To reduce fatalities from large trucks, it is important to
understand the causes of the crashes. Unfortunately, no
definitive information on the causes of fatal truck crashes
exists. However, there is some information on the extent to
which driver behavior and mechanical condition of the trucks
may contribute to crashes.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Regarding driver behavior, errors on the part of the
drivers have been cited frequently as contributing factors to
fatal crashes between large trucks and cars. In 1997, errors by
car drivers were reported in 80 percent of these crashes, while
errors by truck drivers were reported in 28 percent of these
crashes.
A contributing factor is not necessarily a cause, because
there are often many contributing factors reported by the
officer at the scene of the crash. One driver factor, truck
driver fatigue, has been identified as a significant issue
affecting truck safety. Studies show that fatigue could be the
primary factor in about 30 percent of the crashes in which only
the truck driver is killed.
Additionally, mechanical defects, such as worn brakes and
unbalanced tires, have been cited as contributing factors to
crashes involving large trucks, although less frequently than
driver error.
According to estimates in several studies, 5 to 13 percent
of truck crashes are attributed to mechanical failures. The
Office of Motor Carriers has undertaken a number of activities
that it believes will allow it to meet its goal of 5,100
fatalities this year. However, we do not believe that this goal
will be reached, for three reasons.
First, too much of the information that the Office of Motor
Carriers relies on to target high risk trucking companies are
incomplete, inaccurate, and untimely. For example, one
important factor needed to more accurately target high risk
companies is the number of crashes that the company trucks are
involved in. This is a fairly simple piece of information.
The Office of Motor Carriers estimates that in 1997 States
did not report about 38 percent of all crashes and 30 percent
of fatal crashes involving large trucks. Without this
information, Motor Carriers cannot know for sure which trucking
companies have the worst safety records and some of the worst
companies may be going completely undetected.
We also found that several of Motor Carriers' activities
that possibly could improve large truck safety will not be
completed by the end of this year. For example, Motor Carriers
does not have an accurate count of the existing trucking
companies or the number of large trucks in operation. It does
not plan to update this information for another 2 years.
In addition, over 3 years ago, the Congress directed FHWA
to modify the existing hours of service rule to help reduce
fatigue-related crashes. However, Motor Carrier officials do
not expect the final rule to be issued at least until the year
2000, and most likely later.
Finally, Motor Carriers has not developed any way to
measure the effectiveness of its no zone campaign that was
launched in 1994 to reduce crashes between large trucks and
cars. This campaign, which aims to educate car drivers about
the limitations of large trucks, has a goal of reducing
fatalities by about 10 percent over 5 years. However, as
evidenced by the overall increase in fatalities since 1994, the
campaign apparently is not making any progress towards its
goal.
These are some of the initiatives that the Office of Motor
Carriers is undertaking either by itself or in partnership with
the States. If effectively implemented, they could have a
positive impact on large truck safety over the long term.
However, Motor Carriers' ability to reach its short-term goals
for reducing fatalities is limited by data problems and the
fact that some key activities are several years away from
completion. To significantly reduce fatalities, the Office of
Motor Carriers needs to move much more aggressively to complete
its planned activities to improve truck safety.
Mr. Chairman, these findings summarize our work to date,
and we plan to continue our review for this subcommittee on
these issues. I will be pleased to answer any questions that
you or the members of the committee might have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Scheinberg follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Wolf. Thank you very much for the testimony. It was
very good.
Mr. Pastor.
placement of office of motor carriers
Mr. Pastor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is very
interesting, because in the three presentations everybody seems
to know what the problem is, where it is, but we can't get to
the situation, or how it is going to get done.
I found it very interesting, because as I was reading Mr.
Mead's report, I would agree with him that moving the Office of
Motor Carriers from one office to another office to another
office, wherever it may be, is like shifting chairs on the
Titanic. They have a credibility problem. Obviously now we know
that when Chairman Wolf wanted to pass legislation in moving
the Office of Motor Carriers to NHTSA, that it created a
commotion, and there were some people that I guess improperly
went out and lobbied against its movement.
We know who they are. I think that the Secretary has the
responsibility, since they have identified this improper
activity. He can begin to move them out. Obviously that will
bring credibility. I think that is probably the biggest problem
we have right now, is if those people acted improperly, and yet
they are the same people who are not correctly implementing the
program, then wherever we put them, it is not going to get
done, properly if they are simply shifted along with the
program to another agency.
So I think one of the first situations we need to improve
on is identifying the people who acted improperly and begin
developing the process that begins to remove them, so the
safety of all the Americans becomes the number one priority.
I read in your report, Mr. Mead, that one of the problems
you identified is NHTSA does not currently have an enforcement
mission anywhere near what is needed to maintain effective
oversight of the motor carrier industry and necessary to bring
about significant reductions in fatalities. This is from your
report.
I wonder, by moving it to NHTSA, whether we can accomplish
what we want to accomplish, which is safety on the highways.
Would you like to comment on that one?
Mr. Mead. Sure. Mr. Chairman, I take the liberty on
commenting on the first observation made.
The action was taken at the very top of the Office of Motor
Carriers' leadership, very promptly, on receipt of our report.
That report is available to you to read. People have been
identified to the best of our knowledge. Administrator Wykle
will be here later today and you can ask him what other
followup actions he has taken in that regard.
Regarding moving OMC to NHTSA, NHTSA does do enforcement
actions. Usually, they do not have an enforcement role though,
where they go out and kick tires or inspect facilities.
Moreover, though both agencies have roughly the same number of
people----
enforcement
Mr. Pastor. Let me interrupt you for a moment. Don't you
agree that function is very important? If you don't go out
there and kick the tires and look underneath the bed of the
truck, then we won't be able to find where the trucks are
defective.
Mr. Mead. Yes, sir, I think that is probably the central
thesis of our statement. The action that needs to be taken is
the enforcement.
Most of NHTSA's people are in Washington. Most of the
Office of Motor Carrier people are outside the Beltway, out
where the action is, so to speak.
creation of new administration
Mr. Pastor. In your report, on page 17 you say an option
not often heard in current debate is the creation of a Surface
Safety Administration within the Department of Transportation.
Now, if the mission of this new administration is safety on
our surface transportation infrastructure, which includes
enforcement of all the rules that we may have, whether it be
fatigue or out of service compliance, don't you think that
would be a positive direction, rather than just moving the
Office of Motor Carriers to another agency? Don't you think
that might be something we ought to look at?
Mr. Mead. I do think that option should be considered,
along with the other options. I think it is clearly a
legitimate one.
Incidentally, there are two umbrella-type organizations.
One is the Motor Carrier Administration. This is a proposal
that a Motor Carrier Administration be created for this
particular mode.
There is also another proposal--a surface transportation
safety administration. But this would bring together rail
safety, pipeline safety, truck safety, and so forth. There is a
school of thought that while this sounds good in concept, the
process of actually implementing it would take so long and be
so disruptive that it would not be worth pursuing.
It is interesting to note though that during Secretary
Pena's administration, just such a proposal was introduced. It
was not accepted by the Congress.
Mr. Pastor. You say it would take so long to implement.
Now, there must be some ways we can shorten that implementation
process.
Mr. Mead. On the surface safety transportation
administration----
Mr. Pastor. Whatever, either surface administration. But I
would think that that is something--if safety is the highest
priority and should be the mission, rather than putting it with
agencies that have other missions and safety does not get the
priority that you say it needs to have, then have we really
accomplished the goal that we set out to do?
Mr. Mead. No, we haven't. I am concerned, to be perfectly
candid on this, that we will get caught up in debating an
organizational issue for a couple of years. Meanwhile we are
losing more people on the highways, more injuries and more
fatalities, even when there are actions, as Chairman Hall and
Ms. Scheinberg and myself have outlined that should be taken
now and are many years, in fact, overdue.
Mr. Pastor. It is ironic, because Mr. Hall just gave us a
number of things we can implement. So is it the resistance of
the personnel in the Office of Motor Carriers? Is that where
the problem is? Because from your report, it shows that the
people are out in the field, they understand they are not doing
the job, but want to do the job better.
Mr. Mead. They are very frustrated--at least a substantial
majority are. You should read some of the narrative comments
that came in with this survey. They feel we need to get serious
about the rules, especially a good number of the rules that
exist. It is not so much a case that many new rules need to be
enacted, so much as it is the present rules need to be
enforced. OMC employees feel that a lot of their efforts either
do not result in an enforcement action or, if they do, that it
is inconsequential. Then they come right back out and find that
same carrier committing the same offense again.
Mr. Pastor. Mr. Chairman, could I ask two more questions?
Mr. Wolf. Sure.
international issues and nafta
Mr. Pastor. They deal with the border. I am quite familiar
but I represent Nogales and San Luis, Arizona, which is getting
traffic from Mexico due to the goods that are coming over.
One of the problems that I see in the border states is
NAFTA. The problem that we find ourselves in is that Arizona,
as the State does not have the resources to dedicate to vehicle
inspection, whether it be DPS, Department of Public Safety, or
whether it be the Corporation Commission or whoever the agency
down there is, it just does not have the resources.
I saw in alternative three, which I may agree with you,
that as we go into the year 2000, when we expect trucks to come
over, I think that somehow we need to develop a plan where the
Federal Government helps the border states develop the number
of inspectors that are required and that they are trained
properly. Then as you start with the heavy Federal presence at
the beginning, that over a period of time then the State takes
over.
So I was looking at alternative three, that that might be
something that we could implement and assure that we have the
safety there at the border communities.
Mr. Mead. A quick word on that. I think the investment in
125 federal inspectors spanning across the border states would
run you about 6 or 7 million dollars, which in the scheme of
things is not an enormous amount of money. I also believe that
in the States of Arizona, Texas and New Mexico, a commitment by
the state to strengthen its truck enforcement regime while
using the Federal inspectors at least until the trucks coming
across are in much better condition is viable. The option you
are referring to would take about 125 extra inspectors. Right
now we have 13, by the way.
Mr. Pastor. I know it.
Mr. Mead. Incidentally, I visited Swift Transportation
Company as part of our work, and they were very helpful and
responsive.
Mr. Pastor. They will enjoy the commercial.
Congressman Serrano asked me what we were going to do in
the short-term to make sure that the Mexican trucker would be
in compliance, and I suggested to him that we need to send them
to Illinois or Chicago.
Ms. Scheinberg. Could I respond, Mr. Pastor, to your
comment. I agree with you totally that the United States
needs--the Federal Government needs to have a plan of what to
do about opening the border. There should be a Federal plan:
what are we going to tolerate, what are we going to live with,
what are we going to do about the influx of trucks coming
across the border.
Right now we do not have a Federal plan. I think that has
to come first.
Mr. Pastor. Thank you.
trucking lobby
Mr. Wolf. Thank you. Before I recognize Mr. Aderholt, let
me make a comment.
I share a number of the points that the gentleman from
Arizona made, particularly with regard to the Secretary. But I
would also remind everyone that until this committee put
language in last year to move OMC to NHTSA, nobody was doing
anything about truck fatalities, and we see the fatality rate
was increasing.
Quite candidly, the trucking lobby had gotten absolutely,
positively, categorically, too close to OMC. The employees at
OMC, the mid-level employees, were throwing things over the
transom and coming by my office because I represent this region
and many of them live in my district, telling me of what was
taking place. We had an IG investigation that this committee
asked, because there is language in the bill that we pass every
year, prohibiting lobbying by the agencies.
They were in violation of the law. I think they were
criminally in violation of law. For a government employee to be
drafting letters to give to the companies to write to their
Congressmen and Senators is illegal. Within 24 hours, about 1
or 2 o'clock in the morning, the OMC trasfer was taken out of
the bill. As a result of it being taken out, more people will
die, unless something dramatically is done.
placement of office of motor carriers
So the OMC situation and the language that the committee
had was going to move it into NHTSA. Some people like NHTSA,
some people don't. I do. NHTSA has done a relatively good job,
correct me if I am wrong, of bringing about improvements to
highway safety in the country. So the concept was to remove the
leadership of OMC and have the inspection program of OMC
shifted into NHTSA, whereby the leadership would provide it
with more attention. And I think personnel is policy, bad
leaders, bad, bad policy. The gentleman is right. You can make
all the moves and shifts, but if you put the wrong people in
who are too close to the industry, nothing changes. Do you want
to take the head of Pfizer to be the next head of the Food and
Drug Administration?
mexican trucks
I mean, there is a certain arm's-length we ought to have.
So that was the sense. And lastly, on this issue, with regard
to trucks coming out of Mexico, my understanding is they have
absolutely no inspection program, correct me if I am wrong, in
the country of Mexico at all. My sense is on January 1, 2000,
3\1/2\ million trucks now prohibited from coming across the
border will be able to come across the border.
We are just trying to bring it in. I am not wedded to
NHTSA, although my own personal thing is I think it ought to be
in NHTSA. OMC ought not be in the Federal Highway
Administration. It is a small percentage of their budget. We
have seen what has happened. We have seen the lives taken, the
pain and suffering of agony then, and that yet to take place.
We were just trying to force them to address this issue, get
the Secretary to address the issue. If he wants to put it in
some other adminstration, we are open. But I don't want to put
it anywhere where the same relationship will be whereby the
truckers will roll the agency and they pretty much get their
own way, because that would be unacceptable.
Mr. Pastor. If the gentleman would yield, I would tell you
that you are correct in that Mexico does not have a program in
which they regulate their trucking industry and determine
whether or not they are in compliance. I don't think they are
going to have one, because that is not their frame of mind in
Mexico with this particular industry, or many of the
industries.
But my contention is that with NAFTA, we developed a free
trade agreement and it is working. More trucks are going to be
coming from Mexico into the United States. So it is a
responsibility, I think, of our Federal Government to make sure
that those trucks are safe to get on our streets.
The problem has been that we put the responsibility on many
states. Some states that do not have the resources or maybe
don't have the willingness to get involved. So I agree with
GAO, that we need to develop a Federal plan and decide what is
adequate to make sure that these trucks that are coming over,
that the Mexican trucker can read the signs, knows all the
safety regulations, that the truck itself is safe to be on our
highways. But it is in our interest to do it. And I think that
is why I said that option three that was recommended by the
Inspector General is very important, because it brings in a
Federal presence, and weans it out as time goes by to the
States to take responsibility.
So I would agree with you that Mexico does not have a
compliance program, and I would tell you they are not going to
get one. So that is why I think it is very important that we
implement something, develop a Federal strategy, so that we can
protect our people, because these trucks are going to go from
Arizona to California, they are going to go to Chicago. They
are going to be all over the place.
Mr. Wolf. If the gentleman would yield, I share his
concern. I think we should, and I think there is a Federal
responsibility there, and I think we should push the Secretary
and the department and cooperate in every way possible. That is
a nightmare yet to take place. The subject of the hearing has
been fundamentally what is taking place here without the trucks
from Mexico coming into the United States.
You mentioned, Ms. Pierce, in North Carolina. I looked at
your figures. Your death rate is going up. Some of the States
have actually reduced their programs. So there is a
responsibility. The trooper stated in the compliance reviews in
western Massachusetts, your definition of western Massachusetts
is from where west?
Mr. Lapointe. Worcester County west.
Mr. Wolf. One compliance review. There is a major problem
right now in the United States just with the trucks that are
from the United States. So I think the gentleman is right, I
share his concern about beefing that up at the ordinary border,
but think we also have to take care of the problem right here
in the United States.
Mr. Aderholt.
collision warning technology
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to ask a
question to Mr. Hall. I was looking over your testimony and was
interested in knowing about the collision warning technology
and found that a little bit intriguing. Not being familiar with
how that works, briefly, how does that work? Of course, I read
over the examples you had in your testimony.
Mr. Hall. First let me say, I appreciate Congressman Pastor
identifying me correctly and I apologize to him.
Congressman, I will try to be brief. Collision warning
technology came out of the Department of Defense, where it was
used initially for fighter planes. It is a system that is now
being installed on about 10 percent of the freight liner trucks
that are produced in the United States.
Companies such as U.S. Express in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
are equipping their entire fleet with the collision warning
technology, and have had a dramatic impact on their accident
rate. Unfortunately, according to their owners, who I visited,
they have yet to have an impact on their insurance rate. But it
provides a warning when a truck, heavy truck or vehicle, is
approaching too closely. There is one set of warning lights and
audible sounds in the truck that will indicate that you are
closing too rapidly. When it can be used with the new automated
speed control devices, it is very helpful in avoiding rear-end
collisions and being sure that the truck driver knows when they
are closing too quickly.
It also has a capacity to let the trucks know about the
vehicles that are on either side of them and may be coming up
and attempting to dangerously cut in on them.
The experience with it was developed and tested by the
United States Army. They were so impressed with it that they
require it now for all their trucks, and they have ordered it
to be retrofitted on their entire fleet of heavy trucks.
So it is technology that is available, it is in there.
The Board in 1995 asked the Federal Highway Administration
to look at this technology, and at that time we were told they
would not look at it. We have classified that recommendation as
unacceptable. That came out of an accident that occurneed in
Menefee, Arkansas.
There are several states like Tennessee where there are a
lot of rear-end collisions, fog-related collisions, multiple
collisions such as that. This technology would be very helpful
in that type of situation as well.
Mr. Aderholt. Of course, you said the DOT's response was
that they had no plans for conducting the operational test.
What was their reasons behind that?
Mr. Hall. I can provide that for the record. I have it here
if you would want to wait just a second.
Mr. Aderholt. You can provide it for the record. That would
be fine.
Mr. Hall. We have it, and I will get it. There is a written
response from them.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Aderholt. I would like to see it. Thank you, that would
be it.
enforcement responsibilities
Mr. Wolf. Ms. Kilpatrick.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am a bit
puzzled, because everyone at the table is kind of saying the
same thing, enforcement. Mr. Hall, you gave a list of things
that seem to me ought to be implemented. There has got to be
some reasons, probably money and political, why they aren't. I
think I want to start with you, Mr. ``Department.'' If in fact
enforcement is what we say, okay, the rules are there, we don't
need new rules, we may not even need a transfer of the
authority, why are things not being enforced? Yes, local
carriers are local, NHTSA is from the Federal Government. What
would be the impact of transferring from the local to an agency
out of Washington for monitoring?
Mr. Mead. What we are talking about, essentially, are
interstate carriers, which is what most of these roque carriers
are. They travel interstate, they have a DOT number, they apply
for their license through DOT, so you are going to need a
Federal agency and a Federal presence. Now, there is a program
called the motor carners safety assistance program or MSCAP for
short, that provides funds to the states to support the
inspection effort. That is a good program. I think it is funded
now at about 80 or 90 million dollars a year. So you are going
to need a Federal presence.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Okay. It now exists. We do have that
Federal presence.
Mr. Mead. Yes.
compliance review personnel
Ms. Kilpatrick. The compliance officers that were in the
first panel we talked about, I heard the Chairman say the
compliances are now from five a month, which is poor in my
opinion, insignificant, to once a month, compliance officers,
they are Federal employees?
Mr. Mead. There were 6,000 compliance reviews performed
last year; 4,000 of them were done by Federal employees, and
2,000 were done by state employees.
Ms. Kilpatrick. 6,000 total?
Mr. Mead. It is slightly over 6,000, but about 6,000, yes.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Would you say, if I asked you for a number,
you probably wouldn't give it to me, is that adequate?
Mr. Mead. No.
Ms. Kilpatrick. How short are we? If we were in the best of
circumstances and compliance officers, we had enough and they
were monitoring the trucks and answering the complaints and
looking at the reported, not to mention the unreported
incidences, how many would we need? It is hard to put a number
on it, but give me something. Give me a percent then. With the
6,000, are we 50 percent in compliance?
Mr. Mead. First of all, we think we can use our existing
Federal resources more effectively. I believe the inspectors
and investigators can do more compliance reviews than they are
doing.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Whose job is it to see that they are being
more effective?
Mr. Mead. The Office of Motor Carrier Safety. They reported
to us that 55 percent of the time they are doing compliance and
enforcement work.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Is that adequate?
Mr. Mead. No, it is not.
Ms. Kilpatrick. What do you do to up that?
Mr. Mead. You change the direction of this program--the
value system driving the program, in my view. Secondly, even if
these inspectors were performing compliance reviews 24 hours a
day, this would not be enough.
I would say that once we get this database cleaned up that
GAO was referring to, and we have a solid profile of how many
real problem carriers there are in the United States, that
would form a good basis for an assessment.
We know right now that there are 1,600 carriers in the top
high-risk categories and 200 of them were not subjected to a
compliance review this past year.
reporting requirements
Ms. Kilpatrick. With Safe Status, we heard that many
carriers don't report.
Mr. Mead. It is the states. The states get a lot of Federal
money. Maybe that should be a condition of receiving Federal
aid.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Maybe that is something this committee
should look at. That is the kind of thing we need to hear. It
is no good if the States' Safe-Stat system is up and running if
the States are not feeding into it. We need to do something by
either monitoring or penalizing to see that the States do
report reportable accidents they have.
Mr. Mead. You certainly do.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Mr. Hall.
Mr. Hall. I think what you need to factor in as well,
Congresswoman, is the technology. There are experiments in the
field right now. OMC has an experiment going on with the Warner
Trucking Company for automatic keeping of logs. The technology
is available today, just as it is available with airplanes, to
look at key systems of the truck, to maintain hours of service
rules and regulations through computers and satellite
technology.
In fact, many of the major trucking companies are using
that technology for their own economic benefit today. Their
resistance is to using it for safety, and I think that will
probably take action at the Federal level.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Probably two issues here: Cost is one. I
would assume that everyone would want it. Cost would probably
enter into it. Should it be mandatory, something we should
require?
Mr. Hall. For example, the collision warning technology, as
it gets today, you could go and buy a new Freightliner truck
and it would increase the list price by $2,500 to $3,500, in
that range. The cost of this technology, just the cost of all
technology, is getting lower.
As was pointed out by one of the earlier witnesses, it is
amazing when things are mandated and there is volume how much
you can impact cost. But this technology is available.
The technology is very important because if the technology
was in place, the amount of manpower you would need at the
State and Federal level to enforce the regulations would be
dramatically impacted.
Ms. Kilpatrick. So it is important as well as its
effectiveness, as well as the monitoring in the long run would
reduce maybe the cost of the equipment. But, more than that,
the safety aspect would begin to be addressed?
Mr. Hall. That is correct. As I point out again, we keep
going back to Swift, because I think it is one of the
outstanding carriers in the country, and there are many others.
They are very safety conscious and they use this system and
this technology also for safety. They also use it in case one
of their truck drivers runs off with one of their trucks. They
go find the truck with the technology.
We are just saying let's take this technology that the
American people have paid for and let us have a little of the
benefit of it too.
Ms. Kilpatrick. That is something to look at, too.
Mr. Mead. I gave you an incomplete answer. Your question
really went to how many inspectors they need, and obviously it
could be a bottomless pit, with more than 450,000 carriers. But
I guarantee you if we got serious about enforcement and let
these truckers know when they have the serious safety
infractions, they faced real consequences, things would shape
up and they would shape up in a hurry.
Ms. Kilpatrick. We agree with that. Two things mentioned
today, not enough inspectors and then the fines are too low.
Working together, they know if there is not enough of them, you
probably won't catch me, if you catch me, I am going to get a
meager fine. We have to do something about both of those.
Finally, for me, I just left the Banking Committee in the
105th Congress, and we had heard testimony in our money
laundering hearings that many trucks from Mexico, because of
NAFTA, are not stopped or inspected at all. Is that the case?
Not only for safety, but for drugs or whatever as well.
Mr. Mead. Yes, it is. I gave you a figure of what is
happening in El Paso. Thirteen hundred trucks a day, one safety
inspector there, he can check out 14.
Ms. Kilpatrick. So it is because of manpower rather than
some regulation that is in NAFTA why they are not being
inspected?
Mr. Mead. Yes.
Mr. Pastor. If I may, you have a number of inspections. You
have Customs inspecting the trucks basically to make sure that
whatever the manifests that they are in fact carrying. You also
may have the border patrol inspecting them for undocumented
persons or products or you have the dogs sniffing the trucks so
that any illegal drugs there may be found.
But the inspection that deals with safety or lack of
inspection basically is away from the gates, and after they
cross the gates, they have been inspected by the dogs and been
inspected by Customs, that they are inspected for safety. But
there is a limitation. They can only go 25 miles from the
border, which most of them do not. They just turn around.
Ms. Kilpatrick. I have to take a look at that.
Mr. Hall. I would just like to make a comment following up
on what Congressman Pastor said. I was invited to go down to
Mexico 2 years ago by their Secretary of Transportation, to
look at the possibility of setting up an independent accident
investigation board. One exists in Canada, one exists in the
United States. There was not a counterpart in Mexico.
There are a number of people in Mexico that are very
interested about the safety in their country and obviously any
trucks going across the border.
However, they have been unsuccessful in being able to put
structures in place that would begin putting some teeth in
their safety program.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Finally, Mr. Chairman, if I might, my
district is at the Canada-Michigan border. You mentioned about
the Mexico-Arizona border as well. One officer there, Federal
officer, yes; that inspector is a Federal employee, in El Paso?
Mr. Mead. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Kilpatrick. I am assuming the same at the Michigan-
Canada border.
Mr. Mead. They don't find it necessary to inspect the
Canadian trucks because so many of them are coming in to the
U.S. in good condition. It is because of the condition of the
Mexican trucks.
I need to qualify my response about the Federal inspectors
at the border. California has chosen to staff up on its own,
and they have about 40 to 45 State inspectors there. I don't
think the federal government have any inspectors there. And in
the other States, Mr. Pastor was pointing out, some see this as
a resource problem. For years the States have been saying it is
a federal responsibility. The Feds say, well, it is a state
responsibility. Perhaps we are expecting Mexico to establish an
oversight program of its own. So, you have a three-way
shootout.
Ms. Kilpatrick. I just want to back up on the no need for
inspecting the Canadian-Michigan border because you think the
Canadian trucks are okay. Truck traffickers know that you think
that as well. Six hundred fifty tons of drugs came into our
country, 1996, when I was first in this Congress, reported to
us by Mr. McCaffrey; 850 tons from Mexico, Peru, Bolivia and
two other countries. Six hundred fifty tons got in. So don't
take that position that the Canadian border is safe, we don't
need to do that. They know that, too. They know that you are
light on the borders at the Mexico border, but they also are
very crafty and know. So to say you don't need them, I think,
is a misnomer, and you probably ought to visit that as well.
Mr. Mead. The inspector general doesn't make these
policies. I am just reporting on what we are told.
Ms. Kilpatrick. I understand you don't, but the need is
there.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wolf. Ms. Granger.
Ms. Granger. I am glad to see the attention concerning
trucks coming in from Mexico. I am from Texas, and it is--the
truckers in my State, it is a top concern. It is also a top
concern from the communities on those highways where those
trucks go through. So it is a great concern, and you said the
numbers, if there are 14 being inspected, and 44 percent of
those fail, and 1,300 are going through, you see where the
problem is.
Of course, I think it has to have a Federal solution
because in Texas they can't expect--the State can't do those
inspections for the trucks coming in from Mexico, for foreign
trucks. So it is a great concern.
My question is if those few that are inspected fail, then
they can't come across the border, right?
Mr. Mead. That is correct. There is significant economic
consequence.
Ms. Granger. But what happens beyond the fact that that one
truck can't come across the border?
Mr. Mead. There is a record maintained. In fact, one reason
that inspector in El Paso can only inspect 14 trucks a day is
because after he does an inspection--and so many of them he has
to place out of service--he spends his time entering things
into his portable computer so they have a database, and it is
registered with the company. I don't believe, though, that
there is necessarily any action taken against the carrier. But,
boy, those drivers become angry, I visited the burden and the
drivers there. They do not like to get pulled over for
inspection because they can't continue on their journey. You
are familiar with the logistics of the area. They have to call
and say, I am here, I have to come back. And they do not like
that.
Ms. Granger. Right.
Partially the rest of what you said is essentially nothing
happens because that one truck can't come that day, but his
chances of being stopped another day is very slim, much less
anything happening to the carrier.
Ms. Scheinberg, one other question. You said 30 percent of
large truck fatalities aren't reported to the Office of Motor
Carriers. Why, and what do we do about that?
Ms. Scheinberg. States are not reporting all fatalities,
and this is a very big problem because unless the Office of
Motor Carriers gets the information, then they can't target the
bad actors in the industry. Obviously, there needs to be a
push, there needs to be an aggressive push to get the States to
report this information. And as was mentioned earlier, this can
be tied into the States' Federal grants. There is a mix of
grants that this committee provides every year, about $90
million that goes out to the States to develop safety programs
including the data collection, and I think that you need to tie
the reporting requirement to this money.
Ms. Granger. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Tiahrt.
Mr. Tiahrt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
fatalities: Rates Versus Actual Numbers
I have a question for Mr. Mead. I was looking at the chart
here, and I was trying to understand it. I think that if I use
kind of a trend on this chart, it looks like the number of
fatal crashes that large trucks are involved in has increased
about 10 percent from 1991 to 1997. It is kind of hard because
I am just making projections here, but it looks like about 10
percent. And it looks like the number of fatalities in large
truck crashes has increased maybe 15 percent, but the number of
miles driven has increased by 30 percent. So is the actual
fatal crashes per million miles decreasing, and is the number
of fatalities in large truck crashes decreasing per million
miles? Is that a trend, or is the trend the other way, because
if you look at the chart, it looks like everything is
increasing, but it is kind of difficult to tell because there
is more miles being driven.
Mr. Mead. The answer to your question is that for the last
3 years, the fatality rate has stayed the same, even though
more people are getting killed each year. And the reason for
that is exactly as you say, the vehicle miles traveled and the
number of trucks out there is increasing so that the rate can
stay the same and the number of deaths go up.
I take you back to 1989, though, and at that point in time,
the fatality rate for trucks was about 3.7 per 100 million
vehicle miles driven. Today it is 2.8. That compares with an
overall fatality rate of 1.6 per 100 million passenger vehicle
miles traveled. So the truck fatality rate is very substantial.
It is substantially higher because of the introduction of heavy
trucks, large trucks into the equation.
We are recommending, as we noted in the opening of the
testimony, that the Department change its current performance
measure under the Government Performance and Results Act so
that it also requires an absolute reduction in fatalities. So
we have a meaningful goal, and I really think we need to
supplement the existing performance measure.
results of accident investigations
Mr. Tiahrt. Now, on these number of large trucks, large
truck crashes, is there any way of telling how--I mean,
something happened. Either the driver was in error, or there
was something that mechanically went wrong. So in a sense it is
all related to safety. But when you inspect a truck, do you
inspect the driver? When you inspect the truck, is it
mechanical that you are looking for or something broke with the
driver?
Mr. Mead. Both.
Mr. Tiahrt. How do you tell when it is related to driver
error in these number of--out of these fatalities, these
crashes, some are directly related because the brakes gave out
or somebody didn't--what was it? How do you tell? Is it just
all the same?
Mr. Mead. That is a really good point. You can't tell now.
With the existing data they have, even for the fatalities, you
can't do a real good cause analysis. Even stipulate that we
can't isolate factors down to the single cause of an accident
or the predominant cause, even what are the contributing
causes. The databases that are currently in use still don't
provide you solid information. So a lot of what you hear is
anecdotal, highly dependent on what the police officer reports.
Mr. Tiahrt. Somebody said that there are--I think it was
you, Mr. Mead, that said there was about 450,000 carriers. Of
problem carriers there are about 1,600 that are in the top
category, 200 of which were never looked at. Of those 450,000
carriers, are you referring to those that are within the United
States, or are you including Canada and Mexico in that
information?
Mr. Mead. No, I wasn't including Mexico or Canada, and I
was excluding intrastate carriers. These are strictly
interstate.
Mr. Tiahrt. How does that relate back to your data? Now, in
your data, is that just interstate carriers, or is this
intrastate carriers that are involved in these crashes and
fatalities?
Mr. Mead. The fatalities reported include both intrastate
and interstate carriers. Interstate carriers are subject to the
Federal Government's regulation. I cannot tell you how many of
these carriers--how many of the fatalities, the 5,355 were
attributable to intrastate carriers.
Mr. Tiahrt. So we may be trying to fix a problem we can't
fix. If a majority of these problems are coming from intrastate
carriers, regardless of what we do, we may have little impact
on that because it is all intrastate?
Mr. Mead. No, I don't think it would go that far. We are
pretty sure the interstate carriers are a significant part of
the problem.
foreign carriers and federal regulations
Mr. Tiahrt. Out of this increase in fatal crashes from 1991
to 1997, how many of those were from a carrier outside the
United States coming in because of NAFTA?
Mr. Mead. I would suspect very, very few, only because
carriers from Mexico can only come into the United States right
now for a very limited number of miles, regardless of the
State. So that is one reason. There may be a few, but it should
be a very small number.
Mr. Tiahrt. The same with Canadian carriers, it would
probably be a very small number?
Mr. Mead. I would think so.
You know, you raise a good point on the data, though. Not
to put on the green eyeshade, but good data drives a lot, and
we need to have a lot better data. That is an area where NHTSA
and the Federal Highway Administration or the Office of Motor
Carriers could really get together and provide a lot of value
added; also with the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, which
we have at DOT.
Ms. Scheinberg. Mr. Tiahrt, could I just add to the
discussion a little bit? When you are talking about interstate
versus intrastate carriers and the kind of inspections and
regulations and activity goes on, we have Federal standards,
but almost all the inspections are by State officials. There
are 2 million inspections a year that are done almost
exclusively by State inspectors using Federal standards. By
having that program, you really are affecting the intrastate
carriers as well because the same people are doing both
inspections of interstate and intrastate carriers.
Mr. Tiahrt. I can't speak for every State, but in Kansas it
seems like--I am pretty sure about this. I used to sit on the
Transportation Infrastructure Committee in the Kansas State
Senate, and it seems like our inspections either met or
exceeded what was required by the Federal Government. And I
assume most States are that way on their intrastate carriers.
When you have one standard, it is easy to measure--no matter
who is being measured, it is easier to use that same yardstick
on both of them rather than change. So I think that Mr. Mead is
wise in saying it probably would have some impact.
Mr. Hall.
Mr. Hall. The NTSB has undertaken a safety study to look at
the whole area of data collection and information that is
maintained by the modal administrations. Since the Board's
inception over 30 years ago, we have identified many
deficiencies in the available databases and have made more than
130 recommendations regarding those deficiencies to the modal
administrations. We have seen deficiencies in each
transportation mode that would keep us from getting a clear
evaluation of the problem, and being able to effectively
address it in the area of safety.
You have hit on an important concern, and it is one that is
not funded very well. What we are getting back in return should
be a better product.
collision avoidance technology
Mr. Tiahrt. I believe it was you, Mr. Hall, that was
talking about collision avoidance. I don't know if that is the
right term. Is that the right term?
Mr. Hall. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tiahrt. And it would cost approximately $2,500 per
carrier--excuse me, per vehicle?
Mr. Hall. I visited Freightliner to find out what they were
doing in terms of technology. They advised that $2,500 to
$3,500 would be the cost of the add-on. About 10 percent of new
vehicles are equipped with that technology.
Mr. Tiahrt. I would think that at some point the market
would drive the necessity. The insurance carriers would say,
you know, you have got a bad record here, and if you want to
lower your rates, you are going to have to install collision
avoidance systems in your trucks.
I am hesitant to mandate. Four hundred fifty thousand
carriers, I don't know how many trucks each one of them has but
$2,500 would be in the billions that we would be putting a
demand on our trucking industry, and that would sure pass down.
And what percentage of these would we--of the 6,000 crashes or
5,000 fatal crashes, I don't know how many we can reduce by
this billion-dollar demand. I know that seems kind of cold, but
eventually the market will drive safety issues.
Mr. Hall. Let me say in response, Congressman, I think the
panel that has been put together today is an excellent one. It
might be worth the Chairman's interest to bring in the
insurance industry as well. They are a very important player in
what the trucking industry does and does not do in terms of
safety.
The public cost, of course, of 5,000 deaths, the cost to
the taxpayers, local communities, the cost to our insurance
rates is a significant factor as well that would have to be
calculated if you are going to do a cost benefit look at this.
Now, the FARS data indicates, which is the data that we do have
that is put out, that in 1997, inattention was identified in 7
percent of the accidents; failure to yield, 9 percent;
speeding, 13 percent; and other is 41 percent, to give you an
idea of the data you are having to deal with.
So if that technology was available, it would have a
tremendous impact. U.S. Express in Chattanooga, Tennessee, has
equipped their entire fleet, and they have had a tremendous
impact. There are other carriers that are also using that
technology.
Now, these are the leading motor carriers, the leading
large operators. Any time we look at the trucking industry, we
have got to recognize a significant number of independent
owner-operators and to be sure we are not prejudicial in
anything that has been done to that important segment.
But this technology is available. As a matter of fact, we
paid for it through the taxes we used for Department of Defense
research.
Mr. Tiahrt. It would be interesting to talk to some of
these carriers to see what their perception of reduced costs in
terms of human lives and property damage is, too. It is pretty
hard----
Mr. Hall. I have talked to Swift and U.S. Express. I am
going to go see Warner, and we are going to have a hearing on
this issue. I think there are a lot of responsible members in
the trucking industry, but they are not going to do anything
that puts them at a competitive disadvantage. A lot of the
leadership in the safety area has to come from OMC, or whatever
the appropriate Federal Government department is, if we are
going to have an impact.
Mr. Mead. If I might just put in a pitch to reinforce
Chairman Hall's point here on recorders and tracking and how
important both are. I have seen firsthand a case where a big
rig pulled into a truck firm on the east coast, and 48 hours
previous was in the Port of Los Angeles. One driver filled out
that driver's log after he completed the trip. I am glad I
wasn't on the highway near that driver, but it is very
difficult to catch those types of trucking situations when you
can't electronically track them. That is why your bigger
trucking firms are going to the satellite tracking technology.
Mr. Tiahrt. When we make so many cost demands on these
independent truckers that are trying to make ends meet, we
force them in a way to drive across the country in 48 hours so
they can make enough money to pay off all the costs that we are
demanding from them in the form of taxes and all these other
extras that they add into their vehicle. So I think we have to
find a balance here.
Mr. Hall. Congressman, I think that the major influence on
the independent operators as well as on the industry is the
just in time concept which is a very important concept and
important to economic growth. But the demand comes from the
shippers, from the system, from the owners, and from the people
that dispatch the loads out there. And unless that disparity is
addressed at the Federal level, you are going to find people,
obviously as we find in every aspect of life, that are doing
the things that are going to provide monetary reward. That, I
believe, is why you need some level playing field in terms of
safety on our highways so that everyone is playing by the same
rules.
owner-operator firms
Mr. Tiahrt. We do all want to have safety on the highways
we all drive, but I think when we--I have a great deal of
respect for those who will financially risk everything to start
a small business, and a lot of these truckers are just getting
started in a small business. There is the Doobing family in
Wichita, Kansas, who as a young man, he started a small
business, and he recently sold out to TNT and became very
successful, but he started out driving one truck. And many of
these people have risked everything to drive one truck. I don't
want to take that American dream away from them, their ability
to pursue happiness. So in safety and our demands as a
government, I hope we strike a balance where we don't force
them into an unsafe situation because of our external demands,
because we are not risking it all.
Mr. Mead. I don't have a good answer to the single-truck
firm, the independent owner-operator that you described. I
think you raise an excellent point. I think part of the answer,
though, with your larger firms is it is very rarely the driver
that is driving excessive hours because he or she wants to. It
is often an environment, our work shows, a culture that has
created the demands placed on them by that company.
Mr. Tiahrt. I want to thank the panel.
Mr. Chairman, I may have some other questions that I would
like to submit in writing.
Mr. Wolf. Sure. Thank you very much.
I want to follow up on what you said and Mr. Tiahrt's
comments, too. I rode with a trucker about a month ago. He
explained that he would have to go to a place to pick up a
load, and they told him to be there at 8 in the morning, but
they didn't load up until, I think, 6 at night. And as the
first witness said, they do not get paid during that period of
time, and the shipper pretty much told him unless you are in X
by 7 a.m. tomorrow morning, you are not going to get paid. So
the driver was at the mercy of the circumstance. He was an
owner-operator driver who wanted to stay in business and ran a
good truck, very clean, very, very efficient, but was
manipulated by the system.
So I think what you are saying is--did you want to make a
comment?
Mr. Hall. Just one comment. I don't think there is anybody
more interested in safety on the highways than many of the
truck drivers, because they spend much more time out of their
lives on the highways than we do.
In Australia, Mr. Chairman, they have just enacted new
legislation that follows the chain back to the shipper or the
broker in terms of responsibility. That is something the
committee might be interested in looking at.
Mr. Wolf. I have a number of questions. I will just ask a
few, and the rest will be submitted for the record. The driver
that you referred to came from California to where; on the east
coast?
Mr. Mead. Yes.
Mr. Wolf. Were you there when the driver pulled in?
Mr. Mead. Yes, I was.
Mr. Wolf. And he went from California to how close to the
Atlantic Ocean? Tell me what company or what State, how close
to the Atlantic Ocean?
Mr. Mead. He was real close to your district.
Mr. Wolf. And he was driving 48 hours?
Mr. Mead. Yes.
Mr. Wolf. Are you going to prosecute that company? I hope
you are.
Mr. Mead. Well, the decision to prosecute is made by a
different agency--the Justice Department makes the ultimate
decision to prosecute. But we think not the driver, but the
carrier, in this instance deserves prosecutive consideration.
Mr. Wolf. What was the condition of the driver?
Mr. Mead. He was not very alert. I don't want to get into
the details. I don't think it would be appropriate to get into
the details of that case. It made a very profound impression
upon me.
You know, we can sit here, we can read off papers, we can
do our studies and so forth and so on. But it is a different
matter when you get out there and you see these things
firsthand and you see what the motor carrier investigators are
experiencing. And it is appalling. I often think of Jane
Garvey, the administrator at the Federal Aviation
Administration--what she would do if some of her inspectors
came in and said: we just checked out this airline, and we
found that 20, 25 percent of the airlines aren't airworthy.
Should we keep it from operating? I think the answer to that
question is almost rhetorical.
Mr. Wolf. Well, if you would keep the committee informed of
the case, because obviously that ought to be prosecuted. You
can't drive from California to wherever this is on the east
coast in 48 hours and not have violated the hours of service.
And I think the committee and the Congress and I think the
first witness referred to the hours of service. We have talked
a lot about where we move the boxes that the agency is in, but
the hours of service and these other things are very, very
important. That is clearly a violation.
safety oversight
Very quickly, Ms. Scheinberg, do you think the Office of
Motor Carriers has been effective in overseeing the safety of
large trucks?
Ms. Scheinberg. No, I would say they are not, evidenced by
the continued increase in fatalities.
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Mead, do you think OMC has been too tolerant
of safety violations in the trucking industry, and what are
your impressions?
Mr. Mead. Yes, I do. I think they absolutely are too
tolerant, and I believe the work force survey bears that out
totally. This Nation needs to show that it is serious and that
there are consequences for this type of behavior.
Mr. Wolf. Why do you think compliance reviews have dropped
from five to one per employee per month?
Mr. Mead. I think the quality of the review, over time, has
gotten better, frankly, based on what the investigators show.
Also, I believe that the workday of the average investigator
needs to be freed up so that they can get away from the
paperwork and get out there and do what they are best at,
investigating.
I want to make very clear that the partnership efforts and
the collaboration are just fine where both works. But we are
talking about a portion of the trucking industry for which
where that is not an appropriate modus operandi.
Mr. Wolf. The IG found that 75 percent of the motor
carriers sampled did not sustain a satisfactory rating on
safety compliance reviews. What has the Office of Motor
Carriers done since your last finding to induce carriers to
sustain a satisfactory compliance rate?
Mr. Mead. One of the biggest things they have done is they
have improved their targeting system. But as we pointed out
earlier, that has a lot of data problems. That is a major
improvement and it is definitely going in the right direction.
Generally most of our recommendations in that 1997 report call
for exactly the same thing we are calling for today.
office of motor carriers
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Hall, how well do you think the Office of
Motor Carriers is doing?
Mr. Hall. Well, of course we measure performance by the
recommendations we make out of the accident investigations, and
we have been very concerned in the heavy vehicle area because
we have 13 recommendations to Federal Highway that have been
closed unacceptable----
Mr. Wolf. Thirteen?
Mr. Hall. Thirteen. Eleven are currently listed as open
unacceptable. We have one open unacceptable to DOT and one open
unacceptable to RSPA, which of course deals with an area we
haven't discussed today, and that is the growth of the
transport of hazardous materials on our highways in this
Nation. And those recommendations, of course, deal with
important areas concerning human fatigue and sleep, on-board
recorders, time and duty, drugs. That is the measure of
performance that we would have.
Let me make a personal statement, Mr. Chairman. I welcome
this hearing, and I think there are a lot of good people in the
Office of Motor Carriers that have tried to perform their
responsibilities. My personal observation is that any time you
have an agency or an organization that has two
responsibilities, one to give money out and the other to
enforce regulations----
Mr. Wolf. You mean the Federal Highway Administration?
Mr. Hall. The Federal Highway, their responsibility to fund
these programs, then you can't compete in terms of enforcement
with the popularity for political appointees and senior
officials to hand out the money. And I think that safety is an
important responsibility. Personally, it ought to be put
somewhere where it is a dedicated responsibility. That is one
of the things we enjoy at the NTSB, and I think it has proven
effective in the impact it has had on safety in our
transportation system in our country.
Mr. Wolf. So it can focus?
Mr. Hall. Yes.
Mr. Mead. During the period of TEA-21, Mr. Chairman, $200
billion will be spent on infrastructure. Somewhere in the
neighborhoods of $600 to $700 million, will be spent on motor
carrier safety. That is what we get a little concerned about
when we talk about focus.
foreign carriers travel zone
Mr. Wolf. The last question, just so we have it clear, we
are talking about trucks now in the United States. My
understanding is as of January 1, 2000, all of the trucks that
are coming out of Mexico, could transverse the United States.
This is a change. Correct me. Now trucks are permitted to go
within 3 to 20 miles across the border; is that correct? What
is the zone? How do they determine the zone; how far it is to
go?
Mr. Mead. They call that a commercial zone, and they are
not allowed to go out of that. As Mr. Pastor said, they are
supposed to go into that zone and go back home. With NAFTA,
those trucks were supposed to be able to drive into the
interior of the State, States first adjacent to the border, and
then later into the interior of the United States.
Mr. Wolf. So if there is no change as of January 1, 2000,
next year, how far into the United States will those trucks be
able to go?
Mr. Mead. Anywhere. Well, I am handed a note here. It says,
not on January 1, 2000. It says, ``they have not decided to
lift it.'' I think what is meant here is, Mr. Pena announced
that the administration was not going to open the border. You
are talking about the terms of the----
Mr. Wolf. If the Department of Transportation does nothing,
will the 2000 January 1 date----
Mr. Mead. No, because the administration will have to
affirmatively lift the prohibition.
Mr. Wolf. They have to affirm?
Mr. Mead. Yes.
Mr. Wolf. So if they do nothing----
Mr. Mead. Nothing will happen.
Mr. Pastor. They can only travel 25 miles. The Department
of Transportation has to affirmatively say, we are implementing
the program, and so now the trucks can go over. I am kind of
pessimistic come January 1 the year 2000 that the Department of
Transportation will lift it.
Ms. Scheinberg. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to
add to that. In December 1995, the President unilaterally did
not allow Mexican trucks to come into the border States. He
basically put a moratorium on the NAFTA agreement. So at this
point unless the United States lifts that moratorium, this part
of the NAFTA agreement won't be implemented.
Mr. Wolf. We will have other questions for the record. I
thank you very much for your testimony. You have been very
helpful.
[The information follows:]
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Panel III Witnesses
Mr. Wolf. Next panel will be Mr. Mark Edwards, Managing
Director of Traffic Safety Services of American Automobile
Association; Mr. Walter McCormick, President and CEO, American
Trucking Associations; Ms. Judy Stone, President, Advocates for
Highway and Auto Safety; Mr. Harry Eubanks, President,
Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance; Mr. Brian O'Neill,
President, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety; Mr. Todd
Spencer, Executive Vice President, Owner-Operator Independent
Drivers Association; and Mr. Ed Wytkind, Executive Director,
AFL-CIO, Transportation Trades Department.
In the interest of time, if you can go in that order, and
if you could summarize your statement. Your full statements
will appear in the record. And for anyone out there who is
thinking of the next panel after this one, the committee will
just recess for maybe 15 minutes from whenever we finish.
MARK EDWARDS, MANAGING DIRECTOR, TRAFFIC SAFETY SERVICES,
AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
Mr. Wolf. The first witness, Mr. Edwards, and we will go
through from that.
Mr. Edwards. Thank you very much for the opportunity to
speak. I thank the Chair for his genuine interest and
commitment on this particular safety issue. Having spent 30
years in the highway safety profession, I have become convinced
that we are not going to solve the truck safety problem or make
demonstrative progress in truck safety unless someone like
yourself takes a genuine interest in the problem. Otherwise, it
is just going to continue to percolate.
I want to begin my remarks just by telling you that with
the data we have, that truck safety is not improving in this
country. Ten years ago 8 percent of all fatal crashes in this
country involved collisions with large trucks. In 1997, 9
percent of all fatal crashes in the United States resulted from
collisions with trucks. In spite of the fact that the fatality
rate might be dropping, and in spite of the fact the vehicle
miles traveled might be increasing, the reality is about 8 to 9
percent of our fatal crash problem primarily involves
collisions with large tucks. It has not changed in 10 years.
Even though the rate has gone down, the rate has gone down
equally for crashes involving passenger cars. And I suggest
that many of the changes in safety we think we see in large
trucks has more to do with increases in belt use, air bags, and
other safety features in cars than improvements in truck
safety. The rates of improvement are the same in both groups of
vehicles.
The safety problem with fatalities resulting from truck
crashes is really cars and trucks colliding with each other.
That is 80 percent of the problem.
I am actually not very surprised that we haven't made much
progress, and the reason I am not surprised is, we really lack
a basic understanding of what contributes to their crashes. We
have struggled all morning to understand what are the principle
causes underlying truck crashes and how do we relate those
causes to things that we do. The reality is we lack that basic
understanding, and without understanding what causes crashes,
we don't know what to fix.
I was kind of reflecting as others were talking as to some
reasonable examples that might drive that point home, and I
noticed Mr. Mead struggled with one. We all struggled with it.
The reality is when we look at fatal crashes, we don't know
whether fatal truck crashes involve an interstate carrier or an
intrastate carrier. We don't have the simplest answer. We don't
even have an accurate count of the number of truck crashes that
occur each year. Of the approximately 400 thousand that do
occur, plus or minus 10 or 15 percent, we can't separate those
vehicles that are regulated by Federal regulation from those
that aren't.
We heard a lot about inspection procedures and inspection
of brakes. In this country we cannot answer the simple question
are trucks that pass inspection more likely to have accidents
than those that don't. We can measure how many trucks have bad
brakes in our inspection programs, but our accident data
systems don't tell us whether bad brakes were necessarily a
factor. We don't even know if regulated carriers are safer than
those that aren't.
In my mind, our efforts to improve safety in the truck
arena are like throwing darts in a darkroom. If we are
successful in improving safety for large trucks, it is because
we are lucky, because for the most part we really don't know
what we are doing. In fact, all we really know about truck
safety is we have to prevent cars and trucks from colliding in
the first place. It is really an emphasis on crash prevention
that is required.
Mr. Chairman, we believe that much of what we need to know
about causal factors in truck crashes will come from a detailed
investigation of a large sample of crashes involving trucks.
Such a study would give us information we need to make real
gains in safety and know that we have done it. I suggest that
those are the two questions we can't answer today. We believe
that an investment of $5 million--and I realized my father
probably just flipped over in his grave because he knows I am
going to say $5 million isn't a lot of money and that is not
how he raised me. I think an investment of $5 million over a 3-
to 5-year period will produce information that we must have to
understand what causes truck crashes so we can provide
solutions in a straightforward manner. Such a comprehensive
study will provide data and conclusions to benefit us for the
next 15 or 20 years.
Why do I think this approach will work? Because it actually
already has. We did this very work 25 years ago when we made
the decision to invest in crash data systems that helped us
understand the safety problems with light vehicles. From all
the work that was done, we learned three simple facts: One,
that frontal crashes are the main problem. In frontal crashes,
the injury mechanisms are ejection and the steering wheel.
Those three facts have brought us virtually every safety
improvement we see in today's automobiles. They are the reason
we have air bags. They are the reason for seat belts. They are
the reason for padded interiors. They are the reason for
reinforced seat backs. There is literally not a safety feature
found in automobiles today that can't be traced back to knowing
those three or four simple facts that are a product of an
investment this country made literally decades ago.
We need the same information for crashes involving large
trucks if we are to have the same success that you yourself
alluded to earlier when talking about NHTSA. The reality is
that we are not going to achieve a goal of zero crashes if we
continue to know zero about what causes them. Our written
report contains several other recommendations. In the interest
of time, I focused on this one, and I look forward to any
questions you have and look forward to your actions in the
future. Thank you very much.
Mr. Wolf. Your full statement will appear in the record,
too.
Mr. Edwards. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mark Edwards follows:]
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WALTER McCORMICK, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AMERICAN TRUCKING
ASSOCIATES, INC.
Mr. Wolf. Mr. McCormick.
Mr. McCormick. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Thank you
for having me. I am Walter McCormick, President of the American
Trucking Associations, and I will summarize my testimony.
Mr. Wolf. Your full statement will appear in the record.
Mr. McCormick. Mr. Chairman, we commend you for holding
this hearing today and for your commitment to highway safety.
What we want you to know is that we share your commitment to
highway safety because for the trucking industry, the highways
are our workplace. Those people, the men and women driving the
trucks, are our husbands, our wives, our mothers and our
fathers. We want to see them operating in the safest possible
work environment.
Good companies, good operators, want bad operators off the
road, and I am pleased that three of the trucking companies
that were mentioned today by the inspector general and by the
Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Werner
Enterprises, U.S. Express, and Swift Transportation, are all
three ATA member companies, and they are indicative of the type
of trucking companies that ATA represents.
Mr. Chairman, since 1980, there has been a vast increase in
the number of trucks operating on our highways given the open
entry that was provided for under deregulation. And over the
course of the last 19 years, every single significant
improvement in truck safety has been either initiated by or
supported by the American Trucking Associations. Let me go
through some of them.
The establishment of the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance
Program which provided for a 1,000 percent increase in truck
inspections was supported by ATA. The development of a single
uniform Federal license for truck drivers, the commercial
driver's license, is supported by ATA. Mandatory drug testing,
mandatory alcohol testing for truck drivers, the elimination of
commercial zone exemptions for safety requirements was
supported by ATA. And we have supported the ban on the use of
radar detectors and the uniform 55-mile-an-hour speed limit. In
fact, just yesterday, the Montana State House of
Representatives and State Senate agreed on new legislation that
would lower the speed limit for trucks traveling through that
State at the request and initiative of the American Trucking
Associations.
So our commitment to safety is very closely in line with
your own commitment, Mr. Chairman, but we would respectfully
suggest that a simple transfer of the Office of Motor Carriers
to NHTSA may not accomplish the lofty safety objectives that
you have appropriately set.
Mr. Chairman, we believe that agencies do best when they
have a core purpose, when every employee understands what the
mission is. At NHTSA, established 30 years ago as a result of
the consumer movement, the mission is a consumer purpose. It is
to regulate the manufacture of a consumer product, the
automobile, the motor vehicle, and it does that core mission
very, very well. But the three issues that have been addressed
today where there is a consensus, fatigue regulation, more
inspections, and more rest stops, are three areas where NHTSA
has no real background and experience. Similarly, the Federal
Highway Administration has a core mission, and their core
mission is to build highways.
We believe one of the principal problems with the Office of
Motors Carriers today is that it is a very important agency
that has been lost underneath the core mission of a larger
agency, and a simple transfer to NHTSA would perpetuate that
problem.
Let me drive this home somewhat more graphically, Mr.
Chairman. The American Trucking Associations is supporting law
enforcement's call for a separate motor carrier administration.
Now it may sound crazy for an industry to call for more
government oversight, but consider the enormous impact that
trucking has on our economy today. As shown on this first
chart, trucking today represents 82 percent of the nation's
freight transportation revenues. The remaining 18 percent is
split among all other transportation modes. Yet, motor carriers
are the only transportation mode that do not have a
Presidentially-appointed administrator confirmed by the Senate
and their own modal administration. Trucking will grow.
As you can see in this second slide, the difference between
the staffing at the Office of Motor Carriers and the Federal
Aviation Administration. The inspector general earlier today
told you that there are over 450,000 trucking companies in the
United States. As you can see in this slide, the Office of
Motor Carriers has 650 employees. It is a matter of resources
as much as it is a matter of will.
We believe, Mr. Chairman, that the right approach is the
approach that has worked with air carriers, that has worked
with rail, and has worked with other modes. There should be a
separate motor carrier administration whose focus is to
regulate the single largest mode of freight transportation, the
most rapidly growing mode of freight transportation, and to do
this in a comprehensive way.
Over the course of the past year the Federal Aviation
Administration has taken great pride in the fact that there was
not a single death on a scheduled U.S. commercial air carrier.
It attributed this to the fact that it has worked closely with
its responsible partners in industry, that it has taken a modal
approach to the regulation of air carriers, and that its
purview over aviation is comprehensive and pervasive. So we
would urge you, Mr. Chairman, to think outside the box, the
boxes that were established three decades ago, and instead
think boldly as we move into the 21st century and think about
constructing the regulatory structure for the 21st century that
best meets our Nation's freight transportation needs and the
highway safety needs of our population. Thank you very much.
Mr. Wolf. Thank you very much.
[The slides and prepared statement of Walter McCormick
follow:]
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JUDITH LEE STONE, PRESIDENT, ADVOCATES FOR HIGHWAY AND AUTO
SAFETY
Mr. Wolf. Ms. Judy Stone, Advocates for Highway and Auto
Safety.
Ms. Stone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Advocates is a
coalition of consumer health and safety organizations and
insurance companies and trade associations who work together to
improve highway and auto safety. We focus our efforts on all
areas affecting highway and auto safety, the roadway, the
vehicle, and the driver. We have a very long history, I think,
of working with this committee and with you, Chairman Wolf, to
try and advance highway safety, and we thank you for all that
you are doing.
My written statement today addresses a range of very
specific highway safety issues that are going to require
immediate attention if we are serious about further reducing
highway deaths and injuries. So that I can fit into the
committee's schedule, my oral statement will focus on the truck
safety issue that is of particular interest to you today.
Mr. Wolf. The whole statement will appear in the record.
Ms. Stone. Thank you very much.
trends in truck safety
In addition to concerns in the areas of speeding, drunk
driving, safety belt and child safety seat use, teen drivers,
intersection safety, and rollover crashes, there is a very
troubling trend in truck safety which needs urgent attention.
Fatalities from large truck crashes have increased about 10
percent each year from 1995 through 1997. The fatal crash rate
for large trucks is 2\1/2\ deaths per 100 million vehicle miles
traveled, 50 percent greater than the rate of all vehicles on
the roads. Large trucks are highly overinvolved in severe and
fatal crashes, and when large trucks collide with smaller
vehicles, 98 percent of the people who die are the occupants of
the cars, unlike trucks.
We cannot forget the drivers of big trucks and buses. In
one year, there was a 16 percent increase in truck driver
deaths in 1997 over 1996, an increase of 99 fatalities in a
single year.
motor carrier safety regulation and enforcement
It is clear from these statistics and from the evidence
compiled by the GAO and the OIG reports that the Federal
Highway Administration's Office of Motor Carriers (OMC) has
fallen far short in its responsibilities to preserve and
enhance the safety both of motor carriers and of the public who
share the roads with large trucks and buses. It is imperative
that motor carrier safety regulations and their enforcement
zealously guard not only the safety of the entire traveling
public, but especially protect and enhance both the health and
safety of large truck and bus drivers.
Unfortunately OMC has repeatedly failed its mission to
ensure that the highest safety standards are enacted and
maintained in the field. In fact, a list of regulatory
deficiencies and increasing lapses of enforcement on the part
of OMC is long. You already are familiar with the GAO and OIG
reports demonstrating the chronic shortcomings of OMC's
enforcement efforts, but there are also examples of regulatory
failures, such as the agency ignoring congressional directives
and timetables. Advocates is particularly familiar with these
because we have wrestled with OMC for many years to establish
more and better safety regulations.
I would like to submit for the record a specific list of
these shortcomings which I have here.
Mr. Wolf. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
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Ms. Stone. OMC has recently been reorganized in connection
with other administrative changes that have redistributed
certain traditional OMC functions to other offices while
attempting to integrate its essential operations with the
Highway Safety Office at the Federal Highway Administration. We
believe that reshuffling personnel and office functions within
the Federal Highway Administration is not the sufficient
answer. Instead, the first step toward fundamental reform
should be moving the essential duties of OMC to the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) where new
regulatory and enforcement efficiencies would be realized.
Briefly, a move of OMC functions to NHTSA will benefit
safety in the following ways. Truck safety responsibilities
belong in the DOT agency, NHTSA, whose primary mission is
highway safety. NHTSA already is responsible for issuing the
safety standards for newly manufactured trucks. Relocating OMC
to NHTSA will integrate the regulatory functions for new medium
and heavy vehicle safety design and performance requirements
with those governing commercial vehicle operating safety,
thereby ensuring constant close coordination and timing of
regulations for both safety arenas.
Motor carrier safety regulation and enforcement will
benefit from NHTSA's research and development engineering
expertise, research infrastructure, and statistical
capabilities, including their extensive knowledge of
epidemiology, biomechanics, and injury control systems.
OMC's field operations would be enhanced by placing them in
NHTSA's well-administered system of regional offices, including
the safety ombudsman functions of the Governors' Highway Safety
Representatives, who work closely with State and local law
enforcement.
Regardless of the outcome of how OMC functions can be
improved and relocated, pressing issues of both regulation and
enforcement must be addressed in the near term if there is hope
of improving upon the safety record of large trucks on our
Nation's roads.
At the head of this list is hours of service rulemaking.
Actions by OMC appear to support an increase in driver duty and
driving hours. As numerous safety organizations have pointed
out in detail to the agency time and again, no research shows
that safety can be preserved much less improved by letting
commercial drivers operate big trucks and buses for even longer
hours. In fact, the research over the past 20 years shows
exactly the opposite. We know that most fatal crashes are
single-vehicle events, and the National Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB) has shown that a high percentage of these crashes
clearly are the result of driver fatigue and sleep deprivation.
Drivers simply fall asleep at the wheel.
Next is the prospect of OMC awarding numerous waivers and
exemptions and conducting many pilot programs relaxing key
Federal motor carrier safety regulations. OMC has said on
several occasions that it expects many applications for waivers
and regulatory exemptions under the provisions of section 4007
of TEA-21, which is the provision that governs requirements for
pilot programs, waivers and exemptions.
Motor carrier safety will not likely be improved in the
next 5 years if hundreds of pilot projects are being conducted
on our highways with the American public as guinea pigs. How
will law enforcement possibly do its job if thousands of trucks
are operating under a new set of experimental rules that change
yearly, as many States have just pointed out to the agency.
Inspections will be threatened as State and local police
attempt to sort out dozens of different sets of rules of the
road.
We believe that NHTSA has an excellent history of public
rulemaking on the merits of the issues and a conservative view
of regulatory exemptions. That concludes my statement.
Mr. Wolf. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Judy Stone follows:]
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HARRY EUBANKS, PRESIDENT, COMMERCIAL VEHICLE SAFETY ALLIANCE
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Eubanks, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.
Mr. Eubanks. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee. I am Harry Eubanks. I am President of the Commercial
Vehicle Safety Alliance. My day job is that of manager of motor
carrier safety within the Oregon Department of Transportation.
CVSA is an organization of commercial vehicle enforcement
agencies in Canada, United States, and Mexico who are dedicated
to improving highway safety within North America.
Mr. Chairman, we commend you for holding this hearing and
appreciate the opportunity to participate in an open discussion
about motor carrier safety issues that we feel are of very
vital importance to the Nation. I am going to briefly summarize
my written statement and respond to any questions you may have
afterwards.
Just a quick assessment of the problems, some of which will
probably be repeated. What you heard already, obviously the
number of carriers in the industry has nearly doubled within
the last 5 years. Fatal accidents and fatalities have increased
at their highest level since 1989. Accident and fatality rates
have essentially flattened. Since 1990, the national out-of-
service rates for vehicle and drivers have essentially remained
constant. Compliance reviews, particularly those for interstate
carriers, have dropped in half since 1991. And civil
prosecutions of those interstate motor carriers are at their
lowest level since 1989.
Why has the enforcement dropped at the Federal level? We
think there is probably several reasons. Prime reason, a
reason, I should say, is due to policy change and the shift
from that of a basic enforcement regulatory agency to that of
an agency dealing more with performance-based issues, trying to
be more of a, quote, safety agency. The shift in and of itself
basically was done at the expense of some of our basic
enforcement programs.
Some of our recommendations, Mr. Chairman. Obviously
compliance reviews must be increased drastically, particularly
at the interstate level. We think obviously the hours of
service rulemaking must move forward to improve those
regulations. OMC needs to act on the carrier safety fitness
rating rulemaking.
We definitely need to develop better accident causation
data. A few States are leading the way in this effort, and we
should adopt their best practices and expand those to the
national level.
We also need to be able to better track unqualified or
unsafe drivers. CDLIS needs to be improved. We need a better
tool to identify and deal with unsafe drivers.
As far as NAFTA in conjunction with our border State
members, CVSA has helped train Mexican enforcement personnel in
inspection procedures. It is now up to Mexico to rigorously
engage their inspection program, particularly on those carriers
who have applied for authority to cross the border under NAFTA.
Going back to those prosecutions, Mr. Chairman, I would
like to make an additional point that I did not mention in my
written statement. The drop in prosecutions is not only due to
a policy shift within OMC. Part of the reason is that because
OMC is part of Federal Highway. As part of Federal Highway, OMC
must use Federal aid attorneys to handle the negotiation phase
of their enforcement process. Too often safety cases are not
well understood or supported by these attorneys, who have
little or no prosecutorial experience or skill in dealing with
motor carriers on an adversarial situation.
I think this has a drastic effect on the field staff of the
Office of Motor Carriers, who work hard and have worked hard in
the past to do compliance reviews. Obviously when the
enforcement or compliance reviews are not being effectively
enforced, I think that has an effect on their ability to keep
working hard at the issue.
On where to place OMC, Mr. Chairman, CVSA thinks that the
motor carrier safety responsibilities should be placed under a
global administrator whose appointment requires congressional
confirmation and ensures full accountability. We feel that
modal administration provides a much greater focus and elevates
safety issues in a manner not currently possible. The
intermodal policies and issues that are increasingly important
to maintain a safe and efficient transportation system are more
effectively coordinated from administrator to administrator,
and the States like mine, who have labored long and hard, who
have invested a lot of money and time and effort into the
safety process, need a strong partner at the national level as
an advocate for motor carrier safety. We think that is best
accomplished as a modal administration.
The bottom line is that we recommend that those truck-
related activities of these various agencies be placed in a new
top-to-bottom motor carrier safety administration.
Motor carrier safety enforcement is unique both from a
policy and implementation standpoint and should not have to
be--or be forced to compete for attention and effort--excuse
me, compete with other efforts on the highway construction or
in the automobile standards side.
I think also from my written statement you will note that
we have some problems with the current Federal Highway
reorganization of OMC. We feel it does not raise the visibility
of motor carrier safety to its proper place. We think it
somewhat weakens the OMC field structure, which has been a very
strong key to the Federal-State partnership in the Motor
Carrier Safety Assistance Program. Frankly, we think that
organization plan demonstrates that we need probably a separate
motor carrier safety administration.
That concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for
the time and would be happy to respond to any questions.
Mr. Wolf. Thank you, Mr. Eubanks.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Eubanks follows:]
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BRIAN O'NEILL, PRESIDENT, INSURANCE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHWAY
SAFETY
Mr. Wolf. Brian O'Neill, President, Insurance Institute for
Highway Safety. Your full statement will appear in the record.
Mr. O'Neill. I will summarize some points, Mr. Chairman,
thank you.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is a nonprofit
research and communications organization that identifies ways
to reduce motor vehicle crashes and crash losses, and we are
funded entirely by U.S. auto insurers.
You have heard of a number of truck and highway safety-
related problems today, and many of them are directly due to
ineffective enforcement of various laws and regulations.
Effective enforcement of traffic laws and regulations, those
laws and regulations aimed at commercial vehicles and
commercial vehicle drivers as well as those aimed at all
motorists, is necessary if we are going to achieve compliance
with these laws and regulations.
The first panel, you heard from two parents, tragedies
involving truck drivers who had violated the hours of service
regulations. You have heard from Sergeant LaPointe that truck
drivers routinely violate the Federal regulations concerning
the time permitted behind the wheel. Why? A principal reason is
because the tools available to enforce these regulations, the
manual logbooks, the comic books as they are often described,
are woefully inadequate.
But you also heard from Chairman Hall that more effective
tools have been available for a long time. On-board recording
devices, which can be used to much more effectively police and
enforce the hours of service regulations for commercial vehicle
drivers, have been on the NTSB's most wanted list since 1990.
That is what Chairman Hall testified to this morning.
In 1986, the Institute petitioned the Office of Motor
Carrier Safety to require on-board recording devices to enable
more effective enforcement of the hours of service regulations.
We petitioned in October. In December of that year we were
denied our petition. We filed a petition for reconsideration
the following year. Again, we were denied that petition. In
1989, the Institute petitioned the Office of Motor Carrier
Safety to require on-board recorders for motor carriers
transporting hazardous materials. In 1995, the Institute, with
a number of other groups, including the Advocates for Auto and
Highway Safety, the National Association of Governors' Highway
Safety Representatives, Parents Against Tired Truckers and
others, again petitioned the Office of Motor Carrier Safety to
require on-board recording devices. There has been no action on
that petition. That was a petition in 1995.
Tools are available to more effectively enforce the laws
and regulations. There are also tools available that are not
being used to more effectively enforce speed limits and speed
regulations. This is a problem not just for truckers, but for
car drivers as well. Traditional police enforcement can be
effective, but we have problems on very crowded highways today
where making a traditional police stop is dangerous. There are
ways to do this.
You have heard again from Chairman Hall this morning about
safety cameras. They are often referred to as speed cameras.
These are being used in many countries increasingly on very
densely traveled but fast urban roads, and they are very
effective at controlling speeds, the speeds of both trucks and
cars.
I particularly would like to draw the attention of the
committee to the program that has been going on in London
involving the M25, which is the motorway that goes around
London. The M25 is very similar to the Beltway and many other
urban interstate highways where there is a lot of traffic, many
lanes, and it is very difficult to make a traffic stop. I
passed to the staff this morning a picture from the M25. It
looks just like the Beltway except they are driving on the
wrong side of the road. British authorities have established on
a section of this urban highway, variable speed limits based on
traffic conditions. Those variable speed limits are posted
electronically, but then to make them work, they are enforced
with cameras. It is very effective, very successful. It is
reducing car crashes and truck crashes.
Mr. Chairman, there are many tools available both for the
Federal agencies to implement as well as local authorities. We
need to make more effective use of tools that will enable the
appropriate authorities to effectively enforce laws and
regulations that already exist. Thank you.
Mr. Wolf. Thank you, Mr. O'Neill I appreciate your
testimony. Good ideas there.
[The prepared statement of Brian O'Neill and M25 picture
follows:]
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TODD SPENCER, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, OWNER-OPERATOR
INDEPENDENT DRIVERS ASSOCIATION, INC.
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Spencer, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers
Association. Your full statement will appear in the record. You
can summarize.
Mr. Spencer. Mr. Chairman Wolf, Mr. Sabo, members of the
committee, my name is Todd Spencer. I am the Executive Vice
President of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers
Association. OOIDA is the association representing the
interests of the Nation's small business professional truckers.
I am also pleased to have been able to play a part just a few
weeks ago with the committee Chairman Wolf in allowing one of
our members to get together with the Congressmen, with the
Chairman, to learn a little bit more about this industry and
about the topic that is so very important that we are
discussing here today.
OOIDA brings a unique perspective to this committee. We
represent the segment of the trucking industry with the most at
stake on highway safety issues. Our membership includes
professional drivers, owner-operators and small fleet truckers
usually operating 10 and fewer trucks. The typical member of
our organization has nearly two decades of experience invested
in trucking, drives in excess of 100,000 miles each year
throughout many States in all types of weather and traffic,
spends in excess of 240 nights each year on the highway
delivering our Nation's goods.
Government approaches to truck safety have been a source of
tremendous frustration for our members for the past decade and
longer. We believe substantial changes are needed in the
Federal approach to trucking issues.
Most of the discussion we hear from Washington on truck
safety issues focus solely on the number of truck inspections
and the number of fatal truck crashes that have occurred. As
important as truck inspections are, and we would agree that
they are an important tool in discovering safety violations,
this is a very narrow safety focus if your goal is to improve
total truck safety. How often trucks are inspected has little
to do with how well a driver is trained, or with the economic
coercion imposed upon drivers to make impossible deadlines, or
with the lack of sufficient places on the highways for drivers
to pull over and get adequate rest when needed, or with the
compliance of States with the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance
Program.
Did you know there are no training requirements for someone
to obtain a commercial driver's license that makes it legal to
operate an 80,000-pound truck? All you need to do is pass a
driving test. OOIDA strongly believes that merely passing a
test, no matter how difficult, is no substitute for adequate
training and some period of on-the-road apprenticeship with a
qualified and experienced commercial driver. How else would
someone really know what it takes to handle 80,000 pounds of
truck and freight 3,000 miles away from home and across the
country? In what other industry do we allow someone with no on-
the-job experience to take on such a responsibility?
Less than 10 percent of motor carriers provide an adequate
driver training program. This leaves open the question of
whether or not the majority of entry-level drivers actually
have the needed skills to safely operate commercial vehicles
before they are turned loose on the highways by a motor
carrier.
I do know that a couple of years ago a memo came out from
the Office of Motor Carriers alerting motor carriers that just
because a driver had a commercial driver's license should not
be interpreted to mean that driver actually has the necessary
skills to drive the vehicle for which the CDL may say that
driver is qualified. Scary, we believe.
At OMC the primary focus seems to be on technological
solutions, while meaningful actions are either delegated out to
other nonanswerable organizations or put on a back shelf to
gather dust. Professional truckers find it especially puzzling
that adequate training and basic qualification of drivers that
are so fundamental to safety could be overlooked in favor of
pet technology projects with dubious safety benefits and huge
price tags.
Driver fatigue has been identified for many years as a
major safety concern. Did you know, however, that there is a
critical shortage of places for truck drivers to pull over and
get adequate rest? In many regions of the country, it is nearly
impossible to find a place to park your truck after 7 in the
evening. The trend among States is to close, not open, rest
areas. In fact there are States that arouse truck drivers out
of rest areas after 2 hours whether or not the driver has had
sufficient rest to comply with Federal hours of service
regulations.
Lack of adequate rest areas is a major problem facing
America's truck drivers, and it is getting worse. It does
little practical good to impose hours of service regulations on
drivers without equal emphasis on identifying or creating
places for drivers to rest.
Another example of unsafe State practices involves
inspections that require trucks to stop on the shoulder of the
highway. Stopping on the shoulder of the road creates one of
the most hazardous conditions on the road for the driver, the
inspecting officer and for passing vehicles. People die in
these accidents, deaths that are totally avoidable.
Equally dangerous are those States with overcrowded weigh
stations that require dozens of trucks at a time to line up on
the shoulder of the road to wait to gain entry into the weigh
station. We are not opposed to inspecting vehicles and
enforcing weight limits, but these practices are creating
unsafe conditions in the name of safety.
The most elusive and powerful negative influence on safe
driving are those motor carriers, brokers, shippers, receivers
who require drivers to break safety regulations or who place
impossible or illegal delivery deadlines on drivers and motor
carriers. Under such circumstances it is invariably the driver
who is penalized. Those who yield to pressure and accept unsafe
loads are then penalized by safety enforcement officers for
violating the regulations, while the real culprit suffers
little, if any, liability exposure.
At our organization's initiative, Congress passed as part
of TEA-21 a driver hotline created at the Office of Motor
Carriers. This hotline was supposed to allow drivers to report
pressure being placed on them by motor carriers and others to
violate Federal safety regulations. We are informed that
drivers who call the hotline are connected to a recording
asking them to leave a number where they can be called back.
Without a live person answering the phone 24 hours a day who
can explain to the driver his rights and provide support when
he takes a personal risk to come forward to report problems, we
have a cold line, not a hotline. A real hotline should trigger
investigations so that the driver and others do not face
further pressure to violate safety regulations.
I have only touched on a few of the issues that we believe
should be addressed in order to promote truck safety. I hope we
can encourage you and others to focus on all of the issues.
Currently the OMC is simply not equipped or structured to
resolve the many vitally important issues that confront our
Nation's trucking industry.
The OOIDA board of directors recently passed a resolution
calling for the creation of a Federal trucking administration
with broad powers to regulate both the safety and, where
necessary, the business relationships within the trucking
industry. As much as a focus on safety is truly for the good of
the trucking business, you need a thorough understanding of the
trucking business if you are going to adequately address
highway safety issues. Consolidation of all trucking-related
matters, size and weight, economic oversight, and safety,
within a single trucking administration would improve
efficiency, reduce costs, and promote highway safety.
Thank you very much for your cooperation.
Mr. Wolf. I thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Todd Spencer follows:]
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EDWARD WYTKIND, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AFL-CIO, TRANSPORTATION
TRADES DEPARTMENT
Mr. Wolf. Next, last witness, Mr. Edward Wytkind, Executive
Director, AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department. Your full
statement will appear in the record. If you could summarize.
Mr. Wytkind. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You also have the
distinction of being one of the few chairmen who pronounce my
name correctly. That is a good start.
Mr. Wolf. I just guessed.
Mr. Wytkind. It is a good guess.
Good morning. I guess it is afternoon. I did come here in
the morning. Mr. Sabo, Mr. Chairman, I am certainly pleased to
be here on behalf of our 30 unions in the Transportation Trades
Department. For those who don't know, we represent several
million workers in the aviation, rail, transit, highway,
trucking and longshore industries.
Let me first commend you and the subcommittee for holding
this hearing and, of course, express our appreciation for
letting us appear as part of the hearing record. I will
summarize my statement and focus really on a couple of issues
only, though we do address many others in the written
statement.
First, I think based on our track record and the track
record of our unions, we have a strong record of fighting for
safety for our members and for the general public. We believe
that the two are joined at the hip, and we have always fought
for both. From chronic driver fatigue on the highways and unmet
work or training needs, to the challenges of HAZMAT
transportation and the threat of unsafe trucks and buses
entering the U.S. at our Mexican border, we believe all these
things combined are very severe and call for swift action.
With concerns mounting about the Federal Highway
Administration's Office of Motor Carriers, you and others are
supporting a proposal to transfer the OMC to National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Separately the findings
of the DOT's Inspector General raised deep concerns regarding
the inner workings of the OMC in policing motor carrier safety.
We, too, are disturbed by the alleged incestuous relationship
between the OMC and the trucking industry that it regulates and
charges of improper activities in the lobbying area in an
effort to deregulate the proposal that you, Mr. Chairman,
championed but saw the proposal derailed.
Fortunately we believe Secretary Slater is trying to
respond forcefully. A major shake-up at the senior level at
FHWA has already occurred following the release of the
investigation, and we are confident that the Secretary will
conduct a thorough internal review and audit and will move
forward with an aggressive response to the problems that have
been identified by you, Mr. Chairman, and by the IG.
Let me state our strongly held view that while this debate
is crucial, that while we need to be talking about motor
carrier safety, we have to also at the same time allow the
Secretary to complete the review without undue interference.
We commend you, Chairman Wolf, for bringing the spotlight
on the failures of the OMC and for working with us as we did
with you on the ISTEA bill last Congress to advance the cause
of truck, bus, and highway safety. We are still evaluating the
OMC proposal. I am interested in the comments offered on this
panel, but we are committed to stopping those in the industry
who want to use this debate not to advance safety, but to skirt
the very real issues and concerns that you have raised. We
intend to do everything we can to use this important debate to
bring focus to the safety issues beyond the matter of whether
the enforcement duties should be housed within the DOT.
The concerns raised today are conpounded by the fact that
there is increased pressure to open the U.S.-Mexico border to
the truck and bus traffic called for in the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Fortunately, safety concerns have
inspired the Clinton administration to keep the border closed
for over 3 years since December of 1995. 6
At the same time the IG in a scathing report recently
concluded what we have been saying since 1990. Specifically the
IG said, far too few trucks are being inspected at the border,
and too few inspected trucks comply with U.S. standards.
The IG report provides a shocking account of the
inadequacies of border inspection capabilities. It concludes
that Mexican trucks entering the U.S. through Mexico, Texas,
and Arizona are unlikely to be inspected. I think you heard
this figure earlier. In El Paso, Texas, 1,300 truck movements
occur daily, but there is only one inspector who can inspect 10
to 14 trucks daily. I don't have a math degree, but I can
figure out what percentage that is, and it is really small.
Some border crossings do not have an inspector assigned
whatsoever, particularly during evenings and weekends. So while
we are debating all the policy issues about cross-border
transportation, all I need as a truck driver from Mexico is to
watch to figure out how to enter the U.S. and when to enter it
because there are so many times of the day when there are no
checks at all, and you just kind of drive right there.
I heard the word ``honor system'' earlier in a different
context, but that is really what we are asking Mexico to
operate under, which is an honor system. They don't check on
their side of the border, and we are not checking on our side.
The IG found a 1997 out-of-service rate in Texas, the
Nation's busiest border-crossing State, of almost 50 percent.
This compares to a national average of about 25 percent. In
1998, the data is not much better. The IG found that in 1997,
3.7 million commercial trucks entered the U.S. from Mexico.
Only 1 percent, I will repeat 1 percent, were actually
inspected, and 44 percent of the small number that were checked
were removed from service. This means, and again I am not a
mathematician, but a Mexican carrier has a 99 percent chance of
evading an inspection. But for the U.S. motoring public and for
commercial drivers in the United States, what the data means to
them is that there is a 1 in 2 chance of them encountering an
unsafe foreign motor carrier on the highway.
Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Sabo, almost 2 years ago
you joined 225 of your colleagues on a letter to President
Clinton urging him to keep the current cross-border
restrictions in place until safety concerns are adequately
addressed. Let me quote from that letter: Although planning and
coordination activities are under way, they are no substitute
for improving enforcement systems. Declarations that all
trucks, U.S. or foreign, must meet U.S. safety standards are
meaningless without adequate oversight by competent inspectors.
Finally, allowing Mexican carriers to drive freely throughout
the four U.S. border States with no assurance whatsoever of
their safety would unnecessarily endanger the traveling public.
I submit that the IG investigation coupled with the
separate findings of the GAO (Government Accounting Office)
make it very clear that the U.S. is ill-prepared to deal with
the safety hazards posed by the flood of Mexican truck and bus
traffic permitted under NAFTA. The facts haven't changed.
Vehicles that enter the U.S. still have an enormously high
violation rate. U.S. inspection capabilities are substandard
or, as I mentioned earlier, almost nonexistent. And there is no
system in place to assure Mexican compliance with drivers'
hours of service and basic labor standards such as minimum
wage, which, under NAFTA, is supposed to apply to all the
drivers.
Highway safety goes beyond reforming government safety
oversight capabilities. It is about curbing injury and death on
our highways. Dealing with the OMC issue I have raised, Mr.
Chairman, is an issue we agree with, and we want to join with
you in this important undertaking, but in that context, the
NAFTA cross-border provisions if implemented present a larger
set of questions that also deserve an answer before we expose
American highway users to thousands of unsafe foreign trucks.
Opening our border to a flood of poorly regulated trucks and
buses will only worsen the problems that have been identified
here today. We stand ready to work with you, but we also urge
you to help us keep the U.S.-Mexico border closed to unsafe
motor carrier traffic as you have since December 1995.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wytkind follows:]
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truck traffic and permits
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Sabo.
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My apologies for missing
a good part of the testimony, but we had a delegation meeting
with our new Governor. I thought it appropriate to be there.
I am not sure who this is directed to, and I am not sure
anybody would have an answer. Of truck traffic, what relative
percentages on freeways versus nonfreeways; does anybody know?
Mr. O'Neill. I don't know the exact numbers, but a
disproportionate amount of the mileage of the trucks is done on
limited access highways, which, of course, are our safest
highways, and that is one of the reasons when you look at the
truck rates per mile traveled, they appear safer than maybe
passenger car rates per mile traveled. When you compare the
rates on the same highways, truck accident rates are higher
than cars because they are doing so much of their mileage on
the safer highways.
Mr. Sabo. The reason I ask, looking at the numbers I see
over half of the truck fatality accidents are on rural
noninterstate roads, which I suspect doesn't carry that great a
proportion of truck traffic. And two-thirds of the accidents in
rural areas, normally 14.6 percent of it is on interstate. I
assume rural areas would include the bulk of the traffic
between major centers. Over 52 percent is on the noninterstate-
traveled area. In total only about 25 percent of fatal
accidents are on an interstate; 75 percent are not. I have to
admit to lots of ignorance on how even basic licensing--I have
trouble with that word it occurs--how does someone get a
license with the State, 50 different regulations?
Mr. Spencer. The CDL regulations were passed by Congress in
1986, and basically what they required is that every State
would set up a commercial driver licensing program that would
conform to certain criteria, criteria for serious violations
that would cause licenses to be suspended.
Mr. Sabo. That is a joint reporting of violations.
Mr. Spencer. Yes, and then, of course, that each State or
States were pretty much given the latitude to decide how they
would go about deciding whether someone was qualified to drive
or licensed to drive, and what the system basically is, and in
almost every instance, you go, take a vehicle to a licensing
center and take an examiner for a ride, and if he thinks you
did well enough, you are going to get a CDL.
Our organization has real problems with that system that
makes no greater effort to assure somebody is qualified, but
that is because we think you end up with drivers that are just
about as qualified as most of us were when we were 16 years old
and initially got our licenses to drive cars. The only
difference is these folks are driving vehicles that can weigh
80,000 pounds.
Mr. Sabo. Is there any separate permit granted? Are there
permits for interstate trucking? You need special permits
versus a series of State permits if you are trucking from one
State to the next?
Mr. Spencer. No. I believe each State is required to have
the same basic license, and that license, if I am not mistaken,
is required to be the same for intrastate drivers because of
changes----
Mr. Sabo. That is not my question. I am away from the
driver to the company. As an owner-operator, do you have any
special permit to be involved in interstate trucking versus,
say, simply intrastate?
Mr. Eubanks. Mr. Chairman, I can address that. I am Harry
Eubanks from the State of Oregon, representing CVSA.
The industry basically is deregulated in terms of economic
regulation now, so you no longer have the old permit or
certificate system that carriers were required to get before
they could engage in for-hire transportation. Basically you
just need to have the money to purchase a vehicle, and
obviously you get licensed in the appropriate State and deal
with the tax issues and start turning the wheels.
Mr. Sabo. So when we hear of trucks not passing certain
standards, those are individual State standards that they are
not passing?
Mr. Eubanks. It depends. If you are talking about
inspection standards----
Mr. Sabo. Yes.
Mr. Eubanks [continuing]. Inspection standards are pretty
much uniform across North America. My organization has worked
hard for nearly 20 years to establish some uniform standards
for inspection process. So those, I think, are fairly uniform.
Mr. Sabo. For the vehicle?
Mr. Eubanks. For the vehicle and for the driver, too. But
that doesn't involve licensing. That is just how we go about
making sure that those vehicles and drivers are complying with
the regulations on the highway.
Mr. Sabo. But as this gentleman indicated, the amount of
training, there is no requirement other than pass a certain
kind of test at a certain time; is that right?
Mr. Spencer. Yes, sir. I think perhaps where you are going
a little bit with that is that there is going to be a niche in
trucking that would be both drivers and vehicles that basically
don't participate in any kind of enforcement programs, and that
they seldom come into contact with the commercial vehicle
enforcement officers that we have heard from here today. In
some instances the people we are talking about don't
necessarily see themselves in the trucking community. Maybe
they haul construction equipment or dirt or logs, or maybe they
are farmers. Their principal occupation is agriculture or
something other than commercial trucking.
A big percentage of trucks that are on the road fall into
those categories, and generally those trucks are not going to
cross weigh stations or go through the inspections that are set
up at roadside, but they are out there nevertheless, and when
we hear about the bad things that happen in newspapers,
oftentimes that is what we are talking about.
Mr. Sabo. Todd?
Mr. Tiahrt. I was wondering, Mr. Sabo, if you were going to
get around to telling your Governor that there was something
that he wasn't going to be able to do, and you were going to do
it for him, and I wonder what Jesse ``The Body'' was going to
say back to you.
Mr. Sabo. No, he told us what not to do.
truck fatalities
Mr. Tiahrt. I certainly wouldn't want to go the best out of
three falls with him.
Ms. Stone, you made the comment, and I didn't quite catch
all of it, it was something about fatalities had increased 10
percent per year. Did I catch that correctly, and if so, what
were you referring to?
Ms. Stone. Since 1995, I believe that was what we had in
our statement, and what I was saying was that the fatalities
have gone up nearly 10 percent. In 1995 they were 4,918 truck-
related fatalities.
Mr. Tiahrt. It was truck-related then?
Ms. Stone. Yes. And then in 1996, they were 5,142. And in
1997, they were 5,355. That is about a 10 percent increase.
Mr. Tiahrt. So again, you are just talking about raw
numbers, not about miles driven?
Ms. Stone. That is right.
Mr. Tiahrt. Is this based on National Highway Traffic
Safety numbers?
Ms. Stone. It is.
Mr. Tiahrt. I read your testimony, and it looks like the
overall fatalities in the last 3 years is basically stable; up
and down a little bit, but it was right around 41,900,
something like that.
Ms. Stone. That is right.
new safety administration
Mr. Tiahrt. Mr. McCormick, you talked about focusing on
some agency that, you know, in comparison to FAA, there was a
lot of employees there. OMC has very few employees. Did you say
OMC has responsibilities similar to FAA as far as motor
carriers, or what was the name that you used for that? Was that
OMC that you were referring to?
Mr. McCormick. I was referring to OMC, but expanding OMC
into a Federal motor carrier administration similar to what the
law enforcement community has called for. And the idea is this:
If you look at FAA, what FAA does is to take a comprehensive
approach to aviation safety. They look at the aircraft. They
look at the pilots. They look at the flight attendants. They
look at the mechanics. They keep in mind as they regulate that
mode of transportation what is the growth curve, what is going
to be needed in the future in terms of additional airport
capacity, in terms of additional inspectors.
And FAA has not only 48,000 employees, but the FAA
Administrator is appointed by the President and confirmed by
the Senate. The FAA Deputy Administrator is appointed by the
President and confirmed by the Senate. There is very strong
accountability in oversight.
The single largest transportation mode, though, motor
carriers, does not have a Presidentially-appointed
Administrator or Senate confirmation.
data collection
Mr. Tiahrt. I see your point.
Another question I have for Mr. Edwards, you said that, if
I got it right, without knowing what causes accidents, we don't
know what to do to fix them. Are we not collecting data in the
right categories, or what kind of data would you advocate us--
how would you collect the data so we could draw some
conclusions?
Mr. Edwards. I propose in my written remarks that we charge
the National Academy of Science's Transportation Research Board
with the task of designing a study. I think we need to
investigate about 3,000 crashes, and I would use the accident
investigation technology that NHTSA now employs for light
vehicles to collect very detailed data on the crashes
themselves. Actually the factors that cause the crashes really
come from an analysis of the data, and very seldom appear in
the data themselves. I think that is a study we can do one
time, and it would carry us a long way.
The problem we have when it comes to trucks is that the
fatality analysis reporting system (FARS), which we are all
familiar with, only looks at fatal accidents. That is less than
two percent of all accidents. There are 400 some odd thousand
truck accidents a year. In FARS there is little or no
information about the motor carriers who operate those trucks.
There is little or no information about the trucks themselves.
If we were to look at the national accident sampling system,
which is our larger investigatory pool of accidents, we don't
investigate accidents involving large trucks to any great
degree because the focus is on light vehicle safety. We
literally have no databases in the country that examine truck
accidents in any detail. It is like trying to invest in the
stock market without knowing what the Dow Jones average is. We
are not going to be very successful:
Mr. Tiahrt. I think you make a good point. It is important
that you have good data. I am not sure how we can tackle this
problem of making highways more safe when it comes to large
trucks, because a lot of the accidents are directly related to
drivers rather than the vehicle themselves.
Mr. Edwards. It is a very good point. That is why we need
to go out and collect and create a database. It has information
in it not only about the trucks involved in the crash, but the
passenger vehicles and the drivers of those vehicles and the
roadways on which they occur. That information literally does
not exist. The point is well taken.
system to reduce fatalities
Mr. Tiahrt. If we are going to structure a system for more
safety, then of course we have got to have the data, but it is
difficult to tell from today is it--do we focus on something
like--we were talking about collision avoidance? If so, we are
asking a high price; what percentage would be collision
avoidance, how much would we distract from that. The gentleman
down here in the Institute for--Mr. O'Neill was talking about
speeding and how that was related to it, what percentage is
that, the fatalities.
I don't think we have our arms around the information yet
to structure a system to try to reduce the fatalities when it
comes to large trucks, and perhaps a little more information
might lead us to the right direction.
Mr. Edwards. That is exactly the point I am trying to make.
I am glad you understand it.
Mr. Tiahrt. I am not sure I really do.
Mr. O'Neill. Mr. Tiahrt, could I just make one point. There
is not likely to be a single approach that is going to solve
all of these problems. We are going to have to come up with a
range of countermeasures. We know that fatigued truckers are a
problem. We know that speeding is a problem. We know that many
other things are a problem. We don't exactly know the
magnitudes of those problems, but we have to look for
countermeasures to address a range of the problems that have
already been identified. It won't be a single silver bullet
that will solve the problem.
Mr. Tiahrt. In just a minute I want to give you an
opportunity to speak. I do want to say, though, that fatalities
have gone up, but when you consider the amount of freight that
is being moved, overall I think truckers do a pretty good job
in safety. The fatalities per million miles has gone down
according to the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, NHTSA, so I think we ought to be cautious when
we approach this and have a good set of data rather than
stirring things up too quickly. We have a trend as far as miles
driven and fatalities per miles driven has gone down, so I
don't want to make too big of a change at that time.
Mr. Tiahrt. Mr. Spencer, go ahead.
Mr. Spencer. Thank you very much. Just one further thought
on that that seems really important, and that is that there is
no one single magic bullet that is going to address this issue
and we make a big mistake if we take the approach that there
is. I was here last in D.C. 3 weeks ago and I watch on the
evening news about three kids going to one of the local
schools, a 17-year-old driver, two 14-year-olds, they are on a
two-lane highway coming home. They are driving faster and lose
control and run head on into a U-Haul truck, a gentleman trying
to move his family to North Carolina.
Now, next year those are going to be three truck-related
fatalities to those people that advocate that trucks are the
leading cause of fatalities on the road, yet that particular
individual driving that truck isn't a truck driver but it is a
truck.
The issues there are how other drivers that share the road
with trucks respond, handle, how they know how to drive. We are
also talking about a major issue with the type of road that
they are on. On two-lane roads, as was mentioned earlier,
highway fatalities will always be significantly higher for both
cars and trucks because those are roads are inherently more
dangerous for all drivers.
Mr. Wytkind. Mr. Tiahrt, you talked about human factors, I
don't know the exact term that you used, and two observations
are, first, when trucking deregulation was first advanced, the
Teamsters Union and the whole labor movement opposed trucking
deregulation for two reasons. One is because we warned that it
was going to create substandard jobs in an industry that is
safety sensitive, and it did that.
And the second thing that we warned was that you were going
to have this huge influx of motor vehicle operators who weren't
ready to understand the cost of doing business and the
responsibility that goes with it.
At great risk to Chairman Wolf's hearing to start a debate
about trucking deregulation, that is not the point of my
comment. The point of my comment is that we hear a lot from the
American Trucking Association and others about a driver
shortage. That has become largely a myth for one reason. There
is a shortage of good jobs in this industry. You have a lot of
unemployed Teamsters, almost 200,000 since 1980, who were asked
to take a 50 percent or more pay cut with fewer benefits or go
do something else. Those chose the latter.
So you have a shortage of skilled drivers in the economy
because a lot of these workers have gone elsewhere to do other
things because they don't want the jobs that the industry was
beginning to produce.
I think that is something that needs to be looked at. I
can't quantify it and give you fancy data to support the
notion. All I can tell you is that there is this problem in the
industry and we can't find a way to address it except to say
that has occurred steadily since 1980.
Mr. Tiahrt. One would advocate that perhaps those drivers
got a better job someplace else. I think the market will drive.
In other words, higher wages will attract more people into the
industry.
If I go to my home city in Wichita, Kansas and I was there
this weekend and I drove by a Braum's, it is a hamburger place
like McDonald's, they are paying 7 and a quarter an hour with
health benefits. That is far above minimum wage, but they have
a need for people and in order to attract them they are paying
higher wages. When the need in the trucking industry for
drivers becomes great enough, they will heighten their wages.
So I think economics will change that in some degree in the
future. I think that is something we can't overlook.
Can you tell me when deregulation happened?
Mr. Wytkind. 1980.
truck safety improvements
Mr. Tiahrt. Go ahead, Mr. McCormick.
Mr. McCormick. I wanted to respond to your observation
because you indicated that it was your perception that truck
safety had improved, maybe not as much as all of us would like
because what we all have is the same goal, no doubt about that.
But just to give you a sense of perspective, in 1980, the
year trucking was reregulated until now, the miles driven by
trucks has increased by a whooping 77 percent. Actual deaths
have dropped by 9.5 percent. There are 9.5 percent fewer people
killed last year than in 1980.
And the fatality rate has dropped by 48 percent. So what we
have now done collectively is we have refocused our goal, and
our goal is now to further improve truck safety and I believe
what you heard today a consensus on is that there are three
very specific things that we can do to address truck safety.
First, solve the fatigue problem. The Department needs to
move forward on new hours of service regulations. It hasn't
done so for 60 years.
Number 2, parking spaces, so when truckers are tired they
can go to sleep.
Number 3, increased enforcement. More trucks on the road
require more enforcement, and I believe that everybody on this
panel agrees with those reform measures.
foreign carriers
Mr. Tiahrt. Thank you. I think you made a very good point.
Mr. Wytkind, you said 1 in 2 chance of encountering a foreign
driver when you were talking about people coming across----
Mr. Wytkind. Based on the data, there is a 99 percent
chance that a Mexican vehicle crossing over the border will not
be inspected. But for the U.S. motoring public, there is a 1 in
2 chance that that vehicle that they do encounter on the
highway will be unsafe and will be in violation of U.S.
standards based on the out of service rate.
Mr. Tiahrt. On the vehicle that comes across the border?
Mr. Wytkind. Yes, the truck and bus.
Ms. Stone. I wanted to respond to your comment about the
fatality rate versus fatals. This is something that we have
discussed a lot in the highway safety field. We use the same
methodology for passenger cars as well. I like some of the
airline analogies that have been used today by several of the
witnesses and it would be in my mind the same thing as saying
because there are a whole lot more airplanes out there flying
then the numbers don't look so bad, and I don't think that we
would say that when it comes to airline crashes.
Mr. Tiahrt. If it is your family it doesn't matter, just
one more is too much. I have to agree.
Mr. Wolf. I am going to recognize Mr. Serrano and we are
not going to break for the 15 minutes because they said we may
have a vote as early as 3:00 or as late as 3:15, so we are
going to continue. Mr. Serrano.
urban truck safety
Mr. Serrano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I
apologize for not listening to your testimony. I also was
meeting with my governor, Governor Pataki, and the meeting took
an hour. It was a half hour meeting and half an hour to get
through the TV cameras in and out of the room trying to find
out if he is going to announce for President today.
Mr. Chairman, you will be glad to know when he found out
that I am on this committee, I became very popular in my state.
I have two concerns, and I don't know if they were covered
and I hope someone could comment on them. One of them is urban
truck safety.
I represent an area in the Bronx which houses the large
distribution point for fresh fruits and vegetables, the Hunts
Point Market, which is well known to many people, and trucks
going in and out of there, it is an amazing number, but they go
through residential areas to get to the market.
There are other problems, long term problems that we have
to deal with. That area has the largest, most serious incidence
of asthma in the Nation. We think that it is related to
transfer stations that are there, over 40 transfer stations and
perhaps to the truck fuel and so on.
In addition, there is a problem that the community is very
upset about, the fact that some kids have been killed by trucks
that are going into that area and it doesn't seem--we don't
seem to hear anything being discussed about that particular
problem, that there is the highway situation that we know about
and there is the fatigue involved in that, but what about urban
truck safety? Does anyone have any information that I can take
back?
Mr. Edwards. If I might comment about urban trucks. We are
looking at trucks between about 18,000 and 26,000 pounds of
gross vehicle weight, the straight trucks, as we would call
them. It relates to some of the points that I have tried to
make about data.
These trucks represent somewhere between a third and maybe
half of all trucks involved in accidents, but we don't really
have a reliable estimate. In our written report, we suggested
that this particular group of trucks be focused on whether
operators of these trucks meet CDL requirements and whether
that might improve safety. A large portion of our trucking
population in urban areas are these kinds of trucks. Under
current regulations, except oddly enough in the City of New
York, they are not required to hold CDLs. On the other side of
the coin, we learned very recently from research done in the
Federal Government by the Office of Motor Carriers that CDL
does work, and so I would like you to consider those two
points.
A current countermeasure that we have that we have not
explored is the possibility of extending that requirement to
these trucks.
Mr. Serrano. Your point was the trucks are not the size
that we see on highways, but these trucks coming to the market
are coming right off major highways.
Mr. Edwards. Most of the urban truck crash problem, a large
part of the urban truck crash problem is trucks between 18,000
and 26,000 pounds gross vehicle weight. They might be coming
right off the highway, but most of those are not your large
semis.
Mr. McCormick. We fought for and obtained an elimination of
the exemptions for operation within commercial zones. It used
to be if you had a heavy truck operation within a commercial
zone you did not have to comply with the Federal motor carriers
safety regulations. That has changed today.
You are correct that every truck shipment begins and ends
with a trip to a warehouse or terminal, so they do travel
through urban areas and through areas where there are a lot of
people congregated. We don't have good data on the number of
those accidents and how they are specifically caused. We don't
know which ones are done by dumptrucks and by wholly intrastate
trucks that are therefore not subject to the Federal
inspections, and I think that Mr. Edwards' call for additional
data would be helpful.
foreign carriers
Mr. Serrano. Thank you. The other one is an issue I think
that may come to play, I want to know if it does come to play
in this whole issue with Mexico.
I had a gentleman in my district last year who was given a
summons by the police and he has a court date because he was
stopped, routine stop, truck driver, and he didn't speak
English to the satisfaction of the police officer. And we found
out to my amazement that there is Federal law or regulation
that states that you must be able to speak or understand
English properly. Now I spoke to this gentleman and he did have
a heavy accent, but I could understand him. And of course I am
not an expert in accents because most people who can't speak
English well speak to me in Spanish so I can't stand up as an
expert.
It seemed to me now if that is happening in New York City
in Yonkers, what does that say about this whole relationship
with Mexico? Are we going to apply the same situation so that
people who come across the border in addition to having safe
trucks have to be fluent in English? How does that work?
Mr. Wytkind. Mr. Serrano, I would just say one thing which
is we focused on the safety issues of the driver who enters the
United States who may not be fluent enough who can understand
what the communication system is to operate as safely as
possible under U.S. standards. But the answer to your question
is that when a driver enters the United States he and she must
comply with all U.S. standards, period. We believe that the
system that is in place and being negotiated presently is very
substandard and is years away from ever getting to a point
where you can begin to have a debate about whether we are ready
to open the border. But that issue just touches on many others,
which is the whole matter of how you comply with U.S.
standards. It is one thing to say that you do, it is another
thing to actually be able to ensure it.
So the answer is yes, a driver who enters the United States
is expected to comply with all U.S. equipment and driver
standards.
Mr. Serrano. I understand that and I have no problem with
that. I know that here in this country the Department right now
is looking at this provision to see if it needs to be modified
and what wording they could put out to the police on how to
enforce it because I will give you a very ironic situation.
This particular gentleman has been driving 14 years, and the
test was given to him in New York in Spanish, so you can be
tested in another language but then you can be fined for not
being fluent in the language that you were not tested in.
I am not suggesting that the answer is that you should
never have given him a license, and he was willing to take a
test. He said I know the signs and I know what they say. I just
do not feel that comfortable with the police officer in a
language other than Spanish.
Just a thought because I suspect that somewhere along the
line in view of some of the things that are happening in this
country over the issue of language, added to safety will be
this issue, and I suspect that some people--and in fact Mr.
Pastor and I may have just committed a sin by bringing it out
because someone will catch onto it and they may begin to make
it a part of the safety package.
Mr. Wytkind. We believe that any driver who enters the
United States should be given a fair set of rules and should be
told up front what the expectations are. There is that aspect
of what you are raising here which is that you are asking
drivers from the U.S. and Mexico to cross into each other's
country, but there is no assurance of a system that you have
any confidence in that the worker behind the wheel is going to
be treated fairly and is going to be prepared for the
requirements that he is supposed to fulfill when he or she
enters the other country. There are a lot of issues to sort
out. That is probably one of a hundred that needs to be
understood.
Mr. Serrano. Thank you.
Mr. Wolf. Thank you.
I will have a number of questions for the record. I do want
to just cover a couple of other points, though, and I agree
with what Mr. Tiahrt said. When it is your family member, your
mother or father or husband or wife, the tragedy strikes close
to your heart. I have five children and we have a gravel
driveway, and I remember at nighttime just waiting to hear the
kids on the gravel driveway knowing that they are fine. I think
your point that you made with regard to the airlines is a very
good point. If you put this into airline crashes, as Mr. Mead
did, it is one every 2 weeks. I think sometimes it doesn't
trigger in our minds because one fatality will happen in Maine
and one will happen in Virginia, and so it is scattered. But if
it was all together, we all know the response that the National
Transportation Safety Board made on the ValuJet and the FAA
made on the ValuJet, as they should have and that was very
appropriate. So I think Mr. Tiahrt is right, if it comes into
your family, it is the pain and agony and suffering and so we
think of that in terms of the value. The good Lord made each
and every individual, so that is why it is important we work on
that record, to get it down to seek a zero fatality, knowing
that the degree of difficulty to reach it would be very tough,
but that should be the goal.
comprehensive truck crash study
Mr. Edwards, I would hope that the committee would be able
to fund your idea. Who would do that, would NHTSA do it? Who
would do that study?
Mr. Edwards. I would propose that the National Academy of
Sciences Transportation Research Board be charged with
designing the study, and I would propose that NHTSA in
cooperation with FHWA carry it out. NHTSA has the accident
field investigation capability in place to do it. They just
currently don't focus on trucks.
Mr. Wolf. Why don't you work with the committee and call
for that study to take place. If you can give us some thoughts
of anything that would go into the study, we would be glad to
have your help.
hours-of-service reform
Mr. McCormick, you do agree the fatality rate has not
leveled off. Why do you think, is it the hours of service? Is
it the fatigue?
Mr. McCormick. Mr. Chairman, everything that you have
identified has been right on target. The Office of Motor
Carriers has been very slow to act on congressionally mandated
rulemakings. Hours of service reform, it is over 60 years since
hours of service reform. The Department is nearly 2 years late
on that rulemaking. Hours of service reform is the key issue
when it comes to the issue of fatigue.
Enforcement resources are a huge issue. So we agree that
you have the appropriate goal, which is to reduce the number of
deaths.
Mr. Wolf. There was apparently no disagreement, and correct
me if I am wrong, that OMC has not done the job? Does anyone
take issue with that?
Mr. Wytkind. I might just comment. The issue of reforming
the hours of service regulations we are very supportive of, but
what we strongly disagree on is what the reform should be.
Mr. Wolf. I understand that.
Mr. Wytkind. We agree with that notion, but I understand
that on the other side of this debate there are others who want
to free up drivers to drive more hours and that is really not
the solution to our problem. We are deeply concerned by the
lack of whatever necessary reforms that we can work out that
are needed, but we are concerned about some proposals that
would not strengthen hours of service but would weaken them.
Mr. Wolf. That is a separate important issue. It is equally
important as the locale. Where do we put this. But my sense is
no one and even you did not disagree with the statement that
OMC is not doing the job that it should have been doing. That
is the basic premise.
The second question, and I think it is obvious what your
answer was going to be but I think you covered it in your
testimony, Ms. Stone.
state inspections
Mr. Eubanks, you testified total number of inspections done
on the eight States have level one inspections at 50 percent or
more. That is more than just walking around as the trooper told
us. What are the eight States?
Mr. Eubanks. I don't remember exactly that testimony.
Mr. Wolf. It is in your testimony.
Mr. Eubanks. Oh, I don't know which States right offhand
but we can certainly supply that information to you.
Mr. Wolf. I would appreciate that.
[The information follows:]
Nine states currently conducted at least 50 percent or more
Level 1 inspections. They are California, Colorado,
Connecticut, Idaho, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, West
Virginia, and Wyoming.
placement of office of motor carriers
Mr. Wolf. Mr. O'Neill, movement of Office of Motor
Carriers, to where? Just because we came up last year with
NHTSA, I tend to think that is a good idea. Where do you think,
it should be placed?
Mr. O'Neill. Certainly over the years NHTSA has been a much
more effective agency and a much more effective regulatory
agency than the Office of Motor Carrier Safety. Just to give
you an example, for many years the Office of Motor Carrier
Safety allowed truckers to disconnect their front brakes
despite the fact that years earlier NHTSA had shown the
importance of front brakes on tractors and required them on all
new tractors, so we have had major disconnects between the
vehicle sides of NHTSA and the Office of Motor Carrier Safety
in the past.
At a minimum I think the regulation of the vehicles in use
could be greatly improved for commercial vehicles if it was
moved to NHTSA as opposed to the large number of field
inspections and field staff. I am not sure if that is best in
NHTSA or somewhere else. But certainly it makes no sense to
have NHTSA writing rules for new trucks and a different agency
writing different and sometimes conflicting rules for trucks in
use.
hot line
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Spencer, we will ask the next panel about the
hot line and ask that it can be manned by a person who can
interact and find out where you are and what the problem is,
and so I do think that it would make sense to have more than a
recording, to have a person there. It is probably not a bad
idea for anyone to be able to call in if they see something. If
you are here you will hear the answer, and if not we will let
you know.
On the border, and my sense is after this hearing, if the
administration allows trucks to come across the border from
Mexico under the current circumstances, there would be
basically a scandal in the country. My sense is that issue
certainly will not raise its head this year and maybe not for
several years to come. There is no way that they could ever get
the inspection up and running in time by the end of this year.
So my sense is that that is probably not going to happen.
Mr. Wytkind. Mr. Chairman, one point. As you know, there is
a third year just passed by after the administration was under
NAFTA supposed to begin processing the applications for foreign
carriers to do business in the U.S. I believe at this date
since you have not even seen the incremental phase in after 3
years, in the year 2000 there is no way that a case could be
made to open the border. Under NAFTA it would be in the entire
48 States.
safety oversight
Mr. Wolf. The thought of those trucks coming to Virginia
and New York and Minnesota and places like that without any
inspection system in place, I completely agree with you.
The last comment, and I know that there are witnesses from
the administration, you mentioned the Secretary has put
together a blue ribbon panel, but the Department has really not
met its responsibility.
It took an investigation by the inspector general to move
out the management at OMC. We were contacting the Department
about this issues because employees from OMC were coming and
saying this is what is going on, and we didn't get any
response. It was like nothing was happening, and so I think the
Department carries a greater responsibility here than maybe
they even realize.
Also the Secretary, who I think is a fine person, was the
former administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. He
has been there and he has seen this thing, so I think it is
more of a responsibility for the Department and more of a
responsibility for Secretary Slater. The rates in Arkansas are
not good. If you look at the map of Arkansas, the accidents
were something in the range of 104 deaths; and in California it
was 425 or 435. I don't have the exact figure, we will put it
in the record. And California has 52 congressional districts
and Arkansas has four--California had 369 fatalities and
Arkansas had 113 in 1997.
So if you look at the figures, four congressional districts
in Arkansas versus 52 in California, I think there is even a
greater burden, and I am hoping that the Department will come
forward and come out with some very forward looking, very
aggressive programs because if this Congress doesn't deal with
the issue, clearly more people will die in the following years
if the General Accounting Office figures are accurate.
So I think the Department has to come forward very, very
aggressively to participate in this to make it happen. I think
Secretary Slater will because I know he is interested in this
and I know safety is a priority, but there is a great
responsibility for the Department to participate in this to
make sure that when we adjourn at the end of this year, whether
it be in October or November or December, this is in place
because when this is in place there will be a greater
opportunity for the other things to fall in place. The hours of
service, the fatigue issue, and the rest stop issue. I am going
to write the Virginia state police to find out what are other
States doing because I want the roads in the entire country to
be safe, but also in my own State.
Hopefully the Department and everybody will come together
and they will say there was a major substantive change that
saved lives and made things better.
There will be questions for the record, but thank you very
much for your testimony.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Panel IV Witnesses
Mr. Wolf. The last panel with General Wykle, Administrator
of the Federal Highway Administration, Dr. Ricardo Martinez,
Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, and Charles Hunnicutt, Assistant Secretary for
Aviation and International Affairs of the Office of the
Secretary, General Wykle, why don't you begin.
GENERAL KENNETH WYKLE, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL HIGHWAY
ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Opening Remarks
Mr. Wykle. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the critical issue
of motor carrier and highway safety. As you have noted, with me
today is Administrator Martinez and Charles Hunnicutt as the
Assistant Secretary for Aviation and International Affairs, and
I appreciate the fact that the full statement will be recorded
in the record.
safety: the top priority
Safety is the top priority for the Department of
Transportation. The safety of this Nation's transportation
system is critical to all of us.
the motor carrier safety challenge
Mr. Chairman, we wish to thank you and the subcommittee for
focusing attention on motor carrier safety. The human toll of
transportation crashes is devastating, as we have heard today
from the families of the victims. FHWA is committed to reducing
this toll. The motor carrier industry has grown dramatically in
recent years and, as has been noted, there are more than
450,000 business entities, over 6 million commercial drivers,
some 7 million commercial vehicles traveling almost 200 billion
miles per year on the Nation's highway.
We have kept pace with this and have substantially cut the
fatality rate per million truck miles traveled but that is not
enough. While the fatality rate has dropped, the actual number
of annual truck-related fatalities has remained around 5,000,
plus or minus 10 percent, since 1969 and the large truck crash
fatality rate has remained constant in the past few years.
These numbers are unacceptably high. As a Nation we must break
through this 5,000 fatality barrier and continue then on to
fewer and fewer fatalities on the Nation's highways.
comprehensive approach
To reduce the number of truck involved crashes we must
address the driver, the vehicle, the roadway environment and,
as Mr. Hall pointed out, leverage technology. We must do this
in partnership, working as one Department of Transportation
with the States and local governments and the private sector.
New technologies and tougher enforcement offer the greatest
potential for reducing fatalities.
the safe driver
First the driver. FHWA uses education, training, outreach
measures, combined with safety regulations to enhance driver
safety. The Commercial Diver's Lcense, CDL program, provides
uniform standards for the State to issue CDLs to drivers. The
commercial driver's license information system, CDLIS, enables
the Federal Highway Administration and its state partners to
share up-to-date information. The CDL and CDLIS make it easier
for Federal and state officials to remove unqualified truck
drivers from the roadway. The Federal Highway Administration
requires motor carriers to test and assure that drivers do not
operate vehicles under the influence of alcohol and drugs. And,
to comment on an earlier question, less than 1 percent of those
vehicles involved in fatal crashes involve drivers who are on
drugs. About 1 percent of those in fatal crashes have a BAC
equal to or greater than 0.1. So a very small percentage are
using drugs or alcohol who are involved in these crashes.
Our regulations limit hours of driver service, and we have
more than 25 completed, ongoing or planned research and
technology projects focused on monitoring and counteracting
driver fatigue. The most promising projects involve the use of
intelligent vehicle initiatives, on board safety diagnostic
devices to monitor driver alertness. Mr. Hall commented on
this. We are exploring the use of the global positioning system
technology by motor carriers to replace the paper logbooks.
FHWA is continuing safety education initiatives to teach all
drivers how to safely share the road with large trucks.
safe vehicles
In the area of safe vehicles, FHWA and our partners are
working to ensure commercial motor vehicles are inspected and
maintained in safe operating condition. We have required some
older vehicles to be retrofitted to improve safety. We will
soon require conspicuity treatment for trucks and trailers to
enhance their visibility.
In fiscal year 1999 we distributed, with the support of
Congress, $90 million in motor carrier safety assistance
program, MCSAP, funds for the states. About 80 percent of these
funds support the salaries of state safety inspectors who
conduct more than 2 million roadside vehicle inspections each
year. Each year FHWA trains approximately 100 state employees
to conduct compliance reviews, 1,000 state motor carrier
enforcement personnel to perform commercial motor vehicle
inspections, and 500 state MCSAP officers to conduct motor
coach inspections. The Federal Government funds 33,000 bus
inspections a year. FHWA has been working closely with the NTSB
and New Jersey on the recent bus crashes in that state.
safe roadway environment
In the area of roadway environment, FHWA ensures that we
construct highways and bridges that are safe ``by design''. The
best example is the interstate system with many features
designed for commercial motor vehicles. These features include
roadway, bridge and interchange dimensions, turning and
acceleration lanes, signals and signs that enhance safety. The
fatal crash rate for all vehicles on the interstate system is
about half the rate of all of the other roads.
technology to improve safe operations
In the area of technology to improve safety operations, the
global positioning system, as has been noted, crash avoidance
systems like lane following devices, adaptive cruise control,
lane merging and changing technologies, all have great
potential to improve the safety of vehicle operations.
Technology can improve enforcement and compliance. FHWA's
investigators use the safety status measurement system,
SAFESTAT, to target high safety risk motor carriers for safety
compliance.
We are expanding the performance and registration
information systems management program under which state
vehicle registration privileges can be suspended. The
commercial vehicle information system and network, CVISN,
integrates Federal, state and private information systems and
networks which support commercial vehicle safety, roadside
screening and credentialing. CVISN is being tested in Maryland
and Virginia and eight other pilot states.
future recommendations
As we look to the future, the inspector general's 1997
report reviewed the motor carrier safety program and made a
series of recommendations. We incorporated those
recommendations into our motor carrier safety legislative
proposals that the Congress enacted as part of TEA-21 which
provides a 30 percent increase in funds for state motor carrier
safety programs and gives us strong enforcement tools to shut
down companies with poor safety records, increase fines and for
the first time the authority to close them down the first time.
Previously there had to be a pattern of misconduct or gross
negligence. We have much stronger enforcement capability now
with TEA-21. We are committed to tougher enforcement and we
will aggressively use the new tools provided by TEA-21. We have
asked the Public Works Committee chairman, Norman Mineta, to
conduct a 90-day, independent review of the Department's motor
carrier safety programs. He will consult with others outside
the Department and consider whether our efforts are focused on
actions that will reduce fatalities and injuries. We look
forward to his report as we continue to improve the
effectiveness of our motor carrier safety programs.
Mr. Chairman, the Department is committed to working with
you and with the Congress, and everyone with the commitment to
saving lives, to reduce truck crashes. I will be glad to answer
questions later. At this time, Dr. Martinez.
RICARDO MARTINEZ, ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC
SAFETY ADMINISTRATION
Dr. Martinez. Thank you, General, and thank you, Mr.
Chairman. It is a pleasure to appear today before you and the
subcommittee members. As Administrator Wykle pointed out,
transportation safety is the Secretary's and the
Administration's top priority as the Nation enters the 21st
century. NHTSA's mission is to save lives, prevent injuries,
and reduce traffic-related crashes and their costs. Our mission
is very pure, very focused. It is to save lives, prevent
injuries, and reduce traffic-related crashes and their costs.
It was misstated earlier. That is our primary focus. We have a
pure safety mission.
Traffic-related deaths and injuries remain a national
public health problem. They kill almost 42,000 people a year
and injure another 3.8 million. The annual economic cost to
society exceeds $150 billion, and the social costs are
incalculable. Vehicle occupants accounted for 85 percent of
traffic fatalities in 1997, with the remaining 15 percent being
pedestrians, cyclists, and other non-occupants. Large trucks
were involved in crashes, 13 percent of all fatalities reported
in 1997.
haddon matrix on human and vehicle environment
The Haddon matrix is the model for our approach and program
design, developed by the first Administrator, who was also a
physician, William Haddon.
With a matrix, we expand the focus on the human and vehicle
environment to three phases of opportunities. They are
precrash, crash, and after the crash. Each cell of the matrix
has unique opportunities to prevent the crash, to minimize
injuries should a crash occur, and to minimize the seriousness
of the injury once it does occur, which is why we do EMS.
the four e's as countermeasures
Our strategic approach emphasizes the four E's as
countermeasures: Education and information, engineering and
technology, enforcement and regulation, and economic
incentives. We agree there is no magic bullet. We think that
you have to have a comprehensive plan to attack in all of the
ways that you can.
nhtsa truck safety initiatives
Mr. Chairman, the issue of truck safety in the United
States is an important one for the agency. Our strategic plan,
which was updated in 1998 with the aid of FHWA and the U.S.
traffic safety community, identified the size and nature of
truck safety problems. It also addressed a number of critical
initiatives NHTSA is implementing to improve truck safety. Many
of these are planned in concert with FHWA's Office of Motor
Carriers and the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration. Our safety programs include vehicle driver and
environmental issues. Our NHTSA vehicle issues address precrash
and crash issues, such as automatic braking systems on trucks
and trailers, research on new electronic braking systems,
rollover prevention, conspicuity treatments, and truck
underride guards.
The National Advanced Driving Simulator will allow better
research of human factors issues related to truck safety. We
have a truck body for that purpose. The agency's strong
enforcement programs ensure that safety benefits required by
Federal safety standards are realized in all new trucks. Our
defect investigation and recall programs help assure the safety
of the in-service vehicle fleet, and while Mr. Pastor asked
whether we kicked the tires, we rarely do, but we do crash the
entire vehicle, and we pull them off the road if they are bad.
NTHSA's initiatives include research on driver fatigue,
driver workload, and ITS (intelligent transportation systems)
human factors solutions to safe operator performance. We also
have major behavior modification programs dedicated to
aggressive driving, speeding, seat belt use, and impaired
driving, which affect all drivers on the road--passenger cars,
and trucks.
Our national driver register program also complements
FHWA's CDLIS licensing program, and our environmental programs
include assuring that post crash medical care is available in
coordination with rail grade crossing initiatives and design of
roadside hardware, as it relates to vehicle design.
Conclusion
Mr. Chairman, we are proud of our record. We now have the
lowest fatality rate in history, the lowest percentage of
alcohol-related crashes, and the highest seat belt use. We
believe the best is yet to come through our partnerships with
others who can help us reduce the terrible toll on highways. We
stand ready to help, and the Department is committed to
improving safety. Thank you.
[The Haddon matrix and joint statement of General Wykle and
Dr. Martinez follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
CHARLES HUNNICUTT, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR AVIATION AND
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF TRANSPORTATION
Mr. Wolf. Thank you. Mr. Hunnicutt.
Mr. Hunnicutt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee, for inviting me to testify before you about the
Department's efforts to implement the North American Free Trade
Agreement's land transportation access liberalization
provisions. I would like to speak this afternoon about the
course the Department has been pursuing with respect to
implementation of the NAFTA, where we are in achieving our
goals, and what our expectations are for the future.
It is useful to remember why we included the transportation
provisions in the NAFTA. Currently, truck trailers and usually
power units as well, are exchanged in a narrow border zone.
Allowing international freight hauling in the full border
states will reduce congestion, improve environmental quality,
increase efficiency, reduce costs, assure full and continuous
coverage for bodily injury and property damage liability
(insurance) and expand competition. This will benefit U.S.
trucking firms but also all factories and stores that will have
better supply chains on which to rely. It is also worth noting
that the ability to travel into the border states without
changing equipment creates an incentive that is now lacking to
upgrade equipment. This change in itself will enhance safety
and reliability while reducing the problems created by an older
short haul fleet operating at the border.
With respect to the course the Department has pursued, two
principles have guided our efforts for more than 3 years and
will continue to guide our actions as we move ahead with
implementation. First is the Department's commitment to
transportation safety. It was because of safety concerns that
on December 18, 1995, former Secretary Federico Pena announced
a delay in the lifting of restrictions on Mexican trucking
operations that would have allowed extended operations into the
southern border states. Since then, DOT has devoted substantial
resources to addressing the safety issues associated with NAFTA
implementation respecting trucks and buses.
I want to emphasize today what we have said in other
forums. Under NAFTA there will be no diminution of existing
safety requirements for any vehicle or driver, foreign or
domestic, operating in the United States. The second guiding
principle is this administration's commitment to fulfilling our
obligation under the agreement to lift restrictions on Mexican
operators in stages once safety concerns have been addressed.
Where are we in attaining our goals? Our efforts with
regard to Mexico have proceeded in four major areas: One,
standards compatibility among the NAFTA countries; two,
enhancement of Federal enforcement programs, which I will
address with regard particularly to the IG report; three,
enhancement of state enforcement programs; and four,
strengthening Mexico's regulatory and enforcement programs.
I believe we have made substantial progress in each of
these areas. Notwithstanding this progress, we were pleased
recently to receive the very constructive report of our
Inspector General's office on the Department's border
enforcement activities. This report focused our attention on
additional improvements that are needed in our joint Federal-
state border inspection program. It also made other useful
recommendations that, when implemented, will assure that
NAFTA's transport obligations will be met in a fashion that
provides a credible enforcement presence and maintains a high
level of public confidence in the safety of all commercial
vehicles conducting cross border operations.
The Inspector General's report offered six recommendations
for additional actions the Department could take that would
improve the regulatory enforcement and compliance of motor
carriers engaged in cross-border operations. These
recommendations include provision of additional resources for
vehicle inspections, improved identification of Mexican
vehicles traveling outside the commercial zones, and
appointment of a department coordinator for NAFTA-related motor
carrier activities. I am happy to report that the Department
has formally responded to the Inspector General's office that
we will implement or already have implemented each of the
recommendations. All of these actions will be taken prior to
our implementation of NAFTA's access provisions.
Finally, I would like to say a few words about what the
future holds. Since December of 1995, the Department has been
engaged in more or less nonstop discussions with our Mexican
colleagues to address concerns regarding implementation of
NAFTA's transport provisions.
Those discussions have always been cooperative, and as the
results that I mention in my prepared text indicate, they have
been constructive as well. While Mexico's administration would
have clearly preferred to have seen NAFTA's provisions
implemented on schedule, they have consistently expressed a
desire to work with the Department to improve the safety and
efficiency of commercial truck and bus operations not only in
cross-border service but throughout Mexico as well. It has been
this cooperative attitude by Mexico and our determination not
to proceed with implementation until our concerns were
addressed that has provided the basis for significant progress
I outlined earlier in my remarks.
I would also like to make note of the significant help that
the Department has received to improve our border compliance
and enforcement program through Congress's action in passing
TEA-21. As you know, under the provisions of that legislation
relating to border related programs, monies are dedicated for
border infrastructure improvements, including inspection
facilities. In addition, up to 5 percent of the monies
dedicated to MCSAP, which provides Federal monies directly to
state law enforcement agencies for the purpose of enforcing the
Federal code of motor carrier safety regulations, can be
directed to our efforts to enhance safety compliance in the
border states. This will prove to be an important weapon in our
efforts to improve and maintain cross border highway safety.
In light of this progress we are now at a point that I
believe could fairly be described as final negotiations leading
to lifting cross-border restrictions. In negotiations as
recently as this month both parties are in agreement as to
issues that require additional attention. We are in the process
now of fixing timeframes for the accomplishment of this work.
If our work proceeds as we anticipate, I am confident that we
may be able to move toward processing new applications for
operating authority from Mexican carriers within a reasonable
period of time. We will be working with Mexico and with the
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on this issue as the
implementation process proceeds.
From the point of view of the negotiator, I do believe that
it should be possible for this process to begin within a
reasonable period of time. Through this process we will have
used the provisions of the agreement to assure that U.S.
obligations are undertaken responsibly and in a fashion
consistent with the high expectations of the administration,
the Congress and the American public for safety on our
highways. I would like to emphasize, however, one point of
process. Even with the very good progress we have made on
safety issues with the government of Mexico, we are structuring
our implementation process such that each application from a
Mexican motor carrier will be evaluated on its individual
merits. Only those carriers receiving approval will be
permitted to operate beyond the commercial zones; and no
application will be approved if both the carrier and the
Mexican Department of Transport have not provided the necessary
information and functional support that would allow us to make
a favorable determination about the application.
I would like to conclude my remarks this afternoon with a
brief comment on our efforts to secure a more liberal operating
environment in Mexico for our express package delivery
industry. As you know, we have been negotiating with Mexico for
some time on this issue. While progress has been slow, we
continue to have a commitment from the Mexican transportation
secretary to come to a resolution that will be satisfactory to
both parties. We will continue to press this matter with Mexico
and believe, with a will to solve it and a bit of creative
thinking that a mutually beneficial solution can be found. Our
efforts and those of the Mexican transportation department are
focused in that direction.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hunnicutt follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
nafta issues
Mr. Wolf. Mr. Serrano.
Mr. Serrano. Your last comment was the first question that
I wanted to ask you. You painted a pretty glowing picture of
the relationship with Mexico on this issue and I wondered if
there were any items not in agreement, outstanding items, which
could present a problem down the road?
Mr. Hunnicutt. Yes, there are issues beyond ensuring our
express delivery rights under the NAFTA agreement. In terms of
specifics as to the safety regulations that will be implemented
in Mexico, certification of drug testing laboratories, we have
a great deal of work to do in a lot of areas. What I would like
to communicate is that a lot of progress has been made and that
progress will continue to be made as we work together. I do not
mean to imply that because we are at the final stages that we
have reached an agreement. It means that we have reached the
final stages where we can see the remaining activities that
have to be categorized and time frames set for implementation
of changes on the Mexican side of the border and our side of
the border as we implement the recommendations in the Inspector
General's report.
Mr. Serrano. It would seem to us here in Congress and
certainly the way that our media would present it that we would
have a lot of concerns about things that may take place in
Mexico and the way that they do business or their lack of
conducting business. Do you have any information as to--or
could you share with us any information as to issues they
presented where they think we are not doing what we should be
doing or we are not as good as they are in that department? Has
it come this way because the sense around here is that we have
to make them change a lot of their behavior in order to make
all of NAFTA, not just this part work. Are there some things
over there that they are saying that we don't do to the benefit
of people?
Mr. Hunnicutt. There are some and in their intercity bus
passenger system, they have a very advanced medical safety and
security inspection program for drivers. They did not on the
truck side.
In reality, in the land transportation subcommittee in the
NAFTA as we have sought to harmonize standards, it has really
been U.S. and Canadian standards which have been more developed
and more advanced. It has been us asking the Mexicans to move
to our standards.
In most instances we find that the government officials
responsible for motor carrier safety in Mexico understand the
issue and want to move for their own purposes for motor carrier
safety in Mexico. Of course from our point of view we are
really only concerned that the system work particularly well
for those carriers who would apply for operating authority in
the United States or to cross the United States to Canada,
which is also included in the NAFTA.
Mr. Serrano. Mr. Hunnicutt, I would not be honest with you
if I told you that I remember everything that the NAFTA bill
said. Some of us never got passed the labor and the
environmental issues. But these issues that you are discussing
with us today, this set of issues that you discuss, were they
specifically set out in the agreement or were they set aside
later for rulemaking and agreements?
Mr. Hunnicutt. They set out as absolute matters of right in
the agreement and in the implementing legislation in the United
States, but do remember that despite the fact that the rights
are set out, all three NAFTA countries continue to maintain the
right to prevent any diminution of safety in the operation of
their transportation system. So despite that Mexico has a right
for us to process these applications for their motor carriers
in the United States, we have a right to refuse to do that
until we are satisfied that there is no diminution of safety.
So they are competing obligations.
Mr. Wolf. I want to tell you that your statement was quite
frightening, Mr. Hunnicutt, because I was under the impression
that there would be no way that they would permit this to go
ahead. What is a reasonable time? You say within a reasonable
time. Define reasonable for me.
Mr. Hunnicutt. I am not trying to filibuster. I know that
there is a lot of interest in these issues. My testimony
changed somewhat, and one of the reasons that I didn't give a
specific time as I gave you my oral presentation was the
feeling was as negotiator, it is not always the best thing to
set time frames because you are still dealing with a foreign
government and you don't want them to know what you think the
time frame is. On the other hand, the technical issues that
need to be resolved in terms of the completion of the data
transfer, we have to run some tests. The Mexicans now have
completed driver information systems which are computerized and
compatible with our systems. They have carrier data systems
which are computerized and ready to be tested although not
completed yet. So the question is looking at the amount of time
that it would take to complete and test those systems.
Mr. Wolf. You said that you had implemented the IG's
report.
Mr. Hunnicutt. That we have or will.
Mr. Wolf. One of them was more inspectors. How much more
money have you asked for inspectors?
Mr. Hunnicutt. Most of the inspectors that the budget folks
are looking at, we think we can provide in this fiscal year out
of existing monies and we are also going back to talk to the
States.
Mr. Wolf. They talk about El Paso. Mr. Mead, how many were
in El Paso?
Mr. Mead. One.
Mr. Wolf. One. That is just not appropriate. I don't want
to spend too much time on this issue. Let me just ask you out
of courtesy, could you inform us and keep us up to date on the
negotiations and how well you are moving ahead. I would like to
hold a hearing, whether it be in December or at another time,
to look into this, to give the Congress an opportunity to look
into this before you move ahead. Could you give us a commitment
that you will come back to the committee before there is
anything signed?
Mr. Hunnicutt. We will keep you briefed on the status as we
move forward.
Mr. Wolf. Because the record of not only this
administration but previous Republican administrations have not
been very good with regard to drugs coming out of Mexico. We
have heard the stories of how everything is working out and
everything is fine but yet the supply is still coming across
the border and the effectiveness has been less than good. So
when you say very glowingly here, I am very suspicious.
Mr. Hunnicutt. I understand. One of the reasons that
Customs, INS and the drug enforcement agencies are interested
in our reaching a solution to this problem is the relieving of
the congestion and the status of the current border situation,
which would allow greater control for the other enforcement
agencies. So I think that is an important element here of why
we do want to solve the border problem.
Mr. Wolf. Does Mexico have a driver's hours of service?
Mr. Hunnicutt. Yes. Mexico is adopting the Canadian and
U.S. logbook. They will have their own hours of service
regulations which will be slightly different than ours, but the
logbook will be the North American standard logbook which
allows U.S. inspectors to ensure that they have met the
obligations once they are in the U.S.
Mr. Wolf. So that is not done yet?
Mr. Hunnicutt. Not officially adopted.
Mr. Wolf. What about vehicle maintenance standards?
Mr. Hunnicutt. They have the CVSA standards.
Mr. Wolf. The IG report says they do not.
Mr. Hunnicutt. The State of Arizona has trained a lot of
the CVSA inspectors as part of their contribution to the
process.
Mr. Wolf. The IG report says they do not. They are wrong?
Mr. Hunnicutt. I think they are wrong, actually.
Mr. Wolf. If you could clear that up for the record.
Mr. Mead. We will.
[The information follows:]
Mexico agreed to use CVSA standards, but as of December
1998, there was neither evidence an inspection program was in
place nor an indication when standards would be implemented.
Mr. Wolf. Does Mexico have a safety rating system?
Mr. Hunnicutt. It is in the same regulations that are
prepared and not yet. What they have is an up or down system
for their carriers where they can take their operating
authority away.
Mr. Wolf. So they do not as of yet?
Mr. Hunnicutt. They have a pass-fail rating system.
Mr. Wolf. If you can let the committee know before you do
it, I would appreciate it.
General Wykle, there was a comment made by somebody in the
Federal Highway Administration, and I am not out to hurt
anybody, but this is the comment. They said that the Office of
Motor Carriers, and I will be glad to share with you privately,
they said the Office of Motor Carriers is doing a good job. It
has in place an effective enforcement program and that what OMC
should be doing is spending more of its resources on a public
relations campaign.
Do you share that attitude?
Mr. Wykle. Sir, we have a lot of great employees within the
agency that are doing good work and so we have made progress in
terms of reducing the fatality rate, but certainly we have a
lot more that we can do. We want to reduce the actual number of
fatalities and to me that is a lot more than a PR campaign.
compliance reviews
Mr. Wolf. The compliance review is an essential component
of both Federal and state commercial vehicle safety programs.
The number of compliance reviews conducted has declined by
roughly 50 percent since fiscal year 1995. Let me stipulate
that you were not there then.
Nr. Wykle. Right.
Mr. Wolf. You have a distinguished career in the military
and are a gentleman and so I am not attributing this decline to
you. I have had that conversation with you privately, but I
want the record to show that.
They have declined by 50 percent since fiscal year 1995.
What will the Department do to further encourage the states to
conduct compliance reviews seeing that they have dropped so
dramatically?
Mr. Wykle. As we heard the IG say and also the GAO, in
their 1997 reports they indicated at that time that the agency
did not have a good system for determining which carriers to go
conduct reviews on, so we initiated after that or those reports
a performance based system to focus on those carriers that had
the highest risk in terms of being prone to crashes. And that
really looks at their past record. It looks at the licensing of
their drivers. It looks at the registration of their vehicles
and it looks at their past compliance history.
So when you look in that great level of detail, it takes
more time to do compliance reviews because they are more
thorough in terms of doing that. We actually go in and look at
their drug and alcohol testing results, do an analysis of their
crashes and conducting the 50 state license check, as was
mentioned earlier, to ensure that they don't have multiple
licenses. So when you do that it takes more time. So we are
working to correct the highest risk carriers.
I heard the various comments in terms of the number of
compliance reviews that have been done, and I admit that they
have gone down or are going down, but there are a lot of
different ways to slice that data.
If you look at it as the IG said in terms of two compliance
reviews per inspector per month, that is one way. If you look
at the number being conducted throughout the states, a little
bit over 6,000 per year, then that works out to one in each
state every other day so that gives you a little different
picture because sometimes there are two or three people working
on a review so the output per individual is not the same as
when you look at it cumulative.
As I mentioned in my oral statement, we are going to put
more emphasis on the enforcement side. We need to put more
emphasis there, but recognizing that as we do them it takes
more time than it has in the past because of the focused effort
and the thoroughness of those reviews.
PENALTY ASSESSMENTS
Mr. Wolf. The IG testified that on 12 percent of the
trucking violations found result in penalty assessments and
settlements amount to 45 percent of the dollar amounts
assessed. Why have the civil penalty assessments and
settlements decreased in recent years?
Mr. Wykle. As you go in and find a carrier out of
compliance, before you assess a penalty you give them an
opportunity to make corrections. If they make corrections, then
a penalty is not assessed. So when you use the IG's data and
you look at the total number of carriers that were found out of
compliance versus the penalties, that is the wrong measure
because many of them may have corrected data so you are using
the wrong number in terms of computing the actual penalty
assessed.
Mr. Wolf. Several witnesses earlier today indicated the
lower the fine, the more likelihood that the company would just
consider it the cost of doing business. What are your comments
about that?
Mr. Wykle. Certainly that is a view and I won't deny that
view, but I would say to you, thanks to you and thanks to the
Congress and TEA-21, we can now levy much more severe penalties
than we could in the past. For the first time we could levy a
penalty up to $10,000. So we were limited in terms of the
amount in the past. Even today we are limited to the $10,000,
but we then have the capability of fully shutting them down
without showing a pattern.
Mr. Wolf. Have any been shut down?
Mr. Wykle. I can't give you an example.
[The information follows:]
In 1997, FHWA issued a total of 17 operations out-of-
service orders to carriers, and in 1998, 36 operations out-of-
service orders were issued. These numbers include shutdowns of
hazardous materials carriers, passenger carriers, and other
operations posing an imminent hazard. A draft proposed rule to
implement the new, TEA-21 operations out-of-service authority
for all unfit carriers is currently under review within the
Department.
INSPECTOR GENERAL SURVEY
Mr. Wolf. The Inspector General testified that 47 percent
of the OMC personnel surveyed rated OMC's enforcement program
as poor to fair.
Mr. Wykle. I am certainly not happy with those numbers and
that assessment in terms of the view of the people within the
agency. But I would say to you the IG could just as well have
said 53 percent thought it was good to excellent. If you look
at that data, it is pretty much a bell shaped curve in terms of
the data the IG looked at in the various five categories. It is
slightly skewed to the right, which is on the lower side, but
it is pretty close to the bell shaped curve. But having said
all of that, we want to do better and we will work to try to
change the attitude of the individuals in the organization, to
understand the importance of doing these reviews and doing them
in a quality manner.
LOBBYING ALLEGATIONS
Mr. Wolf. What actions did the Department take on the
lobbying activity with regard to the trucking association and
the staff at OMC?
Mr. Wykle. Let me say first of all, sir, I do not approve
of the action that was taken. It is not something that we in
any way support or encourage within the Department, and so I
have taken action right away to conduct a complete review of
that with the personnel people and the legal people to ensure
that the action they might take from a decision standpoint will
be supportable under scrutiny and appeal. We are about ready to
act on that. As you know, in the report that came back as part
of the IG submission through part of our organizational change,
two of the people involved are now in another position so I do
have----
Mr. Wolf. Was anybody fired?
Mr. Wykle. At this point that action has not been taken and
we haven't made a determination until we finish the legal and
personnel review.
Mr. Wolf. Will you keep us informed because the
determination will make a difference as to whether or not----
Mr. Wykle. Sure. Absolutely, I will do that. I will also
say to you, sir, I mentioned this to you a couple of weeks ago
when we worked together, I have already also had a session
where our lawyers briefed every senior executive within the
agency on the anti-lobbying bill and pointed out the
inappropriateness of that and what the appropriate action
should be. So I am educating the entire senior executive
service as well as reviewing the report itself.
ORGANIZATIONAL PLACEMENT OF OMC
Mr. Wolf. To both General Wykle and Dr. Martinez then, and
I am not going to put you in a spot, doctor, and ask you if you
favor moving this to NHTSA or anything like that, but if you
could both think about these questions. Wouldn't a combination
of NHTSA and OMC help improve the Federal-state relationship
and highway safety? Won't state officials have to deal with
fewer Federal officials? Wouldn't one-stop shopping for
technical assistance regarding grant administration be
facilitated instead of preparing two performance-based plans--
one for MCSAP and one for Section 4402? Couldn't state
officials be required to combine both state programs, meaning
wouldn't it be easier for the states? This has no bearing as to
whether you think it should be. We are not going to ask you
that but, I mean, is there some truth in that? Perhaps we will
let you go first, doctor.
Dr. Martinez. With regards to the regional offices, we
actually have regional teams that are working together with
motor carriers. One of the reasons why there has been greater
focus on behavioral human factors issues and programs is that
we found ourselves going out to the same people but different
agencies. So we began to work more closely that way. We have
two states, I believe, which have pilot projects combining the
MCSAP and Section 4402 program plans.
STATES WITH MCSAP AND SECTION 402 PROGRAMS
Mr. Wolf. What other states?
Dr. Martinez. I don't know off the top of my head. I really
don't.
Mr. Wolf. You'll submit it for the record?
Dr. Martinez. Yes.
[The information follows:]
The two states which are pilot testing a combined MCSAP/
Section 402 plan for fiscal year 2000 are Illinois and
Missouri.
Mr. Wolf. General.
Dr. Martinez. I wasn't finished but----
COMPARISON OF NHTSA AND OMC FUNCTIONS
Mr. Wolf. Go ahead.
Dr. Martinez. In that regard, there are similar functions
and similar issues that we are doing. Do you want me to just
talk about those, or were you asking about the overall?
Mr. Wolf. We are down to about 10 minutes. Why don't you
develop this for the record. We have a lot of other questions.
Dr. Martinez. I would just say there are areas where we
have similar functions, and there are areas where we have
different functions, and you have to look closely to be able to
assess this situation.
Mr. Wolf. If you could give the committee an indication
where they are similar or where they are different to see if
they could mix or not. General, maybe can you do the same
thing.
Mr. Wykle. Sure. We will certainly do that and provide
information to you, and we are working closely together in
several areas, as Ric mentioned. I mean, in the same
communities we have worked as a team in that and our
restructuring effort. I have committed, and they are already on
board, one Federal highway liaison person to every NHTSA
regional office because, as I indicated in my oral statement,
safety by design in terms of our infrastructure is important so
what Ric does may impact on the physical infrastructure or what
we do on a physical infrastructure may impact on something he
wants to do. So we are working together. We have gotten very
glowing comments back in terms of that relationship.
Dr. Martinez. I believe five of those who volunteered to
start working with us are from the office of motor carriers, so
there are some opportunities there.
Mr. Wolf. We will just submit the other questions for the
record in lieu of the time. Otherwise, you would have to come
back and it would go on and on and on.
[The information follows:]
Mr. Wolf. General Wykle, describe the similarities and
differences in the truck safety programs conducted by NHTSA and
FHWA (OMCHS).
[The information follows:]
Although the two agencies have separate statutory
responsibilities for safety activity, their programs to improve
truck safety are often conducted in a shared, coordinated
fashion. A number of their programs in fact directly complement
and support each other. In vehicle safety, NHTSA is responsible
for regulating manufacturers of heavy trucks, buses and
trailers, while OMCHS regulates the operation of commercial
motor vehicles. NHTSA's safety assurance office tests new
vehicles for compliance with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety
Standards, and conducts defects investigations and safety
recalls concerning commercial motor vehicles. FHWA's
enforcement program focuses on the operational safety of motor
carriers, drivers, and vehicles. NHTSA rulemaking activities
are coordinated with OMCHS.
NHTSA conducts truck research which supports the vehicle
regulatory agenda of both agencies. For example, NHTSA's
research on antilock braking systems (ABS) provided information
to support NHTSA's requirements for new vehicles and helped
OMCHS assess the feasibility of requiring retrofitting older
vehicles with ABS. NHTSA's conspicuity research was the basis
for OMCHS' retrofitting rulemaking on conspicuity. FHWA's
research on brake adjustment criteria provided the NHTSA with
useful information to evaluate its requirements for automatic
brake adjusters. OMCHS driver research program is used to
support regulatory initiatives concerning minimum standards for
commercial motor vehicle operators, such as hours of service
and licensing. NHTSA's driver research is used to support
regulatory initiatives concerning the design of new vehicles.
OMCHS administers the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance
Program (MCSAP) which provides funds to States for the
enforcement of commercial motor vehicle safety regulations.
NHTSA provides Section 402 highway safety grants to States to
implement effective programs to improve highway safety. FHWA
grant recipients are generally enforcement agencies, while
NHTSA's recipients are the Governors Highway Safety
Representatives.
NHTSA's crash databases cover all types of highway crashes,
OMCHS's databases focus on commercial motor vehicle crashes and
inspections.
OMCHS uses NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System
(FARS) to support rulemaking activity and obtain an overall
picture of fatalities and injuries involving commercial motor
vehicles. OMCHS maintains the Commercial Driver Licensing
Information System (CDLIS) that contains the driving records of
all Commercial Driver License (CDL) holders; NHTSA maintains
the National Driver Register (NDR) which contains State reports
on drivers whose privileges have been suspended or revoked. The
CDLIS is used to ensure that each CDL holder has only one
license and one driving record. The NDR is used to identify
problem drivers in need of improvement and drivers under
suspension and revocation.
Mr. Wolf. Dr. Martinez, describe the similarities and
differences in the truck safety programs conducted by NHTSA and
FHWA (OMCHS).
[The information follows:]
Although the two agencies have separate statutory
responsibilities for safety activity, their programs to improve
truck safety are often conducted in a shared, coordinated
fashion. A number of NHTSA's programs, in fact, directly
complement and support the functions of OMCHS. In vehicle
safety, NHTSA is responsible for regulating the safety
performance of new trucks, while OMCHS issues regulations
covering the in-service operating fleet. NHTSA has a separate
vehicle enforcement program, but it ensures improved safety of
both new and in-service trucks. NHTSA's enforcement office
tests new vehicles for compliance with Federal rules, and
conducts defect investigations and safety recalls affecting all
trucks in operation. FHWA's enforcement program focuses on the
operational safety of motor carriers. It concentrates on issues
such as driver hours of service and licensing, and the safe
operating condition of trucks on the road. Its field
enforcement responsibilities are much more extensive that
NHTSA's field-based enforcement programs. NHTSA's rulemaking
and enforcement affecting trucks are coordinated with OMCHS.
NHTSA conducts truck research, which supports the vehicle
regulatory agenda and advances safety performance of the entire
fleet in areas such as braking, on-board stability monitoring
(to prevent truck rollover), and collision avoidance
technology. Research results are shared with OMCHS and the
industry. NHTSA is also conducting research in direct support
of OMCHS regulation of carrier operations, for example, to
develop new systems that will provide information to truck
drivers about levels of fatigue and drowsiness. NHTSA augments
its national crash and injury data files to include truck
safety data needed by OMCHS, and crash data and analyses are
provided to OMCHS and the motor carrier industry.
NHTSA's highway safety activities address national issues
such as impaired drivers, aggressive driving, speed, and
occupant protection, and affect all facets of surface
transportation. A number of these (including speed management
and aggressive driving) have been collaborated with FHWA. NHTSA
has several programs, such as EMS and automatic crash
notification (ACN), which affect the overall roadway
environment (which falls under the aegis of FHWA). There are a
number of other areas where NHTSA's behavioral safety work
directly supports OMCHS, such as Share The Road public
education, educational and testing materials for truck driver
licensing, and the agency's National Driver Register which is
checked for license revocations, suspensions and serious
traffic offenses as a required part of state licensing of truck
drivers (which is complemented by the OMCHS Commercial Driver
Licensing Information System--CDLIS). Both NHTSA and OMCHS
manage separate processes for providing safety grants to
states. NHTSA provides Section 402 grants and oversees
incentive grants to improve alcohol safety, safety belt usage,
and state traffic data systems. OMCHS administers the MCSAP
grants to improve operational safety of trucks. Recently,
however, the two agencies have undertaken a demonstration that
coordinates Section 402 and MCSAP in two states, and plan to
evaluate the merger's effectiveness. Each agency conducts
regional operations, and these are increasingly coordinated to
embody an intermodal approach on issues of mutual concern, such
as occupant protection.
Mr. Wolf. I want to thank the three of you and all the
witnesses for, you know, coming and providing us good
information. Hopefully working together, at the end of this
Congress we could have a good chance to bring about safety.
Thank you very much.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
W I T N E S S E S
__________
Page
Edwards, Mark....................................................1, 260
Eubanks, Harry...................................................1, 354
Hall, Jim........................................................1, 173
Hunnicutt, Charles...............................................1, 537
Izer, Daphne..................................................... 1, 3
LaPointe, Sgt. Mike.............................................. 1, 51
Martinez, Ricardo................................................1, 466
McCormick, Walter................................................1, 290
Mead, Kenneth.................................................... 1, 83
O'Neill, Brian...................................................1, 375
Pierce, Bonnie................................................... 1, 43
Scheinberg, Phyllis..............................................1, 209
Spencer, Todd....................................................1, 386
Stone, Judy......................................................1, 316
Wykle, Kenneth...................................................1, 465
Wytkind, Edward..................................................1, 397
I N D E X
----------
Federal Highway Administration
[Does not include Surface Transportation Safety Hearing]
Page
Accident Fatality Rates.......................................... 1377
ADHS Program Allocations......................................... 1046
ADHS--Cost to Complete........................................... 1044
Administrative Expenses.......................................... 1100
Advanced Vehicle Technologies Program............................ 1113
Advisory Board................................................... 1178
Appalachian Development Highway System (ADHS).................... 1046
ADHS--Cost to Complete....................................... 1042
ADHS--Program Allocations.................................... 1044
Status of ADHS Funds......................................... 1059
Border Inspections............................................... 583
Bridge........................................................... 983
Central Artery................................................... 1343
Central Artery--Consultant Personnel............................. 1347
Central Artery--Cost Analysis.................................... 1344
Central Artery--Estimated Number of Consultant Staff............. 1348
Central Artery--Staffing Levels.................................. 1346
Clean Air Act Studies and Research............................... 1386
Commercial Driver's License Training Program..................... 580
Community/Federal Information Partnership Participation Program.. 1105
Comparison of NHTSA and OMC Functions............................ 561
Compliance Reviews............................................... 558
Comprehensive Approach........................................... 465
Construction Industry Unemployment Rates......................... 1379
Decline in Truck Crash Fatality Rate............................. 586
Deficient Bridges................................................ 1374
Demonstration Projects........................................... 1348
Demonstration Projects--Carry Over Funds......................... 1349
Demonstration Projects--ISTEA Demonstration Projects............. 1350
Demonstration Projects--Obligations/Obligation Limitation........ 1349
Demonstration Projects--Unobligated Balances/Appropriated
Projects....................................................... 1351
Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program........................ 1397
Discretionary Programs........................................... 981
Discretionary Program Project Benefits........................... 1007
Discretionary Program Recipients................................. 982
Discretionary Program Selection Criteria......................... 1004
Discretionary Programs--Post-Award Review........................ 1007
DOT Rail-Highway Grade Crossing.................................. 1149
Draft Road Map-Planning Research................................. 1173
Enforcement...................................................... 571
Environment...................................................... 1178
Environmental Research........................................... 1180
Environmental Research Program Accomplishments................... 1189
Estimated Transit Transfer....................................... 959
Excess Capacity Highway Construction Industry.................... 1379
Exempt Programs.................................................. 980
Federal-Aid Estimated Fiscal Year 200 Obligation Limitation...... 1364
Federal-Aid Funding for Operations............................... 1241
Federal-Aid Highway Construction Price Trends.................... 1377
Federal-Aid Highway Obligations.................................. 1352
Federal-Aid Highway Obligations by Program....................... 1354
Federal-Aid Highways--Local Matching Requirements................ 1062
Ferry Boat....................................................... 984
FHWA Hazardous Materials Team.................................... 579
FHWA Opening Remarks............................................. 465
FHWA Relationship with State Partners............................ 586
FHWA Resource Centers............................................ 953
Field Office Restructuring....................................... 951
Field Office Supervisor-To-Employee Ratio........................ 1091
Field Operations Staff Breakdown................................. 1091
FTE Levels....................................................... 1090
Future Recommendations........................................... 467
General Accounting Office Report--High Speed Rail Issues......... 1069
Global Warming................................................... 1396
Government Performance and Results Act........................... 1095
High Speed Rail Corridor Crossing Hazard Elimination............. 1009
Highway Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program............ 1011
Highway Research Program Planned Activities...................... 1132
Highway Trust Fund Balances in the Outyears...................... 1368
Highway Trust Fund Spending Versus Receipts Highway Account...... 1366
Information Systems Security Plan................................ 1075
Information Technology........................................... 1075
In-House Research Projects....................................... 1382
Inspector General Survey......................................... 559
Integrated Safety Information.................................... 1157
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Planning Activities..... 1220
Intelligent Vehicle Initiative (IVI) Program..................... 1217
Intelligent Vehicle Research..................................... 1217
Interactive Highway Safety Design Model......................1140, 1142
International Activities......................................... 1199
Intelligent Allocations.......................................... 1199
Intelligent Scanning Trips....................................... 1199
Interstate Maintenance........................................... 987
Interstate Maintenance Program................................... 1010
Interstate Pavement Conditions by State.......................... 1370
Investments in Transit........................................... 958
ISTEA Transit Obligations........................................ 959
Intelligent Transportation System (ITS):
ITS--Advances................................................ 1227
ITS--Advance National Systems and Standards Work............. 1306
ITS--Allocation of Research and Operational Funds............ 1223
ITS--Authorized Funds by TEA-21.............................. 1296
ITS--Comparison of FY 2000 Budget/FY 1998 Spending
Allocation/FY 1999 Spending................................ 1263
ITS--Consumer Preference..................................... 1222
ITS--Contracts............................................... 1290
ITS--Crash Avoidance Research--GWU, LUS and Univ. of AL...... 1295
ITS--Deployment in Rural Areas............................... 1236
ITS--Distribution of Funds for Research and Operational Test. 1236
ITS--Energy Savings.......................................... 1249
ITS--Environmental Benefits.................................. 1246
ITS--Estimated Allocation.................................... 1241
ITS--Expenditures on ITS Deployment.......................... 1240
ITS--Federally-Funded ITS Projects........................... 1334
ITS--FHWA's Tracking System.................................. 1242
ITS--Highway/Rail Grade Crossing Related Projects............ 1282
ITS--Incident Management..................................... 1262
ITS--Increase Funding for Evaluations........................ 1244
ITS--Inspector General's Audit--House Report 105-648......... 1303
ITS--Inter-Modal Freight Activities.......................... 1254
ITS--Investment Achievements................................. 1288
ITS--Investments............................................. 1249
ITS--Mainstreaming Activities................................ 1252
ITS--Management Improvement.................................. 1290
ITS--Market Demand........................................... 1221
ITS--Market/ITS User Acceptance Research..................... 1316
ITS--Model Deployment Initiative............................. 1256
ITS--National ITS Program Plan............................... 1239
ITS--Objectives/Safety....................................... 1229
ITS--Obligations for FY 1998................................. 1229
ITS--Obligations for FY 1999................................. 1230
ITS--Operational Tests or Earmarked Deployment Projects...... 1296
ITS--Performance Criteria and Safety Evaluations............. 1293
ITS--Personnel Assigned to the JPO........................... 1304
ITS--Policy Assessment Evaluations........................... 1246
ITS--R&D Funds............................................... 1293
ITS--RABA.................................................... 1338
ITS--Reports or Strategic Plans.............................. 1238
ITS--Research and Operational Tested Technologies............ 1228
ITS--Research Projects....................................... 1235
ITS--Review of the IVI Program--House 105-648................ 1295
ITS--Spending Plan........................................... 1224
ITS--Spending/Obligations for RT-TRACS Projects.............. 1259
ITS--Standards Development................................... 1289
ITS--Standards Testing....................................... 1315
ITS--Standards Work.......................................... 1309
ITS--Strategic Plan.......................................... 1230
ITS--Strategic Vision........................................ 1233
ITS--Studies Assessing Cost and Benefits of ITS.............. 1320
ITS--Training................................................ 1232
ITS--Use of Funds Appropriated in FY 1999.................... 1234
ITS--Use of Program Support Funds............................ 1304
ITS--User Services........................................... 1228
ITS Mainstreaming Activities--FY 1997 to FY 2000................. 1251
Key Safety Challenges and DOT Responses.......................... 566
Key Stakeholders................................................. 1118
Limitation on Administrative Expenses............................ 1073
Lobbying Allegations............................................. 559
Local Matching Requirements...................................... 1110
Local Share Requirements......................................... 1025
Major Impact..................................................... 1117
Major Research Topics or Activities.............................. 1177
Marketing Highway Related Technologies Abroad.................... 1206
Minimum Allocation/Guarantee and Emergency Relief Data........... 1361
Miscellaneous Programs Budget Authority and Obligations.......... 1359
Motor Carrier Management Information System...................... 581
National Advanced Driving Simulator.............................. 1216
National Corridor Planning and Development and Coordinated Border
Infrastructure................................................. 1012
National Rural Development Program............................... 1103
National Rural Development Program Allocation.................... 1104
National Technology Deployment Initiative........................ 1210
Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPYS)................. 1209
OMCHS Relationship with Industry................................. 576
On-Board Safety Devices.......................................... 581
One DOT Internet Web Site........................................ 1074
Opening Remarks.................................................. 465
Organizational Placement of OMC................................560, 589
Organizational Placement of OMCHS................................ 577
Other Programs................................................... 1023
Pan American Highway Institute................................... 1201
Pavement Conditions.............................................. 1372
Pavements........................................................ 1159
Penalty Assessments.............................................. 558
Performance Measures............................................. 1167
Planning......................................................... 1165
Policy........................................................... 1194
Policy Research Program.......................................... 1194
Predictive Models for Particulate Matter......................... 1181
Priority of Motor Carrier Safety................................. 565
Program Coordination............................................. 1114
Public Lands Highway............................................. 988
R&T Carryover Funds.............................................. 1135
RABA (Revenue Aligned Budget Authority).......................... 1014
RABA Allocation Research and Technology.......................... 1020
RABA--Budget Scoring............................................. 1020
RABA--State Ratios............................................... 1016
RABA--State Distribution of RABA................................. 1018
RABA--TCSP Program-RABA Funds.................................... 1041
Read Your Road Partnership Program............................... 1144
Red Light Running Campaign....................................... 1155
Redistribution of Unobligated Federal-Aid Authority.............. 1357
Research and Development Contractors............................. 1381
Research and Technology Program.................................. 1117
Research on UV Headlights........................................ 1146
Safe Roadway Environment......................................... 466
Safe Vehicles.................................................... 466
Safety of Pedestrian and Bicycles................................ 1148
Safety Research..............................................1139, 1156
Safety Research Development...................................... 1143
Safety: The Top Priority......................................... 465
Scenic Byways.................................................... 993
State Infrastructure Banks (SIB)................................. 1070
SIB Allocations.................................................. 1070
SIB Unobligated Balance.......................................... 1072
Staffing--Executive Director's Office............................ 1082
Staffing--Office of Chief Counsel................................ 1083
Staffing--Office of Civil Rights................................. 1086
Staffing--Office of Program Quality Coordination................. 1089
Staffing--Office of Public Affairs............................... 1087
Staffing--Office of the Deputy Federal Highway Administrator..... 1081
Staffing--Office of the Federal Highway Administrator............ 1080
State Apportionment of Bridge Funds.............................. 1360
State Distribution of RABA....................................... 1018
State Infrastructure Banks (SIB)................................. 1070
State Planning and Research (SP&R) and National Cooperative
Highway Research............................................... 1386
Statement of Kenneth R. Wykle and Ricardo Martinez............... 471
Achieving a Breakthrough with Technology..................... 478
Comprehensive Approach....................................... 473
Conclusion................................................... 485
CVISN........................................................ 479
ONE DOT Management........................................... 484
Roadside Identification Feasibility.......................... 480
Safety is Top Priority....................................... 471
Technology for Enforcement and Compliance.................... 478
Technology to Improve Driver Performance..................... 480
Technology to Improve Vehicle Safety......................... 482
The Motor Carrier Safety Challenge........................... 472
The Safe Driver.............................................. 474
The Safe Vehicle............................................. 475
The Safe Roadway Environment................................. 477
States With MCSAP and Section 402 Programs....................... 560
Status of ADHS Funds............................................. 1059
Strategic Planning for STR....................................... 1119
Structures....................................................... 1160
Surface Transportation Program................................... 1008
Surface Transportation Research.................................. 1121
Sustainable Transportation Initiative............................ 1165
TCSP Additional Grant Award Timeframe............................ 1038
TCSP Grant Awards Status......................................... 1037
TCSP Program Criteria............................................ 1039
TCSP Program--RABA Funds......................................... 1041
TCSP Proposals................................................... 1025
Technology to Improve Safe Operations............................ 467
The Motor Carrier Safety Challenge............................... 465
The Safe Driver.................................................. 466
TIFIA Budgetary Impact........................................... 1066
TIFIA Projects................................................... 1064
TIFIA Selection Criteria......................................... 1065
TIFIA Transit Project Evaluation................................. 1067
Training Activities.............................................. 1077
TRANSIMS......................................................... 1168
TRANSIMS Activities.............................................. 1171
TRANSIMS Funding................................................. 1170
Transportation Administrative Service Center (TASC).............. 1073
Transportation and Community and System Preservation Pilot
Program (TCSP)................................................. 1024
Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA)
of 1998........................................................ 1064
Transportation Needs In National Parks........................... 1102
Tren Urbano...................................................... 1340
Tren Urbano--Commonwealth's Highway Funds........................ 1341
Tren Urbano--Minillas Extension.................................. 1342
Tren Urbano--State and Federal Investment........................ 1341
Truck Size and Weight Study...................................... 1198
University Transportation Centers Program........................ 1112
West Virginia--Corridor H Status................................. 1060
Federal Transit Administration
Access to Jobs:
Reverse Commute Grants....................................... 1467
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families...................1469, 1490
Welfare to Work.............................................. 1469
FY 1999 Access to job Grant Awards........................... 1470
Operating Expenses........................................... 1469
Information Sharing.......................................... 1548
Administrative Expenses:
Advances and Reimbursements.................................. 1403
FTE.......................................................... 1406
FY 2000 Hiring Plan................................1405, 1408, 1437
Proposed Staffing Increases..............................1404, 1407
Reimbursement to the Inspector General....................... 1404
Annual Incremental Costs of the Metropolitan Offices......... 1412
Field Operations Staff....................................... 1438
Information Technology Activities..................1439, 1441, 1452
Onboard Positions............................................ 1413
Political Appointees......................................... 1438
Salary and Benefits.......................................... 1412
Y2K Compliance program...................................1411, 1455
Advanced Technology Transit Bus.................................. 1569
Advanced Vehicle Program......................................... 1532
Airports Served by Rapid Transit Lines........................... 1523
Alaska Railroad.................................................. 1499
Annual Accident Data............................................. 1759
Annual Incremental Costs of the Metropolitan Offices............. 1412
Average Age of Bus Fleets....................................1777, 1780
Average Real Labor Compensation.................................. 1776
BART Extension to the Airport.................................... 1620
Bay Area Raid Transit (BART):
Extension to the Airport.................................1620, 1795
BART Financial Support....................................... 1621
BART Cost Increases.......................................... 1795
BART Funding Sources......................................... 1797
Bus Obligations.................................................. 1783
Bus Procurement Grants........................................... 1783
Bus Rapid Transit................................................ 1546
Bus Testing...................................................... 1567
Capital Funding.................................................. 1777
Chemical/Biological Agent Detection Program...................... 1524
Clean Fuels Formula Program..................................1500, 1503
Daily Journeys to Work on Transit in the U.S..................... 1756
DELPHI--Automated Accounting System Conversion................... 1449
Drug and Alcohol Testing Program................................. 1463
East St. Louis Metrolink Project.............................1596, 1602
EGM&M--Electronic Grant Making and Management System............. 1442
Electronic Commerce Program...................................... 1445
Enterpirse Network Management Structure.......................... 1448
Equipment and Infrastructure Activities and Products............. 1531
Existing FFGAs................................................... 1571
Farebox Recovery................................................. 1758
Field Operations Staff........................................... 1438
Financial Management Systems Funding Requirements................ 1450
Finanical Oversight Activities................................... 1461
Formula Apportionments by State.................................. 1752
Formula Programs.......................................1491, 1501, 1727
FTE.............................................................. 1406
Fuel Cell Bus Program:
Fuel Cell Bus Program........................................ 1534
Georgetown Fuel Cell Program.............................1534, 1536
PEMFC........................................................ 1536
PAFC......................................................... 1537
Full Funding Grant Agreements:
Existing FFGAs............................................... 1571
Proposed FFGAs............................................... 1589
FY 2000 FFGA Ratings......................................... 1593
Revenue Operating Date....................................... 1598
FY 2000 Hiring Plan....................................1405, 1408, 1437
Garrett A. Morgan Initiative..................................... 1511
Georgetown Fuel Cell Bus Program.............................1534, 1536
Information Data Outreach for LAPD............................... 1528
Information Technology Activities......................1439, 1441, 1452
International Mass Transportation Program........................ 1457
International Program............................................ 1550
Long Island Railroad East Side Access (LIRR).................1496, 1790
Los Angeles:
Mid-City and Eastside....................................1601, 1611
North Hollywood Extension................................1610, 1612
Pasadena/Blue Line Construction.............................. 1615
Special Master Ruling/Bus Consent Decree.................1601, 1612
Mass Transit Account............................................. 1772
Military Technology Adaptable to Transit......................... 1622
Minneapolis Light Rail........................................... 1604
National Transportation Database.......................1403, 1513, 1549
New Starts:
Full Funding Grant Agreements:
Existing FFGAs................................. 1571
Proposed FFGAs................................. 1589
FY 2000 FFGA Ratings........................... 1593
Revenue Operating Date......................... 1598
New Starts Projects..........................1586, 1592, 1597, 1674
New Starts Pipelines......................................... 1587
Disposition of New Start Earmarks............................ 1676
Unobligated Balances......................................... 1680
Rating Criteria..........................................1593, 1705
Dear Colleague Letter on New Starts.......................... 1704
Administrator Linton's Letter on New Start Process Changes... 1698
New Starts Evaluation and Ratings........................1674, 1709
New Transit Investments.......................................... 1551
Obligated Bus Projects........................................... 1637
Olympic Games................................................1493, 1606
Onboard Positions................................................ 1413
Operating Costs.................................................. 1469
Oversight Activities:
Bus Safety................................................... 1530
Triennial Reviews............................................ 1466
State Safety Oversight....................................... 1465
Oversight Activities......................................... 1458
Finanncial Management Oversight.............................. 1463
Oversight Tracking System....................................1440, 1465
Over-the-Road Bus Accessibility Program......................1504, 1507
Passenger Security............................................... 1525
Political Appointees............................................. 1438
Priority Bus Projects............................................ 1399
Proposed Full Funding Grant Agreements........................... 1589
Proposed Staffing Increases...................................... 1404
Ratings for Full Funding Grant Agreements....................1593, 1705
Recoveries....................................................... 1787
Reimbursement to the Inspector General........................... 1404
Reverse Commute Grants........................................... 1467
Riders and Cost.................................................. 1489
Safety and Security:
Drug and Alcohol Testing Program............................. 1463
Safety and Security Programs, Projects and Activities....1522, 1799
Passenger Security........................................... 1525
Safety Investigations........................................ 1400
Safety and Security Technical Support Program................ 1527
Annual Accident Data......................................... 1759
Salary and Benefits.............................................. 1412
Salt Lake City:
Core Projects................................................ 1495
Olympic Games......................................1493, 1606, 1609
Salt Lake City West-East Light Rail......................1493, 1605
Salt Lake City Downtown Connector........................1608, 1790
Section 5309 Project Status...................................... 1670
Security and Safety:
Drug and Alcohol Testing Program............................. 1463
Safety and Security Programs, Projects and Activities....1522, 1799
Passenger Security........................................... 1525
Safety Investigations........................................ 1400
Safety and Security Technical Support Program................ 1527
Annual Accident Data......................................... 1759
Set-Asides--Formula Programs..................................... 1492
St. Claire Metrolink Extension................................... 1603
TEAM--Transportation Electronic Award Management System......1442, 1447
Technology Sharing............................................... 1550
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.......................... 1490
Transit Accidents............................................1402, 1463
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking................................ 1402
Drug and Alcohol Testing Program............................. 1463
Annual Accident Data......................................... 1759
Transit Planning and Research..........................1512, 1518, 1551
Transit Ridership of 30 Largest Transit Operators................ 1754
Transportation Computer Center................................... 1725
Tren Urbano..................................................1615, 1793
Triennial Reviews......................................1400, 1401, 1465
Tunnel Design and Construction................................... 1545
Turnkey Demonstration Program..........................1542, 1617, 1620
University Transportation Research............................... 1509
Unobligated Bus Funds............................................ 1625
Unrestricted Cash................................................ 1439
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
[Does not include Surface Transportation Safety Hearing]
.08 Laws:
Funding by State............................................. 850
States....................................................... 770
Air Bag Funding.................................................. 906
Alcohol:
Efforts to Reduce Alcohol-Related Crashes.................... 768
Impaired Driving............................................. 590
Impaired Driving Enforcement................................. 833
Related Crashes by State..................................... 769
Related Fatality Rates Per Vehicle Mile....................771, 773
Antilock Braking System (ABS) Research........................... 794
Auto Safety Hotline:
Auto Safety Hotline.......................................... 890
Cost......................................................... 891
Biomechanics:
Funding...................................................... 895
Research Program............................................. 893
Buckle Up America:
Campaign..................................................... 767
Implementation............................................... 747
Campaign Safe and Sober.......................................... 892
Child Restraint:
Fitting Stations...........................................737, 950
Universal System............................................. 734
Compliance:
Test Failure Data............................................ 804
Testing Program.............................................. 807
Consumer Information............................................. 921
Contractors (Major).............................................. 883
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE):
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE)........................ 799
Kyoto Agreement Impact on CAFE Standards..................... 803
Penalties Collected.......................................... 802
Standards for Light Trucks and Vans.......................... 800
Crash Avoidance Funding and Projects............................. 912
Crashes by Collision Type........................................ 774
Emergency Medical Services....................................... 943
Fatal Crashes:
By State..................................................... 762
Estimated Cost............................................... 760
Vehicles Involved In......................................... 764
Fatalities:
By Vehicle Category.......................................... 821
Child Occupant Fatalities.................................... 766
For Selected Countries....................................... 825
Impact of Speed Limit and Helmet Laws........................ 818
Occupant Crash Statistics.................................... 815
Pedalcyclist................................................. 813
Rate Reduction in Commercial Vehicles........................ 604
Rates Attributed to Alcohol and Speed........................ 819
Vehicles Involved in Fatal Crashes........................... 764
FTE:
FTE and On-Board Strength.................................... 863
Request...................................................... 864
Funding:
Air Bag...................................................... 906
Crash Avoidance.............................................. 912
Drivers License Identification Program....................... 946
Safe Communities (Section 402)............................... 778
Section 402 and 410.......................................... 831
Section 410 Allocation....................................... 826
Truck Safety................................................. 594
FY 2000 Congressional Budget Summary............................. 728
Haddon Matrix:
Four E's..................................................... 468
Haddon Matrix..............................................468, 470
International Harmonization...................................... 915
International Safety Ranking..................................... 781
Motor Cycle Helmet Laws:
Mandatory.................................................... 811
Repeal of.................................................... 812
NASS Issues...................................................... 610
National Driver Register......................................... 944
National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS)....................... 738
New Car Assessment Program (NCAP):
Consumer Information......................................... 793
Frontal Safety Information................................... 783
Program Costs................................................ 790
Side Impact Testing.......................................... 789
Testing....................................................783, 789
Testing Braking Performance.................................. 792
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA):
TEA-21 Authorization......................................... 731
NHTSA and OMC Functions...................................... 561
Occupant Fatality Crash Statistics............................... 815
Odometer Fraud Enforcement Program Effectiveness................. 810
Office of Motor Carrier Safety:
Comparison of Functions...................................... 561
Coordination................................................. 597
Enforcement.................................................. 603
Integration of Functions..................................... 601
Merger of NHTSA and OMCHS.................................... 606
Placement.................................................... 600
Opening Remarks of Ricardo Martinez, MD Administrator............ 467
Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV).............. 933
Replacement Parts................................................ 947
Reprogramming Actions............................................ 882
Rulemaking Actions............................................... 888
Safe Communities:
Funding (Section 402)........................................ 778
Safe Communities............................................. 924
Safety:
Defects Investigation Budget................................. 797
Recall Campaigns............................................. 795
Standards Support............................................ 936
Seat Belt:
Key Provisions of Belt Use Laws.............................. 755
Safety Belt Use Enforcement.................................. 754
State Usage Rates............................................ 748
Usage and Lives Saved........................................ 766
Usage Rates.................................................. 746
Usages....................................................... 743
Section 157:
Funding by State............................................. 855
Section 157 and Section 405.................................. 854
Section 163 and Section 410...................................... 846
Section 402:
Combining Section 402 and MCSAP.............................. 608
Funding for Alcohol Initiatives.............................. 831
Grant Obligations............................................ 778
Program Funding.............................................. 777
Staff Support................................................ 777
State Expenditures........................................... 774
Section 410 Funding Allocation................................... 826
Section 411 Grant Awards by State................................ 852
Side Impact Air Bags............................................. 897
Speed:
Aggressive Driving........................................... 592
Estimated Cost of Speed Related Fatal Crashes................ 760
Increased Speed Limit Impact................................. 757
Related Fatal Crashes........................................ 760
State Speed Limits........................................... 757
Staff:
Incentive Grant Program...................................... 866
Office of the Administrator.................................. 871
Political Appointees......................................... 867
Regional..................................................... 868
Section 402 Staff Support.................................... 777
Statement of Ricardo Martinez, MD Administrator.................. 471
States with Administrative License Revocation Laws........... 846
Strategic Plan:
Strategic Plan............................................... 487
Strategic Plan Transmittal Letter............................ 486
Surface Transportation Issues.................................... 590
Traffic Law Enforcement.......................................... 939
Training Data Update............................................. 876
Travel (Overseas)................................................ 838
Truck Safety:
Funding...................................................... 594
Initiatives.................................................. 468
Priorities................................................... 598
Responsibility............................................... 593
Truck Size and Weight............................................ 605
Unobligated Balances............................................. 880
Vehicle:
Compatibility................................................ 931
Fatalities by State.......................................... 819
Safety Compliance Program.................................... 803
Web Site ``Hits''............................................ 891
Y2K:
Technical Staff to Support Y2K Activities.................... 865
Y2K Funding.................................................. 865
Surface Transportation Safety
Access to Rest Areas............................................. 459
Accident Data.................................................... 257
Accident Reports................................................. 67
Accidents........................................................ 670
ADP Funding Request.............................................. 713
Biographers:
Edwards, Mark................................................ 289
McCormick, Walter............................................ 310
Stone, Judith Lee............................................ 337
Wytkind, Edward.............................................. 406
Border Inspections............................................... 583
CDL License Program.............................................. 75
Collison Avoidance Technology.................................... 242
Collision Warning Technology...................................174, 231
Combining Section 402 and MCSAP.................................. 608
Commercial Drivers Assessment.................................... 82
Commerical Driver's License Training Program..................... 580
Common Truck Problems............................................ 644
Comparison of NHTSA and OMC Functions............................ 561
Compliance Review......................................68, 74, 558, 630
Compliance Reviews on Operations................................. 84
Compliance Reviews Personnel..................................... 235
Comprehensive Approach........................................... 465
Comprehensive Truck Crash Study.................................. 417
Covert Operations................................................ 647
Creation of New Administration................................... 227
Cumberland Gap Tunnel Project Status Report...................... 623
Data Collection.................................................. 410
Decline In Truck Crash Fatality Rate............................. 586
Driver Error..................................................... 63
Driver Fatigue................................................... 64
Driver Logs...................................................... 71
Driver Training.................................................. 61
Edwards, Mark (Managing Director, Traffic Safety Services,
American Automobile Association)............................... 260
Effectiveness of OMC's ``No-Zone'' Program....................... 421
Enforcement....................................................226, 571
Enforcement Actions to Reduce Fatalities......................... 78
Enforcement Backlog.............................................. 725
Enforcement Penalties............................................ 61
Enforcement Program.............................................. 251
Enforcement Responsibilities..................................... 235
Eubanks, Harry (President, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance)... 354
Factors That Contribute to Accidents............................. 59
Failures of the OMC.............................................. 460
Fatal Motor Vehicle Crashes...................................... 668
Fatalities: Rates versus Actual Numbers.......................... 239
Fatality Rate for Commercial Motor Vehicles...................... 433
Fatality Rate Reduction in Commercial Vehicles................... 604
Fatigue.......................................................... 648
Federal Transit Administration................................... 256
FHWA Hazardous Materials Team.................................... 579
FHWA Relationship with State Partners............................ 586
Foreign Carriers...............................................414, 415
Foreign Carriers and Federal Regulations......................... 241
Foreign Carriers Travel Zone..................................... 246
FTA State Safety Oversight Activities............................ 252
FTA's Safety Oversight........................................... 253
Future Recommendations........................................... 467
Hall, Jim (Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board)....... 173
Highlights of Inspector General Findings......................... 83
Hot Line......................................................... 419
Hotline.......................................................... 726
Hours-of-Service Regulation...................................... 173
Hours-of-Service Reform.......................................... 417
Improving Truck Safety with Frequent Inspections................. 77
Inspections versus Enforcement................................... 81
Inspector General Recommendations on Reducing Truck Deaths....... 249
Inspector General Survey......................................... 559
Integration of NHTSA/OMCHS Functions............................. 601
International Issues and NAFTA................................... 228
Introduction of Witnesses........................................ 2
Key DOT Surface Transportation Issues............................ 590
Key Safety Challenges and DOt Responses.......................... 566
Key Surface Safety Issues Facing Department of Transportation.... 431
Lapointe, Mike (Massachusetts State Police)...................... 51
Large Truck Safety............................................... 254
Level 1 Inspections.............................................. 452
License Suspension............................................... 65
Licensing Requirements........................................... 62
Lobbying Allegations............................................. 559
Log Accuracy Enforcement......................................... 60
Maximum Speed Governors.......................................... 174
McCormick, Walter (President and CEO, American Trucking
Associates, Inc.).............................................. 290
MCSAP for Commercial Trucks at U.S. Borders--Exhibits............ 162
MCSAP for Commercial Trucks at U.S. Borders--Findings and
Recommendations................................................ 142
MCSAP for Commercial Trucks at U.S. Borders--Introduction........ 137
MCSAP for Commercial Trucks at U.S. Borders--Synopsis............ 125
MCSAP for Commercial Trucks at U.S. Borders--Table of Contents... 136
MCSAP for Commercial Trucks at U.S. Borders--Transmittal
Memorandum..................................................... 123
Mead, Kenneth (Inspector General, U.S. Department of
Transportation)................................................ 83
Mechanical Defects...............................................69, 81
Meetings......................................................... 713
Merge of NHTSA and OMCHS......................................... 606
Mexican Trucks................................................... 229
Motor Carrier Management Information System...................... 581
Motor Carrier Reviews and Safety Ratings......................... 250
Motor Carrier Safety Program (MCSAP) for Commercial Trucks at
U.S. Borders................................................... 122
Motor Carrier Safety Program funding Issues...................... 693
Motor Carrier Safety Regulation and Enforcement.................. 316
Moving OMCHS to NHTSA............................................ 455
NAFTA............................................................ 662
NAFTA Issues..................................................... 555
New Safety Administration........................................ 410
NHTSA Truck Safety Funding....................................... 594
NHTSA Truck Safety Priorities.................................... 598
NHTSA Truck Safety Responsibility................................ 593
NHTSA/OMCHS Coordination......................................... 597
Office of Motor Carriers...................................74, 246, 255
Office of Motor Carriers--Enforcement Failures................... 320
Office of Motor Carriers--Regulatory Failures.................... 318
Office of Motor Carriers Placement............................... 600
OMCHS Enforcement................................................ 603
OMCHS Relationship with Industry................................. 576
OnBoard Computers................................................ 63
On-Board Recording Devices....................................... 458
On Board Recording Devices....................................... 174
On-Board Safety Devices.......................................... 581
O'Neill, Brian (President, Insurance Institute for Highway
Safety)........................................................ 375
Opening Remarks.................................................. 2
Opening Remarks--Wykle, Kenneth.................................. 465
Operating Expenses for the Office of Motor Carriers.............. 685
Organizational Placement of OMC................................560, 589
Organizational Placement of OMCHS................................ 577
Out-of-Service Activities........................................ 625
Out-of-Service Definition........................................ 57
Out-of-Service Rates............................................. 79
Out-of-Service Records........................................... 57
Owner-Operator Firms............................................. 243
Owner-Operators.................................................. 80
Owner-Operators Versus Major Trucking Firms...................... 60
Panel I Witnesses................................................ 3
Panel II Witnesses............................................... 83
Panel III Witnesses.............................................. 260
Panel IV Witnesses............................................... 465
Passenger Car Error.............................................. 70
Peer Review Report of Commercial Driver Fatigue Research......... 4
Penalty Assessments.............................................. 558
Performance Registration Information and Systems Management
Program (PRISM)................................................ 710
Performance-Based State Enforcement Program...................... 682
Pierce, Bonnie (Victim and Concerned Citizen).................... 43
Placement of Office of Motor Carriers............................ 418
Placement of Office of Motor Carriers..........................226, 229
Priority of Motor Carrier Safety................................. 565
Punishing Repeat Violators....................................... 84
Questions for the Record:
AAA.......................................................... 421
Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety........................ 431
AFL-CIO, Transportation Trades Department.................... 460
American Trucking Associations, Inc.......................... 424
Aviation and International Affairs (OST/DOT)................. 615
Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance........................... 452
Federal Highway Administration............................... 565
FHWA and NHTSA............................................... 585
General Accounting Office.................................... 258
Inspector General............................................ 248
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety....................... 455
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration............... 590
National Transportation Safety Board......................... 254
Office of Motor Carriers..................................... 625
Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Assoc., Inc............... 457
Reorganization of Motor Carrier and Highway Safety Programs...... 707
Reporting and Regulatory Requirements............................ 714
Reporting Requirements........................................... 236
Research Initiatives............................................. 674
Rest Areas....................................................... 66
Results of Accident Investigations............................... 240
Safe Roadway Environment......................................... 466
Safe Vehicles.................................................... 466
Safety of Small Carriers......................................... 457
Safety Oversight...............................................245, 419
Safety: The Top Priority......................................... 465
Scheinberg, Phyllis (Associate Director, Transportation Issues,
Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division, U.S.
GAO)........................................................... 209
Spencer, Todd (Executive Vice President, Owner-Operator
Independent Drivers Association, Inc.)......................... 387
Staffing......................................................... 672
State Inspections..............................................418, 453
Statements:
Edwards, Mark................................................ 263
Eubanks, Harry............................................... 356
Hall, Jim.................................................... 176
Izer, Daphne G............................................... 34
Lapointe, Mike............................................... 53
McCormick, Walter............................................ 294
Mead, Kenneth................................................ 89
O'Neill, Brian............................................... 377
Pierce, Bonnie............................................... 46
Scheinberg, Phyllis.......................................... 213
Spencer, Todd................................................ 390
Stone, Judith Lee............................................ 324
Wytkind, Edward.............................................. 400
States With MCSAP and Section 402 Programs....................... 560
Stone, Judith Lee (President, Advocates for Highway and Auto
Safety)........................................................ 316
Surface Transportation Safety..................................248, 258
System to Reduce Fatalities...................................... 411
Technology to Improve Safe Operations............................ 467
The Motor Carrier Safety Challenge............................... 465
The Need for Data................................................ 422
The Safe Driver.................................................. 466
Transferring OMC to NHTSA........................................ 423
Travel........................................................... 712
Trends in Truck Safety........................................... 316
Truck and Bus Accidents.......................................... 648
Truck Fatalities................................................. 410
Truck Inspections................................................67, 73
Truck Safety Improvements........................................ 413
Truck Size and Weight............................................ 605
Truck Traffic and Permits........................................ 408
Trucking Lobby................................................... 229
Urban Truck Safety............................................... 414
Witnesses: Panel I............................................... 3
Witnesses: Panel II.............................................. 83
Witnesses: Panel III............................................. 260
Witnesses: Panel IV.............................................. 465
Wytkind, Edward (Executive Director, AFL-CIO, Transportation
Trades Department)............................................. 397