Articles Posted in Trucking regulations

Today the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration banned text messaging by interstate truck drivers during operation of a commercial motor vehicle.

Virginia Tech’s Transportation Institute released a study last July that found that when truckers text, they are 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash or near miss.

Both houses of Congress are considering bills to restrict texting. Nineteen states have banned the practice. The new federal regulation provides that drivers of commercial vehicles caught texting may be fined up to $2,750.

Texting and cellphone use have been banned in many major commercial fleets, including FedEx’s 43,000 vehicles and the 100,000 used by United Parcel Service.

This will be more material for my presentation to the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group at Vancouver, British Columbia, in July.
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As a trucking accident trial attorney in Atlanta, I see all the time how regulatory decisions in Washington impact safety on the roads throughout the U.S. A Senate committee hearing today on the nomination of Ann Ferro as administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration brought that into focus.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, chair of the surface transportation subcommittee, told President Obama’s nominee for FMCSA director nominee Ann Ferro, at a Senate confirmation hearing, that the motor carrier administration is “an agency in dire need of reform,” and that “given your ties, Ms. Ferro, to the trucking industry … I am concerned about your ability to take the bold action we need to keep Americans safe.”

In her opening statement, Ferro talked the talked about reform of trucking safety regulation in her opening statement:

“Uncompensated time, compensation by the mile or load, professional drivers classified as laborers – these are all aspects of a supply-chain model that rewards squeezing transportation costs out of the equation; factors that shift the cost onto the driving public and professional driver.”

“Furthermore, the agency must get on with considering a universal electronic on board recorder rule, improving the Hours of Service rule, rolling out tougher standards for entry, implementing effective identification and sanctioning high risk carriers.”

The committee did not vote on Ferro’s nomination. Additional questions will be submitted to the nominee, who will have until Tuesday to respond.
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One of the things I do as a trucking trial attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, is monitor what’s happening with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in Washington, DC. Ultimately the political and bureaucratic decisions about truck safety regulations in Washington affect the safety of your family and mine on the highways of Georgia.

To say that it’s unusual for the New York Times to take an editorial position on trucking safety is quite and understatement. But it happened today.

Here are excepts from the editorial:

President Obama made a peculiar choice in June when he nominated Anne Ferro, a major trucking industry lobbyist in Maryland, to lead the agency that oversees truck safety. On its face, Ms. Ferro’s selection violates the spirit of Mr. Obama’s decision to limit the ability of lobbyists to enter government as high officials and influence policy from within.

The order bars hiring anyone who lobbied an executive-branch agency within the past two years, which technically means federally registered lobbyists. But it is hard to see how naming a trucking industry insider like Ms. Ferro, the president of the Maryland affiliate of the American Trucking Associations, to lead the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration squares with Mr. Obama’s promise of “a clean break” from business as usual.

. . .

Ms. Ferro’s record on road safety includes some pluses. As the chief of Maryland’s motor vehicle agency, from 1997 to 2003, she implemented a graduated licensing system for new drivers and an ignition interlock program for drunken drivers.

But her more relevant experience these past six years was in supporting the trucking industry’s efforts to thwart and defeat policies and programs needed to protect the public and promote the health and safety of truck drivers. Just in January, Ms. Ferro co-authored a letter to The Baltimore Sun essentially defending the Bush administration’s loosening of regulations on drivers’ schedules and driver fatigue in defiance of considerable evidence of danger and two court decisions.

Ms. Ferro’s record, we believe, is disqualifying. With more than 5,000 fatal truck crashes a year, Americans cannot afford conflicts of interest in the running of their truck safety agency.

A friend who is heavily involved in advocacy for highway safety tells me that several truck safety advocates and organizations are actively opposing her nomination. Several of them will be at the Senate confirmation hearing this afternoon. He tells me she is a really nice lady and says all the right things. But safety advocates have heard all the right things for 20 years with no follow-up. When they met with her and Secretary LaHood, there was no specific discussion by the Secretary LaHood about how he will direct her to will bring change to the FMCSA.

More later.
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As an Atlanta trucking safety lawyer, I find trucking companies trying to disown their driver’s safety violations.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, which are intended to protect safety of the public, require trucking companies to see to it that their employees to obey the driver regulations.

49 C.F.R. § 390.11 requires: “Whenever . . . a duty is prescribed for a driver or a prohibition is imposed upon the driver, it shall be the duty of the motor carrier to require observance of such duty or prohibition. If the motor carrier is a driver, the driver shall likewise be bound.”
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If you stand on River Street in Savannah for more than a few minutes, you will see a huge ocean-going container ship gliding up the Savannah River, stacked high with hundreds of freight containers.

Then if you drive along our Interstate highways you will see those shipping containers bolted to trailer chassis (referred to as “intermodal equipment”), pulled by road tractors.

A problem is recent years was a gap in safety rules and enforcement regarding the trailers to which the freight containers were attached at the ports. Many of the trailer chassis are old, ragged-out trailer chassis with just a fresh coat of paint.

Now the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is doing something about it. Under the new rules, which became effective June 17th and will be implemented over the next two years:

– Drivers must do a pre-trip inspection of intermodal equipment.

– At the end of the day, the driver will have to fill out an inspection report on all of the equipment operated during the day, noting anything wrong with the equipment to the intermodal equipment provider.

– Before that equipment – which will have to carry a U.S. DOT number – can be offered for use on the road again, any damage, defect, etc., noted on the end-of-the-day report is to be certified as repaired on the original report.

– Inspection reports must be retained three months.

– Intermodal equipment providers to develop “systems” for routinely inspecting the equipment; accepting, addressing and storing the driver reports; repairing equipment, etc. However, the rule does not mandate what those systems are.

– Intermodal equipment providers will also now face “roadability review” safety audits conducted by either an FMCSA employee or a state or local government employee funded by the federal government. The reviews will be an on-site examination of the intermodal equipment provider’s compliance with the regs.
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