Overdrive

April 2014

Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info

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Voices channel 19 6 | Overdrive | April 2014 Visit Senior Editor Todd Dills' ChannEl 19 blog at overdriveonline.com/channel19 Write him at tdills@randallreilly.com. While there are no doubt fatality crashes that are the fault of the truck driver, it's clearly been shown that passenger car drivers are the at-fault party in about seven out of 10 truck-involved accidents. Does that mean four-wheelers could do the most to eliminate highway deaths? The issue was an underlying theme to some discussions during the February meeting of the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee. The body advises the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. "There's a lot of talk now in the press and so forth from different sources about trying to get to zero deaths on the highway system," said Stephen Owings, chairman of MCSAC and also head of his own self-styled highway safety advocacy group, Road Safe America. Some of that talk comes from FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro, who acknowledges that though de- tractors may dismiss the goal as pie in the sky, she takes it seriously. Owings compared truckers to airline pilots and their industry. "It seems like it would be worthwhile for a study to be done and take a look at the airline industry," he said, where statistics show "pretty close to zero deaths" most years. "What would have to happen for FMCSA to achieve what the FAA has achieved?" Owings' urged study of FAA gath- ered little support at the meeting. Readers were quick to respond to such a notion: Earl "Bugsy" Milroy: In order to achieve zero highway fatalities, there would have to be zero vehicles on said highways. Daniel McCreary: We must, at some point, decide that we are willing to allow risky endeavors to maintain a certain level of freedom and econom- ic activity. MCSAC tries to deliver consensus advice to other governmental bodies. Where it's not possible, the group sends both majority and dissenting views to FMCSA and, in the case of the latest meeting, to Congress. The Feb. 11 round saw members cast one each of 15 votes for their top items included among 38 recom- mendations to Congress for the next highway bill. The FAA proposal was one of nine items receiving two or fewer votes of support. New Jersey FMCSA Division Administrator Chris Rotondo en- dorsed the zero deaths goal: "I fail when somebody dies," he said when talking to the CSA Subcommittee to MCSAC. "There's a big poster in my office" proclaiming that goal, he added. "Not 100, not 1,000. Zero. Is it attainable? If we all take ownership of it – yeah, I believe it is." The best advocates for the goal, he said, are "men and women who drive and companies who employ them." But I keep coming back to the role in all of this for the motoring public, represented by Owings with his Road Safe America. FMCSA outreach to that audience, in the area of training and not just as an enforcement exten- sion via flawed programs like CSA, might be the best money they've ever spent. There's some evidence MCSAC agrees with the sentiment: Boosting the cap on federal MCSAP funding of state officers' traffic enforcement activities, and not just on 18-wheel- ers, was among the top highway bill priorities to come from the February meeting. Other items receiving the most votes were recommendations to give FMCSA broader authority over shippers/receivers, to remove the Fair Labor Standards Act exemption of truck drivers from overtime and other wage protections, and to act further on the parking shortage. To access the prioritized list of all 38 recommenda- tions to Congress, see the Feb. 24 post on the Channel 19 blog. Zero highway deaths Industry debates who holds most influence on lofty goal Is it logical to compare truck drivers to airline pilots as a step toward improving highway safety? Better hours regs for Better safety OTR newbie Chad Gadarowski, having heard from driving veterans during his first months in the industry about the hours of service changes, saw the difficulty of complying with the new restart firsthand. He then launched the Drivers for the "TRUE Safety Act" Facebook page as a gathering point for those in favor of the bill's call for an independent hours review attendant to a rollback – at least temporarily. Gadarowski proposes a compromise ap- proach with more flexible options for the two four-hour nighttime restart periods, allowing drivers a choice to end their restart rest periods from 2 to 5 a.m. Voices_0414.indd 6 4/1/14 2:00 PM

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