Overdrive

September 2016

Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info

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30 | Overdrive | September 2016 I n the 1990s, the truck safety lobby was active, visible and in some cases well funded by the railroads. Most truck drivers were familiar with the small but vocal Parents Against Tired Truckers and Citizens for Reliable And Safe Highways. PATT founders Daphne and Steve Izer, whose teenage son was killed in a truck crash in 1994, often made news with their emotionally driven public appearances. But truckers held little sympathy for what they perceived to be exaggerated, unfair attacks on drivers who statisti- cally were proven to be far safer than four-wheelers. Since then, other groups have ap- peared on the highway safety stage. The public visibility of all in some ways has dwindled with funding, and railroad groups appear to have gotten out of the business of anti-truck messaging except on size and weight issues. But safety groups have more than made up for that by forming alliances with regulators and sympathetic carrier interests. Their infl uence has helped lead to regulations requiring the use of speed limiters (offi cially proposed in late August) and electronic logging devices. Since 2002, PATT and CRASH have been united under the Truck Safety Coalition banner. They still use emotion- al appeals of injured victims or family members of those killed in truck-related crashes to infl uence policy. That can mean anything from speaking up whenever an hours of service change is in the offi ng to, most recently, leading a call for mandated active emergency-braking technology. The coalition often is joined by the broader, well-funded Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a member- ship-based organization founded by automobile insurance executives. As for the fairness of attacks on truck- ing coming from these groups, nothing much has changed, says Rob Abbott, outgoing vice president of safety policy for the American Trucking Associations. Speaking specifi cally about Advocates, CRASH and PATT, Abbott says their statements and "irresponsible" use of data underscores this view: "We think there's a lack of credibility there and would not want to associate with them." Road Safe America is a diff erent story. Founded by Atlanta-area fi nancial adviser Steve Owings after his son died during a crash with a tractor-trailer early this century, the group is funded by per- sonal donations and run by volunteers exclusively. Owings says he set off on his own, reasoning that "there's bound to be some leaders in [trucking] who care about safety and try to do something about it. At the same time, I recognized that the organizations that already existed were sort of at loggerheads with the industry." He chose to fi nd common ground "rath- er than argue forever about things we'll never agree with." Owings focused on speed governing technology, seeing that a portion of the industry endorsed it, and petitioned the National Highway Traffi c Safety Admin- istration to require speed limiting on all new trucks. ATA followed his petition with their own, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration subsequently was brought into the regulatory process to require virtually all truckers with elec- tronic engines to use speed limiters. At press time, a notice of proposed rulemak- ing had been issued to require limiters, though no speed was identifi ed. How safety advocates won over the federal government, and some trucking interests themselves, to infl uence trucking regulation BY TODD DILLS September 2016 | Overdrive | 30 The biggest little voice in trucking

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