Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/723417
70 | Overdrive | September 2016 THE BIGGEST LITTLE VOICE IN TRUCKING however, at the level of FMCSA's Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee, a perhaps more important change had taken place in the balance of member constituencies. While MCSAC recommendations are not binding on FMCSA, its work has in- fluenced advances relative to medical certification, the electronic logging device mandate and device specs, the 2013-implemented hours of service, and changes in the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program, among other areas. Governed under federal rules for such committees, MCSAC is intended to include reasonably balanced representation from industry, law enforcement, labor and safety organizations. It was originally a 15-member group. Now, with the addition of three labor representatives and other changes, it has 19 members. Road Safe America's Steve Owings has been a MCSAC member since its establish- ment in late 2006, serving as chairman between 2012 and 2014. Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety also has had a representative on the group from the beginning. Notably, the Truck Safety Coalition, made up of PATT and CRASH, was not there at the start. But today, three of MCSAC's 18 representatives come from the Coalition. (A fourth, an alternate voting member, is able to substitute when CRASH's rep- resentative is absent. No other constituencies on the panel have an alternate voting member.) "All were put there by Anne" Ferro, says committee member Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Op- erator Independent Drivers Association. In 2010, Truck Safety Coali- tion Executive Director John Lannen and Jane Mathis, PATT board member and treasurer, joined the committee. The CRASH representatives were added in 2013. The committee "used to have representation from broad- based safety organizations" such as the National Safety Council, says Rob Abbott, out- going safety policy representa- tive for the American Trucking Associations, who joined the advisory committee in 2011. In 2013, industry repre- sentative Bob Petrancosta, who'd retired, was replaced (Continued from Page 33)