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HOURS OF SERVICE / FATIGUE Statement Of Jennifer Tierney, Survivors Network Volunteer, At The FMCSA - Hours Of Service Round Table Discussion - October 5 - 6, 2000 (DOC)
Statement OF Jennifer Tierney, Survivors Network Volunteer,Delivered At The FMCSA Hours Of Service Round Table Discussion
Good Morning. I'm Jennifer Tierney, Survivors Network Volunteer and Board Member of CRASH - Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways. I would like to thank the FMCSA for inviting CRASH to participate in this event. We represent those who have suffered the most from unsafe commercial vehicle operations. The CRASH truck safety agenda is a reflection of the needs and desires of our members.
On the news, in the halls of Congress and throughout every department of transportation, the statistics are quoted. Every year there are over 400,000 collisions involving heavy trucks. Every year over 5,000 people die in these crashes. Every year over 100,000 are injured, one-third of those life-altering injuries. But statistics are just numbers and those numbers cannot begin to tell the story of the trauma commercial vehicles cause when they crash. Behind every death and serious injury is a family, a school, a business, a community, devastated by the loss.
Loss is something I know a great deal about. I can personally attest to the fact that commercial truck safety is a life and death issue that affects real people and real families. The course of my life changed drastically one night 15 years ago, when my father, James William Mooney, Sr., was killed in a senseless, preventable side underride crash with a big rig truck on a dark country road in North Carolina. Since that night I have dedicated my life to preventing this tragedy from happening to others.
CRASH is solely devoted to preventing deaths and injuries resulting from collisions with heavy trucks. CRASH was founded in 1990 as a national grassroots organization and has members in all 50 states. Tens of thousands of CRASH members have earned a reputation for making their voices heard in record numbers on issues of truck safety.
CRASH is dedicated to reducing the number of fatalities and injuries caused by truck-related crashes by:
· pressing for corporate and government responsibility in transportation;
· raising public awareness of truck-related safety issues;
· reducing truck driver fatigue;
· improving truck maintenance standards;
· enforcing hazardous material regulations;
· assuring clear and consistent truck placarding;
· improving driver training and qualifications;
· maintaining current truck size and weight limitations;
· providing compassionate support to survivors, and to families of truck crash victims.
Trucking deregulation, a booming economy and the concepts of "just in time delivery" and "rolling warehouses" have produced a deadly trend in the commercial trucking industry -- the exploitation of truck drivers by pressuring them to speed and drive over the legal hours of service limits.
This issue is being partially addressed by current FMCSA rulemaking. There are some aspects of the proposed rule that we support and some we cannot. Most importantly, we believe additional continuous driving time runs counter to sane, rational, science based safe hours of service. Allowing more driving time will pave the way for more dangerous working and driving conditions, more fatigue-related crashes and more innocent victims.
The FMCSA has acknowledged that perhaps as much as 84 percent of drivers maintain inaccurate logbooks with the great majority having falsified entries both of the amount of driving time and of off-duty rest time.
The new rule proposes five different driver categories. This fragmentation of the regulation into 5 different driving and off-duty systems for different kinds of motor carrier operations would present enormous enforcement problems for police. We believe that the rules should apply to all commercial drivers.
And while we applaud the proposed ruling for requiring electronic on-board recorders, we are very troubled that it stops short by extending that requirement to only two of the five driver categories. We advocate that all commercial vehicles be equipped with such devices.
We also believe there should be greatly expanded electronic oversight of commercial vehicle safety enforcement. We hope the day is fast approaching when significant advancements in safety will be realized by requiring on-board automated electronic vehicle compliance equipment.
These devices are capable of maintaining real-time monitoring of critical information including but not limited to driver data, hours of service, vehicle registration and inspections dates, weight, load distribution, speed, mileage, braking and other vehicle systems conditions.
This information would then be made available to in-transit vehicle operators, enforcement officials, and inspection stations in-transit, anywhere, instantly. This equipment is already on the shelf and has the added value of not requiring additional facilities or personnel.
A system such as this will provide the capability for a dramatic increase in the numbers of vehicles inspected -- another CRASH truck safety agenda item. It will also give, for the first time, municipal and rural authorities the ability to accurately monitor and enforce commercial vehicle rules and regulations to enhance the safety of all motorists and diminish premature degradation of the infrastructure.
This real-time information system will warn vehicle operators of changing conditions while in transit and will clearly prevent many unnecessary crashes. It will also speed-up freight by allowing those trucks in compliance to avoid unnecessary inspection stops. We hope the day this system is required is approaching and we hope it is embraced as a remarkable advancement for commercial vehicle safety.
I would like to mention another important issue tied to hours of service but not covered in the current rulemaking. I am referring here to the unprofessional treatment our country's truck drivers are subjected to when it comes to fair and just compensation for their hard labor.
As most of you know, truck drivers are not protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which guarantees all other Americans a basic eight hour work day with time and a half for overtime. Too many long haul and regional drivers are compensated today by the mile or by the load. This unfair system encourages, some would say "rewards", speeding and driving fatigued, both of which are the most heavily cited factors in fatal truck crashes. To prevent deaths and reduce injuries, it has long been a CRASH legislative goal to bring truck drivers under the protective mantle of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Now a bill has been introduced in Congress -- HR 4062, which seeks to accomplish that goal. Introduced by Representative Gerald Kleczka (D-WI), on March 22, this year, the measure has been referred to the Committee on Education and the Workforce. It seeks to repeal the 1938 exemption of motor carrier employees from the protections the original act created for the rest of the American workforce.
This bill deserves the support of Congress, the administration, the industry and the entire safety community because it will save lives, reduce injuries and build professionalism back into truck driving.
When it comes to these truck safety issues, we need greater accountability of the government and the industry. Sane hours of service, better driver pay, enforceable truck size and weight limits, and greater real-time compliance capability will force shippers, receivers and carriers to become more efficient and more respectful of the professional driving workforce and all motorists who share the road with commercial vehicles.
We need to see an end to the wasted time at loading docks and we need to remove incentives to speed and drive fatigued. This will make our highways safer for all motorists, including truck drivers.
Yes, these safety solutions will most likely cause shipping costs to rise, but the public will gladly pay the pennies more per item to reduce the danger of truck involved crashes, fatalities and injuries, while restoring professionalism to truck driving.
Thank you again for allowing CRASH to participate in this roundtable. We believe it is essential that victim advocacy groups like ours be included wherever and whenever commercial vehicle safety policies are examined, discussed, and formulated.
Because the heart of CRASH is composed of survivors and families like mine who have themselves experienced the devastation of loss, we have the commitment and the credibility to help carry the struggle for enhanced commercial truck safety to a successful conclusion. The CRASH truck safety agenda is a direct reflection of our deepest concerns and desires.
Copyright© 2006 Truck Safety Coalition / P.A.T.T. / The CRASH Foundation.
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