ATA Backs Broad Safety Plan; Seeks New Car, Truck Rules
By Sean McNally, Senior Reporter
This story appears in the Oct. 13 print edition of Transport Topics.
NEW ORLEANS — American Trucking Associations leaders endorsed a sweeping, 18-point plan to improve highway safety for everyone — passenger cars, as well as trucks — as part of the federation’s strategy for next year’s highway legislation.
Among the safety policies ATA said it will advocate are a national 65-miles-per-hour speed limit, more red-light cameras and automated speed enforcement, efforts to cut driver distractions and improvements in the crashworthiness of heavy trucks.
“We have always talked about how committed we were to safety, but we thought it was time to really put our arms around the sum total of all the things that we’re willing to publically step out in favor of,” ATA President Bill Graves said.
ATA adopted its Safety Task Force report a year after endorsing a package of environmental policies. Along with promoting the industry’s importance to the economy, the safety report is a “sister product” for the environmental sustainability report, completing a “three-legged stool” the federation will use to support its agenda for the highway bill, Graves said.
“We’re not just expanding the agenda for trucking safety, but we’re expanding our agenda into the broader highway safety area,” said Dave Osiecki, ATA vice president of safety, security and operations.
“Our policy now supports a requirement for governing trucks at no more than 65 miles per hour, retroactive back to 1992,” Osiecki said. “We are also supporting state laws requiring noncommercial drivers who have certain serious traffic offenses to have their speed governed. We recognize that speed-governing every car in America is not possible, but if we target high-risk drivers, we can improve safety by changing high-risk driver behavior.”
ATA had previously endorsed a national speed limit of 65 mph, and petitioned for setting speed governors on new trucks at 68 mph. The task force report changes ATA’s policies by seeking retroactive governor use and cutting their speed setting.
Osiecki said improving the crashworthiness of trucks was an effort to reduce the number of truck occupant fatalities, which have been relatively static despite a drop in all truck-related deaths.
“With truck occupant [fatality] numbers, the needle hasn’t moved. We’re trying to move that needle,” he said. ATA also called for bolstering law enforcement around large trucks.
Other policy shifts included requiring new trucking companies to take a course in compliance and safety management before operating and “narrowing the window for a safety audit from the current 18 months to six months,” which Osiecki said was recognition that new carriers have “higher noncompliance and crash rates.”
The safety report called for expansion of the so-called Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks, or TACT, program, which targets all types of drivers for driving unsafely around large trucks. Osiecki said ATA believes those efforts should be “properly funded and implemented” on a much broader scale. Currently a handful of states, notably Washington, employ a program of TACT enforcement.
Task force leader Barbara Windsor, ATA vice chairwoman and president of Hahn Transportation, said she was “pleased and excited” with the safety group’s report.
She told Transport Topics that the report’s call for a national clearinghouse for drug and alcohol test results “will be excellent for us.” She also emphasized the importance of the noncommercial aspects of the report.
The task force “really pushed the envelope,” in developing “a really robust list of items that we were considering,” Graves said.
Graves pointed out that the recommendations in the safety package were whittled down by ATA members from an initial list of 23 potential policies, but Osiecki said there was a “distinct possibility” it could grow.
“We’ll revisit a number of issues but also new issues that come up, and new safety issues raised by members,” he said.
Osiecki said the 18 policies fell into three categories: “improving driver performance, creating a safer vehicle and creating a safer motor carrier company, and recognizing that most crashes are the result of driver behavior; most of our new policies fall in the driver category.”
The driver category includes:
• Reducing driver distraction by devices, such as cell phones and navigation units.
• Support for uniform commercial driver license testing standards.
• Support for a CDL graduated licensing study.
• Additional parking facilities for trucks.
• A national maximum 65-mph speed limit.
• Strategies to increase seat-belt use.
• Support for a national car-truck driver behavior improvement program.
• Increased use of red-light cameras and automated speed enforcement.
• Graduated licensing in all states for teen drivers with noncommercial licenses.
• More stringent laws to reduce drinking and driving.
The vehicle category includes:
• Support for targeted electronic speed governing of certain noncommercial vehicles.
• Electronic speed governing of all large trucks made since 1992.
• Support for new large truck crashworthiness standards.
Finally, the improving motor carrier safety package includes:
• Support for a national employer notification system.
• Creation of a national clearinghouse for positive drug and alcohol test results of CDL holders.
• A national registry of certified medical examiners.
• Policy supporting access to the national Driver Information Resource.
• Required safety training by new motor carriers.
