CRASH Lashes Out at Trucking Safety

WASHINGTON — A familiar trucking critic is adding its voice to the debate over moving the Office of Motor Carriers from the Federal Highway Administration to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

CRASH — Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways — said it is making the agency’s transfer one of its 12 truck safety priorities for 1999.

The announcement came at a Dec. 4 news conference, which CRASH called to release its annual rankings of the worst states for big truck fatalities.

Citing an increase in trucking-related highway deaths, CRASH Chairman Joan Claybrook said OMC has been “dangerously negligent in its handling of this tragedy. OMC has fatally failed in its duty to offer proper oversight of the trucking industry,” she charged.

“Its cozying up to the industry has meant more deaths, more injuries and more devastated families across the country. OMC has essentially become a handmaiden of the trucking industry,” she said.

As evidence, she cited the Truck and Bus Safety Summit planned by OMC, which she said was “stacked with industry lobbyists and mouthpieces who set the agenda.” FHWA canceled the summit for lack of sufficient participation by unions and safety groups, Department of Transportation spokesman Bill Schulz said (TT, 11-30-98, p. 1).

Ms. Claybrook criticized FHWA for taking five years to issue regulations requiring truck trailers to be retrofitted with reflective tape. FHWA issued a proposed rule in June.

She also denounced the agency’s “No-Zone” program for shifting responsibility for truck safety from commercial vehicle drivers to automobile drivers. The “No-Zone” campaign is a government-industry effort to educate the motoring public on how to share the road with trucks.

An FHWA spokesman last week declined to comment on the CRASH accusations.

Ms. Claybrook questioned whether OMC’s inaction was due to congressional pressure to lower truck safety requirements or undermine laws with exemptions and exceptions in response to campaign contributions from trucking.

Trucking was the 35th largest interest group contributor in last month’s elections, giving $4.4 million to candidates for House and Senate seats and the two major political parties (TT, 11-9-98, p. 1).

For the full story, see the Dec. 14 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.

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