Editorial: Welcome, Administrator Darling
This editorial appears in the July 25 & August 1 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
Scott Darling is officially the fifth administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to have been confirmed by the Senate, which did so July 14 by unanimous consent (see story, p. 5).
He’ll be around for at least six months, through Jan. 20, and perhaps even longer. Darling has been preparing for the job for almost two years, since Anne Ferro resigned in August 2014. For most of that time he’s been acting administrator, so surely he knows the issues.
Our unsolicited but tremendously useful advice is to consider trucking an ally on safety more than an enemy. There are some bad carriers and drivers who get shut down — and deservedly so. We read the closure notices from FMCSA, and you can read about them on our pages.
No one wants to get rid of those people more than the strong majority of the industry. Those are the carriers that hire and empower serious safety directors, the companies whose maintenance directors toil ceaselessly to keep their tractors and trailers in top shape.
They are the drivers who compete to get into the National Truck Driving Championships, who have each driven millions of accident-free miles — often in trucks that were voluntarily outfitted with expensive but highly effective active safety systems that minimize the odds of rollover or uncontrolled swerving accidents or even brake the truck autonomously.
Even though the industry has a strong safety culture, there is still a point to federal regulation. We have supported mandatory electronic logging devices and speed limiters, much but not all of the hours-of-service rule, and even some of FMCSA’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability program.
Those NTDC contestants and America’s Road Team Captains work hard at delivering valuable, necessary freight, and we want them to go home at the end of their shifts for some time with their families and friends.
A lot of our differences with FMCSA are small but highly significant. If a 34-hour HOS restart provision is to be the law of the land, that’s fine with us, but let the driver and carrier figure out the precise details of when to use it. FMCSA doesn’t need to include specific times of day.
Even on CSA, by all means put some heat on flagrant scofflaws, but make sure that what you measure is the sort of behavior that really does cause accidents.
Trucking will be pleased to work with you, Mr. Administrator, to make the nation’s highways a safe place to travel and do business. We hope you appreciate that.
