Ferro Plans New Push to Raise Truck Safety by Eliminating Bad Carriers and Drivers

This story appears in the May 6 print edition of Transport Topics.

AUSTIN, Texas — Anne Ferro, the nation’s top truck safety official, told tank truck executives here that while she salutes their commitment to safety, she is determined to use her agency’s authority to eliminate unsafe carriers and bad commercial drivers.

Addressing the National Tank Truck Carriers annual conference on April 30, Ferro, the administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said the agency’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability program already has had desirable results and that the hours-of-service rule taking effect July 1 also will improve the situation.

Conference attendees also heard from a congressional representative who offered hope for a multiyear transportation bill to succeed the current two-year legislation.

Ferro reiterated her agenda for FMCSA, which she has led since 2009, saying the agency will pursue a revised commercial vehicle registration system, a clearinghouse of drug and alcohol information for drivers, an electronic logging mandate and a hunt for “chameleons” and “reincarnated” carriers that have been driven out of business for a poor safety record but reappear under a different name.

“We [at FMCSA] want to achieve a day when there are no fatal truck or bus accidents, and I think we share that vision,” Ferro told the group. The U.S. rate of fatal accidents involving commercial vehicles has declined by 28% from 2005 through last year, Ferro said, but there are still about 10 fatal accidents a day on average, and she would like to drive that down further.

Ferro also said the Unified Registration System plan, awaiting approval by the White House Office of Management and Budget, will be an important tool for pursuing scofflaw carriers. She said she believes the final wording will be published during the summer.

“URS will create a better screen for applicants coming into the system,” Ferro said, adding that she expects the system will be in operation next year.

FMCSA has emphasized recent actions taken against passenger bus operators, but Ferro said that does not mean her agency is ignoring unsafe trucking companies.

Ferro said she has “zero tolerance” for unsafe drivers and carriers and wants to remove them from the highways so they do not compete with carriers that work hard on safety. She thanked NTTC for its efforts to prevent rollover accidents and for providing relief to the Northeast after Superstorm Sandy.

On electronic onboard recorders, Ferro said FMCSA will have a proposal by Sept. 30 and a final rule sometime during 2014 that will take effect in 2016. The devices have been called EOBRs, but recently the devices have been called electronic logging devices, or ELDs.

“People have asked the agency to provide a level playing field,” she said, so that carriers and drivers who do not log hours honestly will not get a competitive advantage.

Steve Rush, president of Carbon Express in Wharton, N.J., has been a proponent of mandatory electronic logging because of the level-playing-field argument. In a meeting during the conference, Rush recommended that carriers adopt electronic logging as soon as possible.

“If you wait until it’s a firm mandate, it will change your company in a bad way,” said Rush, a former NTTC chairman.

Rush also said it is important for trucking company managers to familiarize themselves with the new hours rule immediately. He said that Carbon Express will start using it June 1, a month before it takes effect. “Don’t wait until July 1 to start with this,” he warned.

Warren Hoemann, an ATA senior vice president, said most of the association’s members do not approve of the new rule and would like to see FMCSA delay the starting date until after a federal appeals court rules on ATA’s challenge to some provisions.

Hoemann said he is uncertain about when the court will rule and what it will say, so ATA has published advice for carriers on how to comply.

Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas) said after an April 28 speech that the federal government should largely leave businesses alone and stick to the most basic of activities.

But Williams also said there should be a federal role in transportation infrastructure. He offered some hope for new multiyear highway legislation but did not offer specifics. A senior ATA official said the current political environment makes passage of such legislation difficult.

Williams appealed to the NTTC members as a fellow businessman. He worked in his family’s car and truck dealership.

He said he would like to see a five-year highway plan replace the two-year MAP-21 law when it expires. He said members of Congress are talking about the issue, and there is some consensus, but paying for the spending plan is a major obstacle.

Hoemann described Williams as a friend of ATA but said many similar conservatives and Republicans differ with ATA on transportation funding. Hoemann said ATA has been clear about the need to raise fuel taxes to pay for a better road system. ATA prefers fuel taxes to tolls, vehicle-mile taxes or doing nothing, he said.

“This is still a big lift,” Hoemann said of securing funding.