FHWA Data Shows Truck Safety Gain
The new data, released Oct. 29, show that the number of people killed in accidents involving large trucks dropped to 2.8 per 100 million miles traveled in 1997.
They also show that between 1987 and 1997, the fatality rate plunged 31%, while the number of miles increased 41%.
The statistics add a new dimension to the national debate begun last month by House Appropriations Transportation Subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf (R-Va.) over trucking’s safety record. After American Trucking Associations defeated an effort by Mr. Wolf to transfer the Office of Motor Carriers from the Federal Highway Administration to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Mr. Wolf cited NHTSA statistics showing an increase in the number of truck-related fatalities on the nation’s highways as his reason for seeking the transfer.
Citing those statistics, the Washington Post editorialized in favor of the transfer of OMC to NHTSA in a Nov. 3 editorial headlined “Killer Trucks.”
“Nightmarish incidents of unsafe trucks flipping over, slamming into cars or otherwise spinning out of control pile up across the country,” the Post wrote. “Yet for all the hand-wringing by lawmakers, some basic efforts to improve truck safety tend to take a back seat once the big trucking lobby rolls through Congress.”
The editorial also cited Virginia State Police statistics that found 25,221 out-of-service defects in 42,256 vehicles inspected.
ATA says using fatality rates alone to calculate the safety record of trucks is misleading, because the figures do not take into account the number of miles traveled. ATA instead uses the “fatal crash rate” as the chief indicator of safety performance. That rate is the number of fatal crashes per 100 million miles of truck travel.
ATA President Walter B. McCormick, Jr. said the statistics are proof that “trucking’s commitment to safety and constant improvement is paying off.” Mr. McCormick credited the nation’s nearly 3 million truck drivers for the decline in the fatal crash rate.
In a Nov. 3 letter to Mr. Wolf, Mr. McCormick said the lawmaker was using inaccurate statistics that paint a picture of the trucking industry “that is simply quite false.” Mr. McCormick provided Mr. Wolf with the new FHWA statistics, saying “ATA stands ready to work with you to promote and improve highway and truck safety.”
Calls to Mr. Wolf’s office to discuss the new statistics were not returned by Transport Topics’s deadline Nov. 5.
“What’s alarming is that the statistics are wrong,” Mr. McCormick said in an interview. “He articulated the statistics provided to him and the media picked up on it.”
Also last week, ATA responded to the Post editorial and distributed the new statistics to media outlets around the country.
In the midst of this uproar, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance proposed the creation of a new motor carrier safety administration to replace OMC. In an Oct. 28 letter to Mr. Wolf, the international safety group said the new modal administration would “separate motor carrier safety from the road-building interests of FHWA and from the manufacturers’ interests in NHTSA.”
CVSA President Harry Eubanks said the proposal is an effort to “elevate motor carrier safety to its proper place.”
“Our point is that motor carrier safety is important enough that if we are going to consider making changes, we should look at it separately and give it
little more visibility,” Mr. Eubanks said. CVSA hasn’t worked through the details of such an administration, but the group is trying to frame a discussion on the subject, he said.
CVSA’s plan to create a new modal administration is not a new one. Congress created OMC in 1984, in response to ATA’s push for an exclusive regulatory agency devoted to truck safety. ATA still thinks the idea has merit, Mr. McCormick said last week.
“We believe there needs to be a single point of contact for motor carrier safety policies and programs,” he said. “No one has offered a compelling argument as to how these goals are served by a transfer to NHTSA.”
Mr. McCormick called for a “thorough review, informed debate and reasoned decision-making,” on the subject of a new modal administration. “Let’s put back on the table an idea proposed more than a decade ago — a motor carrier administration with status equal to that of rail, transit and aviation.”
Mr. Wolf has promised hearings on the issue next year during the appropriations process, and hearings are also likely before the House Transportation Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee.
Staff writer David Barnes contributed to this report.
