FMCSA to Study Dock Delays and Effect on Trucking Safety

ATLANTA — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will scrutinize the divisive, nagging issue of trucker detention at shippers’ docks, focusing on how these delays affect trucking safety and what the agency’s regulatory options are, Administrator Anne Ferro said last week.

“Our first task is, ‘Let’s understand the impact detention time has; let’s understand the impact to which detention time is or is not being reduced and what’s the impact fundamentally on the drivers, their fatigue and their health,’ ” she said on Nov. 13 during an industry meeting here. “Right now, we need to take a deeper look at it.”

The study will take two years, she said.

Detention delays cost $3 billion annually, FMCSA said in a 2008 study that examined inefficiencies in trucking. The study also included empty miles and delays at freight terminals.

Also, four out of five drivers surveyed by the Government Accountability Office last year said detention time hurt their ability to comply with federal hours-of-service regulations.

Earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) introduced a bill that would give truckers the ability to collect pay if they were detained for long periods at shippers’ docks waiting to load or unload.

“The shipping industry is focused so clearly on turn times,” Ferro said last week, noting that detention time “contributes to driver stress and driver fatigue and all the things that we worry about when it comes to safety.”

Ferro said that the agency isn’t currently ready to seek jurisdiction over shippers’ detention practices.

Ferro was asked if FMCSA was pursuing the study with an eye toward following the lead of Australian shippers, carriers and regulators who use a concept called “chain of control,” which can assess fines for shipper-caused delays.

“We don’t have any specific models,” Ferro responded.

News of the agency’s plan to tackle the question of delays generated a mixture of reactions, including praise from some quarters, outrage in others and caution from still other groups.

Dave Parker, an insurance industry official who is chairman of the federal Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee, praised FMCSA’s move.

“For going on five years, we have wrestled with the issue of fatigue,” said Parker. “We’ve needed to have a study of what’s going on with fatigue and detention.”

His group, which includes 19 carrier, safety and other industry officials, asked FMCSA earlier this year to evaluate possible links between detention and fatigue.

Parker noted that Australia’s approach, which established responsibility for timely freight handling, was created voluntarily by carrier-shipper collaboration. Fines and government enforcement came later and were intended as incentives to ensure compliance.

“There needs to be a dialogue today to work out accountability and responsibility for detention so a government mandate doesn’t come into play,” Parker said.

Others had different views.

“The status quo has been allowed to dictate the market for decades, and the market has proved it will not resolve the [detention] problem without direct intervention,” said Todd Spencer, a vice president for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which backs DeFazio’s bill. “Proactively addressing this lack of accountability would make significant improvements to highway safety and compliance with hours of service and would reduce driver turnover.”

American Trucking Associations spokesman Sean McNally declined to comment.

In mid-May, however, ATA took a stance against regulation of detention practices.

“No carrier wants to see our drivers’ time wasted,” said Dan England, current ATA chairman and chairman of C.R. England Inc. “However, this is not an issue that can be handled in a ‘one-size-fits-all’ regulation. It is best addressed in contract agreements.”

“Detention and making carriers wait is a problem, and it wastes a very valuable asset — a driver’s time,” said Robert Voltmann, president of the Transportation Intermediaries Association, which also met here last week.

“It’s a black hole,” Voltmann said, while expressing reservations about the Australian approach. “If you are going to fine shippers and brokers over detention, then shippers and brokers crank up fines for missing appointments. The shipper has the market power and they won’t take this easily.”

Wayne Johnson, who is chairman of the highway committee of the National Industrial Transportation League, which met here, said he opposed FMCSA’s decision to study the issue.

“They want to regulate shipper activity,” he said. “We don’t want them doing this. Shippers ought to be able to regulate this on their own. Since 2003, most of us have adjusted our practices.”

“We’ve gotten [delays] down to a reasonable time,” said Johnson, who also is manager of global carrier relations for Owens Corning.

Other shippers stressed possible productivity gains from reduced dock delays.

Matt Ehlinger, assistant vice president of corporate transportation for NCH Corp., said, “We need to look at anything we can do to improve the productivity of the driver. We need to look at all those options.”

While conceding that shippers’ costs may rise in the short term to make changes in dock procedures, “the more productive drivers can be will help us in the long term,” said Ehlinger, who spoke in his role as vice chairman of NITL.