Letters: End of Self Insurance?, Whose Logic is Hazy?

End Self-Insurance?

President Obama’s desire to abolish the ability for a trucking company to self-insure is a hindrance to the industry and an ineffective way to save a lousy $9,000 per company that chooses to use this option, which amounts to about $500,000 a year.

Kudos to American Trucking Associations’ Prasad Sharma for pointing out that a self-insured company has a greater stake in the game and is more likely to run a better safety program. Keep in mind that these comments are coming from an insurance agent whose business earns revenue by selling truck insurance. The self-insurance option gives a carrier the opportunity to pay less for its insurance, which in turn means that our agency has less earning potential.

Still, I support the self-insurance option. Why? Because it enables a large company to better control its costs and use those savings to implement better protections and procedures that will help promote safety on our highways.

That the administration would even consider getting rid of this option baffles me. When the entire world is concerned about safety, why remove a provision in insurance requirements that promotes safety?

I hate government waste as much as anyone, but if it truly costs the taxpayers $9,000 per trucking company per year to administer this program, I strongly suggest that the administration add an annual filing fee of $10,000 for the companies who choose to exercise the self-insured option.

Under the FMCSA regulation now, a trucking company using the self-insured provision pays $4,200

for “an application for original qualification as self-insurer for bodily injury and property damage insurance.”

If FMCSA would add an annual fee of $10,000 on top of the initial $4,200 application fee (complete with a built-in mechanism to rise over time with inflation), both parties would be satisfied.

With this additional fee in place, FMCSA covers the cost of processing the original filing and addresses the ongoing administration of the program throughout the year. The trucking company is able to continue operating its business with prudent safety and cost-saving programs in mind.

If FMSCA implements this small change that affects only a handful of carriers, the cost of administering this provision is put squarely on the shoulders of those companies that choose the self-insurance option. Believe me, an annual $10,000 fee for those companies versus the savings they experience by self-insuring will be a welcome compromise.

E. Melissa Dixon

ICC Practitioner

Dixon Insurance Inc.

Fargo, N.D.

Whose Logic Is Hazy?

I’m disappointed and somewhat surprised that John Conley misses the most obvious and biggest points regarding the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s current landscape. FMCSA is focusing more on compliance, separate from any identifiable impact on safety.

These obstacles to safety are all on FMCSA:

• Compliance, Safety, Accountability — Inaccurate and burdensome, years after the rollout. CSA still is being changed to fix problems, but the program is still about compliance and is unrelated to safety.

• Sleep apnea testing — Overused fatigue hyperbole has spawned an entire industry to fix a nonexistent safety problem.

• Hours of service — The “off-duty” requirement from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. runs counter to highway safety.

• Increased insurance limits — This helps safety in what way?

What of the above is related to causing crashes? Does FMCSA ever look at safe drivers and what they do to operate?

Maybe Conley did not read FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro’s outrageous post, placed on the U.S. Department of Transportation website, that was intended to influence the votes of lawmakers by using emotion and guilt.

We truckers have a strong track record of dutifully jumping through hoops to comply with regulations, even when they are counterproductive to safety. Some leader in the alphabet of agencies needs to take the common-sense approach and tune out the special interests and help truckers move freight safely and effectively.

Danny Schnautz

Operations Manager

Clark Freight Lines Inc.

Pasadena, Texas

I would like to respond to John Conley’s letter.

I, too, have had experience with every Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration/Bureau of Motor Carrier Safety administrator since “Bow Tie” Bob Kaye for the past 40 years. I agree that Administrator Anne Ferro has been one of the more accessible administrators. She has set up more listening sessions and made herself available directly to more truckers for one-on-one discussions than any other administrator that I can recall.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons her performance has been so disappointing. Under her administration, more restrictive and invasive regulations have been heaped upon the industry than at any time in its history. Many of those regulations have fallen directly on the backs of hardworking, professional truckers. At a time when there is a huge driver shortage, we are hearing from good, experienced drivers that they are simply giving up in disgust and desperation and leaving the industry because of the heavy-handed regulatory and enforcement burden they are faced with every day.

Granted, many of these regulations are mandated by Congress, but how those regulations are designed remains the prerogative of the agency and backed by their so-called studies. The 34-hour restart is a case in point. Truckers at the listening sessions, for

common-sense reasons, asked for flexibility. Instead, they were given just the opposite.

Ferro also seems to be able to pick and choose which congressional directives she will follow. Mandatory entry-level driver training has been on the congressional list since 1992, and still no action has been taken, even though it is one of the most logical approaches to improving highway safety.

Ferro’s recent blog, designed to influence congressional action on the 34-hour restart provision, for us was the final straw. We see no way to put FMCSA on the right track under the current leadership, knowing full well this path will lead to an ongoing exodus of the people this industry needs to retain the most.

On a personal level, I like Anne Ferro. But there comes a time when the industry should stand up and say enough is enough. For us, in the interest of our members, that time has come.

Perhaps others in the industry could find some courage and do the same.

Jim Johnston

President

Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association

Grain Valley, Mo.