Opinion: The Self-Regulation Option for Trucking
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Check out the The accident on Big Bayou Canot, coming on the heels of several other incidents, propelled the barge and towing industry into the harsh glare of the public spotlight. Trucking knows what that is like. Railroad grade-crossing safety grabbed attention in March after an Amtrak train collided with a tractor-trailer near Bourbonnais, Ill., killing 11 people. Within days, the media was full of stories on truck, rail and grade-crossing safety and the Senate Commerce Committee announced a hearing.
The derailment of the City of New Orleans has given Congress — which is already going back and forth on the Office of Motor Carriers — one more reason to open the book on trucking safety regulation.
The barge industry had to accept new safety controls as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, but after the 1993 Alabama wreck, it decided to seize the safety agenda before Congress heaped additional, onerous measures on it.
Barge companies, led by the American Waterways Operators, mounted an aggressive lobbying and public outreach campaign. At the same time, AWO created the Responsible Carrier Program, a self-certification program for the association’s 275 members, thus seizing the initiative.
Carriers of all sizes worked with the Coast Guard to develop the program, said Capt. Bob Clinton, AWO’s safety director. Together they developed written policies and procedures, using a model provided by AWO as a starting point. “We don’t tell them what they should be, just that they should have the policies and procedures,” Clinton said.
The plans vary in sophistication. A large company, for example, may decide to create an emergency response team. “For one of our smaller companies, such as the one in which the entire staff consists of mom, pop and a cat, the emergency response plan consists of the phone number of the contractor to call when they have a spill,” Clinton said. “It doesn’t have to have all the bells and whistles, but it requires them to think through and write down how they would react to a given situation.”
Carriers must comply with their own policies.
“That’s the hard part,” Clinton said. “It takes time to change the company’s culture.”
hey also must submit to an audit to ensure they have developed and are following a safety plan. Inspectors make recommendations that the company must adopt if it wants the certification. The audits were spurred by customers and insurers who wanted independent verification that the companies were indeed safe.
When the plan was launched in 1994, carriers would simply affirm to AWO that they had implemented a safety plan. Responding to new threats of regulation after a barge full of heating oil ran aground on a Rhode Island beach during a winter storm in 1996, AWO’s board voted last year to require certification as a requirement of membership.
By now, all AWO members must have undergone a safety audit. New members have two years to develop a safety plan and be audited.
The decision was not without cost, according to AWO President Thomas Allegretti.
“Not many trade associations have been willing to put their revenue on the line for safety. This has cost AWO both members and money. We removed some companies who could not commit to the program from AWO’s rolls. But, in the long run, the benefits to our industry, our customers and the nation far outweigh these losses,” Allegretti said.
Clinton said it is hard to quantify the success of the program in reducing the number of accidents and injuries because of poor data collection, other than anecdotal evidence. However, insurance companies think the program is worthwhile, and they have begun offering rebates to certified companies.
The program also won praise from the Coast Guard.
“We have been watching the industry develop and implement this program over the last four years and we believe it is headed in the right direction,” said Rear Admiral Robert C. North, assistant commandant for marine safety and environmental protection. “Both their words and their actions indicate to me that AWO members are committed to improving marine safety.”
When the National Transportation Safety Board responded to the Rhode Island spill by calling upon the industry to improve the safety of tanker barges, AWO was able to respond, “been there, done that.”
The lesson for trucking is clear. Even if Congress does not pass motor carrier safety legislation this year, the issue will resurface every time a serious accident occurs.
AWO decided that self-policing is better than more government enforcement, even if it means
osing some members who would rather cut costs and gamble that nothing will go wrong. Trucking should develop a flexible safety code and require it as a prerequisite for membership in its many associations.
Spending a little on safety now is better than spending a lot more to comply with new government regulation down the road.
