Opinion: Third Time Could Be the Charm

By Skip Kinford

Chief Executive Officer

Mobileye Inc.

This Opinion piece appears in the Nov. 14 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Will the old saw, “third time’s the charm,” turn out to be true for the truck safety tax-credit bill? That’s what carriers of all sizes are hoping for — although the larger fleets may be hoping a tad harder than their smaller colleagues.

For the third consecutive Congress, lawmakers have introduced legislation to help develop better safety technology for trucking through tax credits. But will the third time prove the charm?

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Reps. Geoff Davis (R-Ky.) and Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) have introduced identical bills for consideration by the current 112th Congress that would reward fleets with five-year, general business tax credits to cover 50% of the cost of safety systems. The tax credits would be limited annually, so vehicle owners could claim no more than $1,500 per safety system and $3,500 per vehicle.

The proposed legislation applies to technologies that cover brake-stroke monitoring, collision-warning systems, lane-departure warning and vehicle stability systems. The legislation — the Commercial Motor Vehicle Advanced Safety Technology Tax Act of 2011 — has been referred to the appropriate finance committee.

Such a tax credit would provide fleet owners of all sizes with a clear incentive to install collision-prevention systems to help reduce and mitigate traffic accidents.

The systems already have been or are being integrated into truck fleets, and they’re making a difference in reducing crash costs. C.R. England Global Transportation of Salt Lake City has lowered its accident rate by more than 20% and has substantially reduced its crash-incurred costs per mile traveled since it installed an advanced safety system in its trucks in November 2008.

A tax credit would spur the installation of more such advanced technology. Proponents of the legislation note that, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s National Center for Statistics and Analysis, large trucks are involved in about 380,000 motor traffic accidents each year, or 12% of all such accidents. Even more troubling, one in nine motor vehicle traffic fatalities involves a large truck.

If passed, the truck-safety legislation would help reduce such accidents through the installation of advanced safety technology into large and small fleets.

Noting the hundreds of thousands of crashes each year that involve large vehicles, Rep. Thompson contends, “Many of these accidents could have been prevented if advanced safety technologies had been in place.”

An April 2010 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety assessed a number of the technologies included in the proposed legislation and found they have “the potential to prevent or mitigate more than one of every four truck crashes, one of every three injury crashes and about one of five fatal crashes.”

But much like the situation in the two previous Congresses, the chance that lawmakers will clear the legislation is very uncertain, if not unlikely. That’s because 2012 is an election year, when legislators are unlikely to pass any measure that would reduce federal revenue.

Further, any legislation approved almost certainly would be amended as lawmakers add or change its language — including the probability that the tax credit percentage would be reduced. That change would serve to help the largest vehicle fleets especially.

Still, highway safety enjoys bipartisan support in Congress and within the Obama administration. In addition, the tax credit would spark many benefits consumers favor, including more jobs, safer highways, fewer accidents triggered by distracted truckers and fewer lawsuits, among others.

Some bill changes have been suggested, even before any congressional committee hearing has been set. Other proponents want a date set for when the tax credit would be retroactive, perhaps the fourth quarter of this year, so fleet owners could begin to order safety equipment, perhaps improving the chances of passage.

Certainly, recent advances in safety technology are impressive. One system addresses the 80% of crashes that occur when drivers are distracted three seconds before a crash. Its features deal with situational awareness, turn-signal use and proper following distance.

The system uses a camera mounted on the inside of a truck’s windshield to detect and measure the distance to vehicles and lane markings, as well as onboard sensor data that provide proactive communications with drivers and risk managers.

These new technologies are breakthroughs that have the ability to improve the safety of our roadways, for the trucking industry and all who share the road with trucks. We all should let our voices be heard by our respective lawmakers, encouraging them to capitalize on this important opportunity.

Netherlands-based Mobileye, a technology company, offers driver safety solutions. It has a research and development center in Jerusalem, Israel.