Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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LEADING NEWS, TRUCKING MARKET CONDITIONS AND INDUSTRY ANALYSIS U .S. Sen. Dick Durbin has asked the U.S. Department of Transportation's Inspector General to audit the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's investigative practices. The Illinois Democrat said his request was prompted by a Jan. 27 truck crash that left a tollway worker dead and a state trooper seriously injured. The two were assist - ing a driver of a disabled truck on Interstate 88 in Aurora when a DND International truck hit them. Last August, FMCSA ordered an investigation of DND but did not begin it until after the accident, the Chicago Tribune reported. The Naperville-based carrier had "a long history of violating safety rules," said Durbin, who is Senate majority whip. His April 9 letter asks Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel III to review FMCSA's practices "to ensure carriers flagged for investigation are being investigated in a timely manner." The DND driver involved in the crash, Renato Velasquez, was ordered in February by FMCSA to shut down after it was found he had been on duty for nearly 30 hours straight. FMCSA issued an imminent-hazard shutdown order to DND after investi - gators discovered "widespread viola- tions" of the hours-of-service rules. FMCSA said that during its investiga- tion of DND following Velasquez's accident, it randomly selected seven other DND drivers and found that all also had falsified their logs. – Jill Dunn T wo leaders on the U.S. House transportation committee asked the Government Accountability Office to evaluate studies done by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on the most recent hours-of-service rule to check the agency's research and methods used to create and support it. U.S. Reps. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) and Thomas Petri (R-Wis.) wrote U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro to request that GAO evaluate the agency's recently released field study on the hours rule – specifically, the 34-hour restart provision – and FMCSA's Regulatory Impact Analysis used during the rulemaking process. Shuster, chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said that because of the restrictive nature of the hours rule on drivers and carriers, particularly its potential impact on pay and productivity, "we have to be certain … changes to regula- tions … are well founded. "Concerns have been raised that these regulatory changes may have been enacted without proper data or analysis, and if the administration is going to change the rules on truck drivers, we need to know that the changes were thoroughly vetted and will improve safety," Shuster said. FMCSA in January released the results of its congressionally required field study that concluded that the hours rule boosts safety and makes drivers less fatigued. The agency's findings, though, ran coun- ter to those of trucking trade groups that performed their own studies. The American Transportation Research Institute, part of the American Trucking Associations, reported in a November survey that 80 per- cent of carriers saw their productivity shrink because of the rule. The report said nearly 70 percent of drivers surveyed had seen their pay drop since the new rule took effect. Similarly, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association in a survey of its members found that 65 percent of the 4,000 driver respondents saw a pay drop and that 46 percent said they felt more fatigued under the new rule. "I continue to hear concerns from driv- ers and companies in Wisconsin and around the country about the impact of this 34-hour restart," said Petri, chairman of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. "We need to make sure the requirements are based on sound facts and actually improve safety rather than just overwhelm the indus- try with another onerous regulation." In both the House and Senate, bills are in committee that would, if passed, overturn the current hours rule at least temporarily and allow driv- ers to operate under the prior rule until GAO has studied FMCSA's methodology. – James Jaillet Scan the QR code with your smartphone or visit ccjdigital.com/news/subscribe-to-news- letters to sign up for the CCJ Daily Report, a daily e-mail newsletter filled with news, analy- sis, blogs and market condition articles. COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | MAY 2014 7 FMCSA's field study concluded that the hours rule boosts safety and makes drivers less fatigued. Senator calls for audit of FMCSA's investigations Congressmen ask GAO to study FMCSA's hours rule research, methodology