White House clears supporting documents rule

Mary Peters to become DOT secretary
Former FHWA chief co-chairs highway policy commission Mary Peters, former administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, is replacing Norman Mineta as secretary of the Department of Transportation. As CCJ went to press, Peters – who left FHWA in 2005 to join Omaha, Neb., engineering firm HDR as senior vice president – had been approved by the Senate Commerce Committee and was awaiting confirmation by the full Senate.

Before joining the Bush administration in 2001 as head of FHWA, Peters had been director for the Arizona Department of Transportation since 1998, having worked for the agency since 1985. She also is a member and co-chair of the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Commission, tasked by Congress with examining the condition and future needs of the nation’s surface transportation system and coming up with alternatives to fuel taxes for highway funding. Peters is considered to be a strong supporter of tolls as a mechanism for highway funding.

American Trucking Associations Chairman Pat Quinn, who serves on the commission with Peters, praised the selection, saying he was “impressed with her insights into the challenges we face with maintaining and improving our nation’s infrastructure. I hope for an early Senate confirmation process so we can all benefit from her strong leadership of our nation’s transportation programs.”

Senate backs tighter trucking security
The Senate last month approved a number of trucking-related measures in a port security bill (H.R. 4954), including provisions to encourage wireless communications in hazardous materials transportation and to discourage illegal residents from obtaining commercial driver’s licenses. The House-passed version of H.R. 4954 did not contain similar provisions.

The Senate-passed bill would mandate a Transportation Security Administration program to encourage motor carriers transporting high-hazard materials in certain quantities to adopt wireless systems that would provide continuous communications, vehicle position location and tracking capabilities, and the capability for the driver to broadcast an emergency message. The TSA program would take into account the recommendations and findings from a hazardous materials safety and security field test conducted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

The measure regarding CDLs obtained by illegal residents received some public attention when Sens. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Jim Talent (R-Mo.) proposed it last month. Although some reports – including Pryor’s own press release – characterized the measure as requiring that CDL holders be U.S. citizens, the provision actually doesn’t go quite that far.

The Pryor-Talent amendment requires DOT to issue regulations to implement recommendations of the DOT Office of Inspector General regarding verification of legal status and prevention of fraud in the CDL program. The inspector general had recommended that FMCSA require all CDL applicants to demonstrate that they are either a U.S. citizen, a permanent legal resident or otherwise legally present in the United States. Other trucking-related measures would:
· Implement name-based checks against terrorist watch lists and immigration status for all port truck drivers that matches the screening used by the Coast Guard for port facility employees and longshoremen;
· Order the Department of Transportation to assess the state of trucking security and the economic impact of possible upgrades on the trucking industry;
· Require DOT in consultation with the Department of Homeland Security to study highway routing for hazmat transportation; and
· Order the Department of Homeland Security to consider development of a national public sector response system to receive security alerts, emergency messages and other information used to track the transportation of high hazard materials.

At CCJ went to press, the fate of the trucking-related measures and the entire port security bill were unclear due to the impending pre-election congressional recess. One controversy that threatened to stall the entire bill was a Senate proposal for $4.5 billion in rail and mass transit programs. Even if the legislation failed to pass Congress before the recess, legislators could take up the measure in a short “lame duck” session following the mid-term elections.

Carriers petition for speed governors
Several trucking companies – including Schneider National, J.B. Hunt Transport, C.R. England, Covenant Transport and Dart Transit – and a public safety interest group called Road Safe America last month jointly petitioned the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to require electronic speed governors be set at not more than 68 mph. American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves has submitted a letter of support for this measure to FMCSA. Earlier this year, ATA’s board of directors approved a resolution calling for a regulation governing speed at 68 mph.

According to FMCSA’s Large Truck Crash Causation Study, “traveling too fast for conditions” was a frequently cited factor in large truck crashes where trucks were assigned a critical reason. “The 80-miles-per-hour, 80,000-pound truck has no place on our highways,” says Steve Owings, who co-founded Road Safe America after he lost his 22-year-old son, Cullum, in a high-speed truck accident. “This petition is a matter of life and death for drivers of passenger cars, as well as for professional truck drivers. And it is a matter of economic common sense for the companies that put trucks on the road.”

Carriers that support a universal governed speed cite not only safety but also savings in fuel consumption, liability costs and equipment wear and tear. “Historically, carriers have waited for regulations to come down from the federal government and not been actively engaged in the process,” says Don Osterberg, vice president of safety and training for Schneider National. “What’s unique in this filing is that a core group of responsible carriers is stepping up and initiating a proactive change for improving public safety.”

ATA Truck Tonnage Index up 0.7 percent in July
The American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted for-hire Truck Tonnage Index increased for the third time in the last four months, rising 0.7 percent in July. The latest increase followed a 0.4 percent contraction in June.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the index expanded to 113.4 from 112.6 in June. July’s index level was the highest since a 113.7 reading in February of this year. However, compared to July 2005, the index was 1.6 percent lower, and year-to-date, compared with the same period in 2005, the index was down 1.8 percent. The not-seasonally adjusted index contracted 8.7 percent from June to 109.0.

“Tonnage volumes increased nicely in July, but the industry has yet to fully recover from the large decrease in volumes during the first quarter of the year,” says Bob Costello, ATA chief economist. “There is no doubt the three month-to-month increases during the last four months are very positive, although I’d feel even better if the index was growing on a year-over-year basis as well.” Costello attributed the July increase to gains in retail sales and manufacturing activity.

“Ever since the large declines in February and March, the tonnage index has risen nicely, gaining 2.7 percent in total,” Costello says. “With industry capacity fairly tight heading into the traditional peak season, tonnage levels don’t have to increase significantly for the industry to maintain its favorable supply-demand balance.”

ATA calculates the index based on surveys from its membership. The baseline year is 2000.

Turnover down, but still above 100 percent
Driver turnover rates for truckload carriers declined during the 2006 second quarter, but turnover rates remain above 100 percent on average, the American Trucking Associations reported. According to ATA survey data, the annualized turnover rate for large truckload carriers – those reporting more than $30 million in annual revenue – slid to 110 percent from 116 percent in the first quarter. The rate in the second quarter was the lowest for large carriers since the fourth quarter of 2003. Turnover for small truckload carriers dropped 11 percentage points to 100 percent.

“Despite reduced rates among both groups, driver turnover remains relatively high by 1990 standards,” says ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “This is a clear signal that the driver shortage has become more acute in recent years.”

DOT pushed to do more on aggressive driving
The Department of Transportation should develop a strategy for using its resources and expertise to fight aggressive driving by automobile and truck drivers, the Government Accountability Office said. In a new report, GAO said that DOT’s Share the Road Safely pilot program conducted in 2004 and 2005 in Washington State showed promise, but that it’s unclear how the department will proceed.

The Washington State program, known as Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks, or TACT, combined education, such as highway message signs, and high-visibility law enforcement to reduce aggressive driving. With the oversight of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, TACT received about $892,000 in federal and state funds and was generally modeled on successful behavior modification programs, such as the Click It or Ticket program to encourage safety belt use. TACT was more complex to implement, however, since many behaviors constitute aggressive driving and Washington State lacked a single aggressive driving law, GAO said.

An evaluation conducted by DOT and Washington State officials found that TACT significantly reduced the number and severity of unsafe driving acts near or by trucks. FMCSA plans to development more TACT-like initiatives, but lacks resources and experience to do so, GAO said. FMCSA also plans to spend most of its current funding on educational initiatives, which lack information showing whether they improve driver behavior. FMCSA is developing a TACT-like pilot program in Pennsylvania and plans to roll out initiatives similar to TACT nationally by 2009.

Despite these plans, FMCSA has few people dedicated to education and outreach, and it lacks the experience that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has with behavior modification initiatives. Meanwhile, NHTSA’s role in Share the Road Safely is still evolving.