Road Kill
Lerner, Preston
Road Kill Most truckers work hours that exhaust them, endanger you, and break the law. Here's how the feds are planning to make the problem worse BY PRESTON LERNER "Were lawbreakers. We've got to...
...The big trucking companies see expanded hours of service as a huge financial windfall...
...By law truckers have to keep a daily record of the hours they drive...
...The motor carrier can say, 'No, I didn't tell you to break the law.' No, he didn't...
...The feds call this program "a zero-base review...
...After 41 years driving a big rig, he knows how the game works...
...From their perspective, more driver hours means more revenue...
...There's a one-in-three chance that his truck couldn't pass a safety inspection...
...No company would keep you on if that was all you were willing to do...
...The shippers were the ones who benefited...
...The new rule would allow them to drive 100 hours (and work up to 115) during the same stretch...
...As for anti-lock braking systems, required since 1991 on new trucks in the European Economic Community and Japan, the feds are still studying them...
...Stories like this are not only tragic...
...They claim that truck-related fatalities are nose-diving, and they've got Department of Transportation numbers to prove it...
...OMCS officials have proposed a new rule, for instance, that would extend the number of hours a trucker can drive—this despite the fact that many of them routinely (and illegally) work 80- and 100-hour weeks...
...Keep on Ducking Predictably, the feds and the folks at the American Trucking Association—the industry's most influential voice—have a different take on the situation...
...The irony is that most long-haul drivers already ignore the current hours-of-service standard...
...To their I'm-Okay-You're-Okay way of thinking, the problem isn't too little regulation...
...No wonder 19 percent of them admitted that they'd fallen asleep at the wheel at least once during the previous month...
...A recent study published in the Journal of Public Health Policy found that 73.3 percent of truckers interviewed flouted the hours of service regs...
...Otherwise, the trucking companies, bless their hearts, will work the guys to death...
...Or do they...
...There's no way you can run 55 mph and drive a 10-hour day," says Marvin Leischner, an owner-operator from Salem, Oregon, as he meticulously cleans his Kenworth rig...
...But these logs are so routinely falsified that they're universally called "comic books...
...You had the quality of the drivers going down and companies putting less money into their trucks...
...all state transportation officials can do is make an educated guess...
...Unfortunately, non-union drivers usually can't afford to complain when they're given impossible delivery schedules or sent out in unsafe equipment...
...But he knew good and well what the driver had to do...
...And make no mistake: This isn't somebody else's problem...
...And, for that matter, so do the civil servants charged with enforcing truck safety...
...To begin with, let's factor single-unit trucks out of the equation...
...Despite romantic associations with the lure of the open road and hearty self-reliance, truckers have gradually become wage slaves squeezed between a rock and a hard place—namely, the bosses who hire them and the bureaucrats who regulate them...
...In fact, large fleets have been using on-board recorders for years to increase productivity...
...Pointing to entry after entry of fictitious material, he says: "It makes a liar out of you...
...The only way for most truckers to increase their earnings is to cover more miles, and that means driving longer and faster than the law allows...
...But because most drivers are paid by the mile rather than by the hour, expenses wouldn't be affected...
...There's also been talk about lowering the minimum age requirement from 21 to 18 in some cases...
...Naturally, the number of accidents started going up...
...Medium and heavy-duty trucks—those with a gross vehicle weight of more than 10,000 pounds—were involved in 4,500 fatal accidents in 1991...
...We already have the technology to end logbook abuse...
...It's possible that President Clinton's appointees will bring renewed regulatory vigor to their jobs...
...Despite the problems associated with deregulation, OMCS is eager to provide more of the same...
...Meanwhile, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is just now getting around to requiring truck manufacturers to put self-adjusting brakes on their new vehicles...
...This whole logbook thing is a scam," one disgusted trucker grumbles...
...No wonder the ATA is lobbying so fiercely in favor of passage...
...But they're in no position to do anything else...
...Federal officials generally agree with this high-cost, low-benefit argument...
...The apparent numbers paradox isn't hard to fathom...
...Largely overworked and underpaid, they're also in increasingly short supply...
...What's more, it's likely that the owner knows it...
...The statistics support Vandenburg's gloomy assessment...
...Which is why the rest of us have a vested interest in making sure those big rigs are operated safely...
...The brochure touting its zero-base review depicts a bulldozer barreling through a pile of paper labelled "Regs...
...Never mind that this technology has been standard equipment in automobiles for decades, and that losing brakes on downhill grades is the truckers' perennial nightmare...
...When the focus is on combination units—big rigs, generally 18 wheels, with trailers pulled by truck tractors—we find that fatal wrecks dropped by 4.2 percent between 1980 and 1990 while the miles driven climbed by 40.5 percent...
...In other words, nearly nine out of every 10 victims in truck-related fatalities were in a car or on foot...
...But the feds are doing their part to ease the deficit: They've proposed less stringent vision requirements and relaxing some medical prohibitions—those, for instance, that prevent seizure-prone epileptics from getting commercial driver's licenses...
...The driver has probably driven as many as 100 hours in the past week, flagrantly violating federal safety regulations...
...So the driver turns the other cheek," says Marshall Siegel, president and CEO of the Independent Truck Owner-Operators Association...
...In contrast to the feel-good DOT numbers, his figures paint a picture of a tractor-trailer landscape that's only marginally safer than it was 10 years ago...
...Drivers generally don't see a penny for the time they spend loading and unloading, maintaining their trucks and other ancillary activities...
...Despite $76 million in federal assistance last fiscal year alone, many state-run inspection programs are notoriously lax...
...It's trying to slash the number of safety regulations on the books...
...By law, drivers are required to keep a daily record of their hours...
...Under the circumstances, with millions in tax dollars riding on these calculations, the temptation to estimate high—way high—must be irresistible...
...When a truck crashes, the one person most likely not to be killed is the guy behind the wheel...
...As one of them puts it: "You have to have some sort of regulation...
...One trucker grumbles: "This whole logbook thing is a scam...
...We've got to be," ¦Ron Vanderburg says defiantly as W W he stands by his raucously idling Peterbilt in the vast Union 76 truck stop in Ontario, California...
...The truth of the matter, drivers say, is that their bosses don't want to know what hours they're running...
...Deregulation seemed to make sense, but it took all the profit out of the industry," says Mundt, now a trucking company executive in Kansas City...
...Predictably, trucking industry execs pooh-pooh on-board recorders as too expensive and prone to tampering...
...Todd Spencer, vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, wonders, "Are they scouring the country for the best drivers, or are they just looking for cheap labor...
...Even in California, home of perhaps the toughest enforcement in the country, a trucker was killed recently while making a 19hour run purportedly forced upon him by his dispatcher...
...It's no wonder that there's a massive driver shortage...
...In these areas, truckers who limit themselves to intrastate jobs get away with murder...
...At the moment, several pivotal posts within the Federal Highway Administration remain vacant...
...Smell a rat...
...Among working truckers, at least, there's no question that our highways are more dangerous than they used to be, and they're getting more danPreston Lemer is a Los Angeles-based journalist...
...These are primarily delivery trucks used for short trips around town...
...What's more, everybody realizes this, from the lowliest trucker up to the highestranking Federal Highway Administration official...
...Like many owner-operators (or, in his case, former owner-operator), Barry Mundt blames the situation on the deregulation mandated when the Reagan administration took power...
...As it is now, there's not much money in the driving end of trucking...
...Department of Transportation (DOT) money is allocated to states largely on the basis of how many miles are driven in them...
...But if they don't, OMCS's zero-base review seems destined to produce rules that are even worse than the ones they replace...
...they're unnecessary...
...Nobody actually tracks these numbers...
...Moreover, they suggest that the demands of competition will force the industry to police itself—a notion most truckers find as laughable as their logbook entries...
...gerous every day...
...It's a little curious to me that the accidents have remained fairly constant while the vehicle-miles have skyrocketed," says Kenneth Campbell, director of the Center for National Truck Statistics at the University of Michigan...
...It makes a liar out of you...
...Since the interviews were conducted at inspection stations, with state troopers nearby, it's reasonable to assume that these figures are conservative...
...As it happens, OMCS officials have tabled their proposed hours-of-service regulation, perhaps as a result of a letter-writing campaign orchestrated by the Teamsters, which bombarded the agency with 70,000 mostly critical letters...
...Campbell's own study, based on interviews with truckers rather than estimates from self-serving state officials, suggests that vehicle miles have remained fairly steady over the past decade...
...With financial considerations chasing veteran (read safer) drivers off the road, one study suggests that the industry will need 500,000 new (read more dangerous) drivers every year through the end of the century...
...Truckers know it's dangerous to ignore speed limits and run when they're nodding off, and they don't necessarily like working monstrous hours...
...safety advocates call it cause for alarm...
...It's not hard to identify doctored logbooks...
...it's too much regulation...
...And last year, the agency proposed a new rule that would increase the number of hours drivers could work...
...The [trucking company] dispatchers don't give a damn how you get there, how many laws you break, how many hours you run, how much dope you take, just as long as you get there when you're supposed to...
...The problem is finding the time and people to scrutinize them...
...And what is the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Motor Carrier Safety (OMCS)—the agency charged with overseeing and enforcing truck safety—doing about it...
...Moreover, much of whatever improvement has occurred can be attributed to wider use of seat belts and airbags by folks who aren't in trucks...
...At the federal level, there are only 500 inspectors—this in a nation with 3.6 million trucks and 6.3 million truckers...
...Instead of dealing with one trucker who wanted $1.80 a mile, they had 50 guys willing to work for $1.20 a mile...
...Of the 5,200 people killed in these crashes, only 13.7 percent were riding in the truck...
...Odds are the 18-wheeler belching smoke in the next lane is speeding...
...On the other hand, the feds have refused to require trucking companies to install on-board recording devices to ensure compliance with these regulations...
...Or get murdered...
...Things get odder still: Vehicle-miles have jumped by 40.5 percent even though the number of big rigs has risen by only 13.4 percent...
...Action, if any, is at least a year away...
...Drivers, on the other hand, realize that a new rule allowing them to log longer hours would all but compel them to do so...
...Highly experienced long-haul truckers and Teamsters can make more than $50,000 a year, but entry-level salaries usually start in the high $20s and rise as slowly as an overloaded Freightliner climbing the Rockies...
...But these logbooks are so routinely falsified that they're universally called "comic books...
...As it stands, truckers are already permitted to drive a hefty 60 hours (and work a total of 70) in an eight-day period...
...These devices, mandatory in much of Europe, automatically log when and how fast a vehicle moves...
...Viewed from the corporate vantage point, it's a win-win situation, revenue without expenses...
...The agency will continue to appear far more sensitive to the interests of the industry it's supposed to regulate than the public it's supposed to serve...
Vol. 25 • January 1993 • No. 12
