Misinformation or Misguided?
Perhaps I’m the Lone Stranger in my views or my 35 plus years in transportation and logistics with 22 years in oversight impacts my perception of the root cause of crashes.
Rachel Premack of FreightWaves recently posted a piece on her perceptions of why ELDs may have caused a spike in crashes since its inception.
She leans heavily on the Schmitts who failed in their attempt to be excluded from the HOS in 2022.?It tends to annoy me how the educated group use tilted statistics to show their views while ignoring other attributes that have equal value in identifying the root cause of an incident.
Ms. Premack never mentions issues like the number of drivers on the road. I can remember when Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater made it the US DOT’s goal to reduce truck crashes by 50% by 2010 as he exited the agency about 2002.?Mr. Slater’s goals were ambitious to say the least as America was growing with more vehicles/drivers added to the mix each year.?Vehicle registration statistics shows the number of registered vehicles went from 240M in 2010 to 285M in 2021 an increase of over 15%.?One of several facts Ms. Premack ignored in her piece.
Ms. Premack does touch on studies by professors that Americans tend to fudge on some laws as a natural way of doing business.?The issue bothers me as it side steps the issues of trucking companies and drivers placing the motoring public in Harm’s way as they operate their commercial motor vehicles (CMV) in violation of SAFETY regulations developed because the trucking industry has a less than sterling record in its pursuit of profits.?Ms. Premack says nothing of the drivers disregarding other Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR) that lead to the actions described, i.e. driving while fatigued and speeding.?49 CFR Part §392.2 says drivers must obey local laws, i.e. speed limits, traffic control devices, etc.?Part §392.3 states drivers cannot drive ill or fatigued. Part §392.6 states carriers must schedule runs so drivers aren’t required to speed.?
Ms. Premack ignores issues such as pressure by dispatchers, brokers and receivers that violates 49 CFR Part §390.6 coercion from shippers, receivers or dispatchers and Part §390.36 that prohibits carriers from harassing their drivers to violate the hours-of-service (HOS.)
I drove trucks in the US Army from 1976 to 1985 so gained experience in driving Class 8 trucks.?I acquired my CDL in April 1992 shortly after they were mandated and drove local, regional and over-the-road (OTR) until 1996 so know of the pressure imposed on drivers from the other outside sources.?I can recall pressure from a dispatcher after I told him I was tired.. “IF YOU HAVE HOURS TO DRIVE YOU’LL DRIVE.”?I was delivering fuel and had to mix chemicals at tank farms to make regular, midgrade and premium.?I missed a component so had to go back after I delivered to pick up and deliver the missing part.?The dispatcher later accepted part of the blame as I asked to go home. An earlier incident occurred in Denton, TX a “HOT” hazmat load had to be in Denver the next morning.?I told dispatch two problems;
1. It’s more than 10 hours from Denton to Denver.?
2. I don’t have enough hours on my 70-hour clock.?
The dispatcher begged me to take the load and said if there were any problems, they’d take care of it…. Limon, CO about 90 miles east of Denver I was inspected at the scale… 10.25 hours for the day and 72 hours for the week.. Out-of-service (OOS) with a $29.00 ticket.?A team I was following volunteered to finish the trip.?The guy driving my truck asked if I was ready to take over 10 miles later.. No sir, I’m OOS sorry not me.?So the team guy finished the trip to our yard in Denver.?On Monday I took the ticket to Safety to pay the $29.00 ticket.?“Mike, we can’t pay that. ?It’d be aiding and abetting.”?That was about 1993 and my last hot load.
Ms. Premack mentions 2M CMV drivers. I don’t know where she got that figure from.?According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) 2014 Pocket Guide to Large Truck and Bus Statistics there were 4,116,259 power units in 2010 with 3,031,032 commercial drivers and 4,216,408 total drivers.
Which brings me to another point.?In 2010 there were 527,370 active US DOT numbers per the manual referenced above.?The FMCSA’s 2022 Pocket Guide to Large Truck and Bus Statistics there were 757,652 active DOT numbers December 2021 an increase of over 30% since 2010. The 2022 Pocket Guide states there were 5,132,101 power units an increase of almost 20% since 2010; 4,167,277 CDL drivers an increase of about 27% since 2010 and 5,646,722 total drivers an increase of about 25% since 2010.??
Ms. Premack states there was an increase in speeding citations from 4.45% in 2018 to 5.07% in 2023.?Ms. Premack do you think the 27% increase in the number of CDL holder and 25% increase in total drivers since 2010 would have any impact on the number of speeding tickets in addition to the introduction of the ELD?
Ms. Premack points out that fatalities for large trucks was:
2016 = 3.55??????2017 = 3.6???2018 = 3.74??2019 = 3.88 ??and ??2020 = 3.72
But no mention of the significant increase in the number of drivers or vehicles.
Are there any statistics to indicate the drop in fatalities in 2020 had more to do with fewer cars on the road than the HOS exception?
Sorry Ms. Premack, but your slanted piece that misses crucial elements, i.e. drivers/carriers bending other sections of the FMCSR such as Part §390.6, §390.36, §392.2, §392.3 and §392.6, misses key points.?Per your references, if Americans need to fudge and break laws.. The trucking industry has done that in spades as they went from falsifying the drivers record of duty status (RODS) to violating multiple other FMCSR.
I am disappointed in the educated missing key issues such as values, ethics, driver health and safety when drivers falsified their logs and carriers neglected to use tools such as GPS to monitor drivers’ HOS.?The issue isn’t the FMCSR or FMCSA.?The issue is greed disregards safety and drivers’ health to get er done. ?