By Howard Abramson, August 21, 2015
ACCIDENTS like the one that critically injured the comedian Tracy Morgan, killed his friend and fellow comedian James McNair, known as Jimmy Mack, and hurt eight others on the New Jersey Turnpike last year are going to continue to happen unless Congress stops coddling the trucking industry.
More
people will be killed in traffic accidents involving large trucks this
year than have died in all of the domestic commercial airline crashes
over the past 45 years, if past trends hold true. And still Congress
continues to do the trucking industry’s bidding by frustrating the very
regulators the government has empowered to oversee motor carriers.
In
recent months, Congress has pursued a number of steps to roll back
safety improvements ordered by federal regulators. It has pushed to
allow truck drivers to work 82 hours a week, up from the current 70
hours over eight days, by eliminating the requirement that drivers take a
two-day rest break each week; discouraged the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration from investing in wireless technology designed to
improve the monitoring of drivers and their vehicles; and signaled its
willingness to allow longer and heavier trucks despite widespread public
opposition. Congress also wants to lower the minimum age for drivers of
large trucks that are allowed to travel from state to state to 18, from
21.
All
of these concessions to the trucking industry have gained traction in
Congress even though the industry has consistently resisted safety
improvements. The death toll in truck-involved crashes rose 17 percent
from 2009 to 2013. Fatalities in truck-involved crashes have risen four
years in a row, reaching 3,964 in 2013, the latest data available. Those
crashes are killing not only car drivers but also, during 2013 alone,
586 people who were truck drivers or passengers.
And
while a more than 3 percent drop in car deaths over the same period was
largely accomplished by technological improvements like airbags,
electronic stability control and anti-lock brakes, the trucking industry
has resisted most of those safety devices. The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention estimates the annual cost to the economy of truck
and bus crashes to be $99 billion.
A
number of changes that will inevitably make us all less safe are tucked
into the pending highway bill, currently stalled because of differences
between the House and Senate versions. In fact, Congress has failed to
adopt a comprehensive highway funding bill for years, relying instead on
dozens of temporary extensions since 2009 to keep any semblance of a
federal road construction program moving. In July, the House and Senate
passed another temporary patch, good through the end of October.
The
crash involving Tracy Morgan shows why Congress needs to toughen its
oversight of trucking, not loosen it. The driver who caused the crash
was in a modern 18-wheeler that was well maintained and managed, owned
and operated by Walmart. As detailed in the causation report on the
crash released earlier this month, the National Transportation Safety
Board found that the driver had been on duty for about 13 and a half
hours; federal rules allow a 14-hour workday. About a mile before the
crash, the driver ignored work-zone warning signs on the New Jersey
Turnpike of likely delays ahead. About a half-mile later, the posted
speed limit dropped to 45 m.p.h. from the usual 65, which the driver
also ignored.
Mr.
Morgan’s Mercedes van was moving at less than 10 m.p.h. because of the
construction. The truck driver, fatigued and slow to react, according to
the N.T.S.B., was unable to stop in time, and slammed into the van,
turning it on its side and jamming the passenger door closed. According
to the board, if the driver had slowed to 45 when warned to do so, he
should have been able to stop before crashing. But before his official
work day began, the driver, the board found, had spent 12 hours driving
his own vehicle from his home in Georgia to pick up his truck at a
Walmart facility in Delaware, and had been awake for 28 consecutive
hours at the time of the crash.
Large
trucks are disproportionately involved in fatal accidents. While heavy
trucks accounted for less than 10 percent of total miles traveled in the
United States during 2013, according to federal data, the N.T.S.B.
recently reported that they were involved in one in eight of all fatal
accidents and about one-quarter of all fatal accidents in work zones,
like the crash that injured Mr. Morgan.
Many
accidents involve trucks rear-ending vehicles that have stopped or
slowed because of accidents or roadwork. Technology to prevent or lessen
the impact of such crashes is available from all of the manufacturers
of heavy trucks in North America. Yet only about 3 percent of the Class 8
trucks — the heaviest ones, including most tractor-trailers — are
equipped with any version of this collision-avoidance technology,
according to safety advocates.
Most
automakers now include or offer anti-lock brakes, electronic stability
control, airbags and collision-avoidance devices in their vehicles, and
the technology is included in many of the heavy trucks sold in Europe.
But the United States trucking industry has largely avoided using the
safety technologies available for vehicles sold here, because of their
cost.
The
truck that injured Mr. Morgan was one of the few tractor-trailers that
had a collision-detection system. But the N.T.S.B. was unable to prove
that the system issued a warning to the driver. The board said it could
not fully assess the performance of the device because the unit does not
store enough system performance data. (The board has suggested all
safety-system makers should ensure that their products store more data
in the future.)
The
trucking industry, through its chief trade group, the American Trucking
Associations, insists that it needs longer work weeks and bigger
vehicles so that more trucks will not be needed on the road, which it
says could result in more accidents. That logic is laughable, but
Congress seems to be buying it.
The
industry also bases its opposition to safety-rule changes on money,
saying that increasing costs will hurt profits and raise rates for
shippers and, ultimately, consumers.
Higher
safety standards and shorter work weeks may increase freight costs, but
some of those standards should save carriers money in the long run
through lower insurance rates and damage claims. And since trucking
generates more than $700 billion a year in revenue, according to the
trucking association, a small increase in safety costs would not put a
large financial strain on carriers.
The
trucking industry is vital to the nation’s economic well-being — it
carried almost 69 percent of all domestic freight last year — and its
executives have done an excellent job in keeping costs down. But
Congress must make it clear to all parties that safety has to be a
higher priority than penny-pinching.
Congress
must pass a comprehensive highway funding bill and ensure that safety
regulators have sufficient resources and political support to do what
must be done in order to reduce the continuing carnage on our highways.