Independent Review Casts Serious Doubt About FMCSA’s HOS Mandate

The American Trucking Association issued a press release today about FMCSA’s new complicated hours of service rules, coming to a highway near you very soon. It says:

“An independent review of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Hours of Service “Regulatory Impact Analysis” has found the Agency wildly overstated the proposal’s benefits. While the agency claims its proposal would result in up to $380 million in annual benefits, an Edgeworth Economics’ independent review finds that proposal would result in net costs, and not benefits, of approximately $320 million a year. The Edgeworth report states “…we find that FMCSA has overstated the net benefits of the proposed rule by about $700 million annually.”

Edgeworth Economics, an internationally renowned consulting firm that’s done work for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Football League Players Association, found that FMCSA used questionable logic, inadequate data and sloppy math in attempting to justify its proposed changes to the hours-of-service rules for commercial drivers.

“FMCSA has made a number of substantial changes to its approach since the previous [regulatory impact analysis] issued in 2007,” the Edgeworth report concluded. “We find that, in every instance, FMCSA’s new methodologies and assumptions increase the apparent net benefits of the proposed rule. However, many of FMCSA’s new approaches rely on misapplication of available data, use outdated information, or lack empirical support entirely.”

In addition to being off base by $700 million annually, other notable findings of the Edgeworth study include:

* FMCSA made unreasonable assumptions about the safety of the trucking industry by sampling only carriers it subjected to a compliance review, generally for not following federal safety rules;

* In formulating its proposal, FMCSA used crash data collected before the current rules went into effect, completely ignoring their positive safety impact on the industry;

“Edgeworth’s analysis pretty clearly shows that FMCSA’s proposal isn’t rooted in sound science, good data or logic, and can’t stand up to scrutiny,” American Trucking Associations President and CEO Bill Graves said. “The findings of this study match what we’ve heard from our members and what ATA has been saying since FMCSA launched this ill-conceived overhaul of these rules: As proposed, the new hours-of-service rules would impose significant costs on the trucking industry without improving safety. These rules are a cure for a disease that we don’t have.”

To see the full report go to here.

So here are a few thoughts on this. First, if you’re trying to establish the credibility of Edgeworth Economics, the author of this report, I don’t think I’d bring up the fact they have done work for EPA, who are the kings of junk science. That being said, I’m sure their findings in this case are 100% right on. The FMCSA used “questionable logic, inadequate data and sloppy math” in reaching its conclusions? ATA, you didn’t need to pay Edgeworth to tell you that, I could have told you that for nothing. I agree with the ATA on this one, these new rules are a travesty, and are unrelated to safety.

We Are Unable to Locate….

So, we refinanced our house a few months ago. Today I get a letter from the previous bank, HSBC, which says, “We are unable to locate your original loan papers. Please accept this letter as a paid in full receipt, blah, blah, blah.”

So a major, major, global corporation has lost our paperwork? Doesn’t that mean I didn’t have to pay the loan at all? Well, too late, we paid it. Well, it’s certainly not just major corporations who are sloppy with their paperwork. In the not too distant past, I got a $12,000 reduction on case from an unnamed DOT regional office, because they could not produce the paperwork from a 5 year old previous action.

I guess my point is, if you’ve just been audited, and the DOT has found this, that, and the other thing missing, and told you how sloppy your paperwork is…. don’t feel too bad. Their paperwork is just as sloppy, except no one audits them.

Logs: Form and Manner

Ok, here is a post on the regulations today, rather than all these posts I’ve been making on the avalanche of coming regulations. In Part 395 of the safety regulations, it describes what information must be on a log. When a log is not filled out correctly, such as omitting the carrier’s address, or forgetting to total your hours in the right-hand side of the log, that is called a form and manner violation. Form and manner violations are cited by the DOT, and the roadside cops, but never really meant anything, as they never issued fines for that sort of thing.

With the advent of CSA 2010, however, it does mean something. Every time one of your drivers gets written up in a DOT inspection for the previously-harmless form and manner violation, it costs you 6 CSA points. 2 for the violation, times 3 for the time weight = 6 points. So, review your drivers’ logs, and make sure they are listing an address for the motor carrier, the number miles for the day, totaling the hours on the right, and most of all, listing some type of bill number, or shipper and commodity in the lower left hand corner. You surely would hate to get audited just because your competitors drivers are listing a shipper and commodity on their logs, but your drivers aren’t.

And if anyone can tell me how filling out the shipper and commodity on the log makes the highways safer, you get a free EOBR……

Initial Thought on EOBR Mandate

I read this rulemaking more carefully, and my first thought is, “It’s a ridiculous, unwarranted intrusion into private business, which has nothing to do with safety”. That was my first thought. Here is the money quote from the rulemaking itself, on page 40:

“The Agency is currently unable to evaluate the extent to which the proposed changes to the supporting documents requirements will lead to reductions in crashes”.

In other words, they have no idea if this will reduce crashes or not. Furthermore, they have no idea if this will increase crashes. Nor do they care. More on this later.

FMCSA Official Accused of Taking Bribes

FYI my original blog post somehow disappeared.  If you left a comment before, please leave it again.  Thanks!  EA

Well, my underground fan club at FMCSA has been anxiously waiting for me to comment on this one, so here it is. The original article from the Buffalo News can be found here.

In summary, James H. Wood, Field Office Supervisor of the FMCSA Buffalo, New York office, is accused of taking bribes from Canadian safety consultants. In exchange, Wood would delay audits of Canadian motor carriers, or schedule audits on competing motor carriers. Apparently, one of the Canadian safety consultants who had been funnelling Wood cash contacted the FBI, and turned Mr. Wood in. He alleged he paid Wood $60,000 – 70,000 over the past two years for information and assistance.

Whoooooo! $60,000 – 70,000! No wonder I don’t have any Canadian customers right now! I mean, hell, if you’re taking bribes, shouldn’t you open that up to all consultants? Really, give us all a chance to bid on it! The article says Wood pushed back an audit for $1,000. $1,000? Hey, my guys can come up with that! Really! I’ve got that sitting in my bank account right now. What do you want, money order, Comcheck, or good ol’ cash? If I knew that was the going rate, maybe we could have avoided some of these darned audits.

Ok, I’m joking. Seriously, I would not try to bribe any FMCSA officials. One, it’s illegal. Two, it’s illegal. Three, if you get caught you go to jail, because it’s illegal. Furthermore, in the 13 years I worked at FMCSA I did not take any bribes. For that matter, I did not know of anyone taking bribes. I never even heard of anyone taking bribes. I just assumed that sort of thing could never happen. For one thing, these FMCSA guys make outrageous sums of money in salaries and benefits. To risk that, you’d have to be an idiot, crazy, or both.

There was a story once, which happened probably around 1992 or 1993. FMCSA had a guy named Pete Argen who was an auditor, working out of this very same Buffalo office. A Canadian motor carrier offered to hook him up with something in the neighborhood of $10,000 to make his audit go away. Argen reported the attempted bribe to his bosses, who then set him up with the FBI. The FBI wired Argen up, and when the Canadian trucking company official attempted to make the payoff, the FBI took him down, and arrested him. That’s the only story I ever heard about bribes.

I don’t know this guy, James H. Wood. Never met him, not sure if he was working at FMCSA when I worked there. I quit in 2003. Once upon a time, I knew everyone in that New York office. I guess I feel bad for the ones I know who still work there, because this is as bad as it gets. A good number of my customers already think the system is corrupt. If I had a nickel for every customer who asked why isn’t DOT going after my competitor, or it’s just a shakedown, or DOT just wants money…. I could retire.

I already had a customer who saw this talk to me. The conversation was along the lines of:

TRUCKER: So that’s how these guys roll? Why don’t we just pay these guys off next time they want to audit me?
ME: Well, they don’t all take bribes. This is an isolated instance.
TRUCKER: Isolated instance? I told them my screwed-up logs were an isolated instance last time, and they fined me $15,000. They’re all in it together, just tell me how much I need to come up with.
ME: I don’t think that’s going to work, especially since I know the guy you’d have to bribe, and he’d never go for it.
TRUCKER: Yeah, ok. What about his boss?

Ok, that conversation did not take place, it’s a joke, but it’s just a matter of time before it does. So thank you, James H. Wood, whoever the hell you are. Thanks for making my job tougher. Now I have to explain to my already suspicious, untrusting customer base the system really is not corrupt, and that payoffs are not a way of life at FMCSA.

To my friends at FMCSA, I do have season tickets to one of the best teams in baseball, the Philadelphia Phillies. I’m just sayin’……..

Again, that is a joke. While it is true I do have tickets to the Phillies, I would never offer said tickets in any sort of bribe attempt, nor would I offer anything else in any type of bribe attempt, because I really don’t want to go to jail. I’m just having a good time poking fun at FMCSA, so all you FBI agents reading this, please don’t bother wiretapping my phones.

DOT Mandates EOBRs in All Trucks

Their rulemaking can be found here.

In brief, all trucks which require logbooks will have to have EOBRs installed 3 years after the final rulemaking is published, which will probably be in the summer of 2011. So, the summer of 2014, you will have to have an EOBR in all of your trucks, if you operate over the road. DOT is accepting comments on their proposal for 60 days.

At this juncture I have no other comments on this.