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.
CSA 2010 Says Mexican Carriers Unsafe?
So, I was playing around with DOT’s new CSA 2010 rankings, looking for potential customers. I noticed something interesting. The DOT’s new CSA 2010 website is barely functional. You can search one carrier at a time, but you really cannot pull up entire lists of carriers at the moment. For example, I can’t pull up all carriers from Pennsylvania. You can, however, download the CSA 2010 rankings. However, in the downloaded data, it only identifies the carriers by DOT #. So, you have to look up each DOT #, one by one, to find out who is who. So who’s at the top of the Driver Fitness and Vehicle Maintenance categories? The Mexican carriers.
I don’t mean just one or two, either. I mean dozens upon dozens of them. Here, you try it yourself. Go to their “Carrier Search” page. Click on the “Advanced Search” tab. Select Outside U.S., and then pick “U.S.” from the drop down menu. Then search for “Driver Fitness” = 100. What you are doing is searching for American carriers whose Driver Fitness score equals 100, which means the American carriers who have the most unfit drivers. The query returns you 6 American companies.
Do it again, except this time, instead of picking “United States” on the drop down menu, pick “Mexico”. The query returns you 100 Mexican carriers. Now a few things to keep in mind. For whatever reason, the CSA 2010 caps these searches at 100 carriers. So, who knows how many Mexican carriers have a Driver Fitness score of 100? All we know is it’s at least 100. Also, in the total census of motor carriers, American carriers probably outnumber the Mexican carriers 100 – 1. So, statistically speaking, all things being equal, there should be 100 American carriers at the top of the list, instead of 100 Mexican carriers. That’s not the case though. Also, under this CSA 2010 system, all carriers with a DOT number are compared against each other, including U.S., Canadian, and Mexican carriers. 100 means you are the worst, 1 means you are the best.
We can do this again with Vehicle Maintenance. There are 5 American carriers with a Vehicle Maintenance score of 100. Search by “Mexico”, and you find there are 74 Mexican carriers with a Vehicle Maintenance score of 100. The figures for the other categories are reversed. Unsafe Driving: 13 American carriers with a 100 score, 1 Mexican carrier with a 100 score. Fatigued Driving: 5 American carriers with a 100 score, 0 Mexican carriers with 100 score. Drug/Alcohol: 4 American carriers with a 100 score, 0 Mexican carriers.
Conclusion? What does this tell us about the Mexican carriers and CSA 2010? Well, either the Mexican carriers are unsafe, or CSA 2010 is a completely flawed methodology. I don’t see it any other way. The Mexican carriers dominate the high ranges of Driver Fitness and Vehicle Maintenance. This means their drivers are either unlicensed, physically unqualified or don’t speak English. As for maintenence, compared to American equipment, their trucks are junk. Again, that’s what CSA 2010 says. Is that the truth? I guess it must be, as DOT has sworn up and down that CSA 2010 is the most accurate system to identify underperforming motor carriers ever devised.
I would love to hear DOT’s answer on this one. The President and Ray LaHood are telling me Mexican trucks are safe. Yet their vaunted CSA 2010 methodolgy tells me they are not safe. Well, which is it?
Obama Opens Up Border to Mexican Trucks
Last week, the Obama Administration signaled that it will open up the border to Mexican trucks. There have been countless articles on this, here is one from the Dallas Morning News.
This has been going on for so long, I can’t remember the entire history of the dispute. I will try to recap. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), passed I think back in the early 1990′s, said Mexican trucks would be given free run of the United States. Currently, Canadian truckers can deliver and backhaul in and out of the U.S. Mexicans cannot; they must stay within a 25 mile commercial zone of the border. Unless they are going right to Canada, then they can go through the U.S. I think I’m right on that.
The U.S. never has lived up to the NAFTA agreement. There have been pilot projects, concerns about how safe the Mexican trucks are, etc. In 2009, the Congress withdrew the funding for DOT’s pilot project which would allow the Mexican trucks unlimited access to the U.S. President Obama is now reversing that. Who is for it, and who is against it? Well, the Chamber of Commerce is all for it. That is, the large American shippers, as they believe they will be able to ship cheaper due to the increased competition from the Mexicans. Also, many American manufacturers and farmers are for it, not because they want to ship on Mexican trucks, but because their products have been targeted by Mexico with retaliatory tariffs. They hope these tariffs will now be lifted. The American Trucking Association, which mostly represents the mega-carriers, also supports it, although I’m not sure why. Maybe they think it will give them access to Mexican drivers, who will be cheaper than American drivers.
The Teamsters are against it. They believe allowing Mexican trucks and drivers unlimited access to the U.S. will lead to Mexicans taking American jobs. Also, the Owner Operator Independent Driver Association (OOIDA) is against it, largely for the same reasons the Teamsters are. Both groups also, express concerns about the safety of the Mexicans trucks. So, what will happen? Will the Mexicans get to run their trucks all over the U.S.? Well, this has been going on for nearly 20 years, it hasn’t happened yet, so I wouldn’t expect it will happen tomorrow…. if ever.
EPA Delays Tougher Boiler Regulations
This was in yesterday’s (December 9) New York Times. The Obama Administration has delayed regulations which were scheduled to go into effect in January, 2011, which cut industrial emissions from industrial boilers. The EPA has declared it needs until July 2011 to analyze scientific studies of the new rules, and possibly longer.
What does this have to do with anything? Well, while you all don’t have industrial boilers in your trucks, it does give some insight as to what’s going on in the White House right now. President Obama, heretofore an avowed statist, is putting some brakes on his statist agenda. Apparently, he wants what all first term President want: a second term. And he knows if unemployment is still at 10% come November 2012, he’s history. This is why he’s so eager to extend the current tax rates. Tax hikes will kill whatever recovery is happening. Further job-killing regulations will also hurt the recovery.
The DOT’s new hours of service rules are sitting at the White House right now, undergoing final review and approval. Everyone expects they will cut the number of hours drivers can work. They will cost jobs. They should have been released months ago. Yet they are still in the White House. It’s possible, just possible, the politicians are re-writing them as we speak, so they are not so restrictive and onerous. After all, if the President loses in 2012, he, and all his staff in the White House are on the street. The unelected bureaucrats at DOT will still have jobs. We’ll see, but there’s a small chance the new hours of service rules may not be as bad as expected.
Backup Camera May Become Mandatory
This was in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday December 4. Apparently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a proposed rulemaking Friday which will mandate backup cameras on all new cars by 2014.
Oh my. Where does it end? You read about the out-of-control EPA, and how the GOP is going to stand up to Lisa Jackson and her governing-by-fiat EPA, but the EPA is just the tip of the iceberg. What about Ray LaHood and the DOT? Is anyone going to stand up to him? According to the article, NHTSA estimates there are 292 fatalities from backing accidents every year. This rule supposedly will reduce the number of these fatalities. Nowhere in the article, however, does it quote any sort of data or study proving these backup cameras will prevent these type of accidents. If you are in such a big hurry, that you backup without looking, what makes one think you’d look at a backup camera?
My car has a backup camera. I do not find it useful. I use my mirrors, and look where I am going when I back up. I have never had a backing accident. I don’t need the backup camera, but it came standard with the car. According to the article, these cameras add $400 to the cost of the car. I suspect it may be more. I don’t want or need this camera; why should I have to pay for it?
I have no illusions. I am certain this will become a rule. No one has restrained these executive agencies since… well, as long as I can remember, which would be 1990. Democrat, Republican Presidents…. all sides of the same coin. The executive agencies like DOT, EPA, OSHA, etc. simply make rules, rules, on top of rules, and no one stops them. No one in the White House stops them. No one in the Congress stops them. The courts don’t stop them. The President and the Congressmen don’t run the country. The unelected bureaucrats do.
In a few days, FMCSA (which is a part of DOT), will announce the new hours of service rules. They will be more restrictive. Drivers will not be able to drive as many hours. Carriers will be less productive. They will have to hire more drivers to move the same amount of freight. Existing drivers will not be able to work as many hours, and will probably make less money. These new rules will not save one life. There is no data to suggest otherwise. In fact, the DOT has spent the last 7 years arguing the existing rules are safer and save lives. Now they will argue the opposite, just to keep up the facade this is all about safety. It’s the same deal with mandating the electronic on-board recorders. Again, no link to safety, but argue that anyway, just so this government takeover of our lives and businesses feels warm and snuggly.
Somewhere in the last 50 years, we became way too comfortable with the government telling us what to do. Where does it say the government has the right to tell me what kind of safety equipment I have to buy? Where does it say the government can force a business to utilize a GPS-based tracking system on its vehicles? Yeah, I know, the statists all whip out their copies of the Constitution and say, see, says here in Article I, Section 8, the Congress has the power to regulate commerce. It doesn’t matter if the other 4 pages of the Constitution contradict that commerce clause, all they see is “Congress has the power to regulate”, which they interpret to mean, “Congress has the power to regulate without restriction. That’s not what it was intended to mean, and if we keep letting the unelected bureaucrats steal our freedoms, we will all be poorer for it.
ATA is ‘Alarmed’ About the Pending Hours of Service Changes
This comes to us from TruckingInfo.com. It is an article dated today, December 2, 2010. The jist of it is that the American Trucking Association is ‘alarmed’ at the changes about to be made to the hours of service rules.
Without recapping the entire saga of the hours rules, in the not-too-distant past, FMCSA surrendered to the Teamsters and the safety advocacy groups, agreeing to redo their hours of service rules, which have been in place since 2003. The only question remaining is… how much more restrictive will they be? ATA anticipates they will make it a 10 hour driving rule instead of 11, an extension of the 34 hour reset (maybe now 48 hours?), or an elimination of the reset, and God knows what else. The new rule is finished, the White House is reviewing it, and it will be released any day now.
ATA has established a new website to present their position that the existing rules should remain in place. http://www.safedriverhours.com/index.html. It looks like the new website isn’t quite finished, as there seems to be a good deal of gobbledegook on the site. Anyway, in this case, I wish ATA luck, as the existing rules should stay in place. They won’t, but they should.
Another Thought About the Potential EOBR Law
Something else about this Commercial Driver Compliance Improvement Act which is sitting in the Senate. I don’t know there’s any statistics showing these EOBRs reduce crashes. I’m almost sure of it, just because I don’t see the word “safety” in the name of the law. Oh, I suppose the EOBR manufacturers can produce statisitics, but then again, I bet you could find statistics to argue just the opposite. My gut tells me the EOBRs will do exactly nothing to reduce crashes. As I mentioned previously, I have two customers who have installed the EOBRs. They have not seen a reduction in crashes. They have seen an increase in moving violations though. I suppose drivers are rushing more than ever in order to get everything done in 14 hours.
It seems similar to the cameras at redlights. The politicians tell us these cameras are for safety, when everyone knows they are for revenue. The statisitcs show, if anything, there are MORE crashes at the red light camera intersections, as drivers slam on the brakes, run into each other, speed up to beat the light, and other un-natural driving, just to avoid the camera. Or, the story I posted about states who have no-texting laws, who are seeing more accidents, as drivers now hide their phones while texting, instead of holding them up so they can see where they’re going. There are limits to how much you can regulate human behavior. Well, I guess we’ll see what happens; the EOBR debate is just beginning.
Question About EOBRs
I recently received a question from a good customer. He came across information about the Commerical Driver Compliance Improvement Act, which is a Senate bill, S. 3884. It was introduced by Senators Mark Pryor (D-Ark) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn). If made law, it will require all commercial motor vehicles to have electronic on-board recorders.
So what do we know about this bill? Well, reaching back into my high school civics knowledge, all bills not made law by the end of a 2 year Congress die. This Congress ends in less than a month, thank God. So, this bill would have to pass the Senate before the end of next month. Not likely, seeing as they are trying to pass some kind of regulatory overkill law about food safety, give illegals free college, and maybe extend the current tax rates. Then a matching bill must be passed by the House. I don’t think there is any matching legislation pending in the House, and it is very unlikely there will be any before the end of the Congress. So, it’s very unlikely it will happen in this session of Congress.
What about in future Congresses? Maybe. It would have to pass the Republican House, where I would like to think this kind of job-killing legislation would be DOA, but you never know. I note that Lamar Alexander, one of the co-sponsors in the Senate is a “Republican”. I put that in parenthesis, because as anyone who follows politics knows, Alexander is a RINO, that is, Republican In Name Only. So, if a bunch of RINOs in the House, join the Democratic minority, it could happen.
What makes it more likely to happen is, a number of mega-carriers, like US Xpress (from Tennessee, hence Alexander’s involvement), JB Hunt, Schneider, Maverick, and Knight are pushing this. They are doing so, of course, because they have all installed the EOBRs, and they want to force everyone else to do the same. I do not believe ATA has come out in support of this mandate yet, but that is only a matter of time.
My comment to the smaller carriers is, unless you want to be forced to pony up for EOBRs, you’d better pay attention, and make sure you let your Senators and Representatives know how you feel. The big carriers want to force you to have them, and they have the politicians on speed-dial. You’d better involve yourselves, or write a check for equipment you don’t want. Don’t think the mega-carriers already have this won. Despite the huge size of these mega-carriers, the smaller carriers vastly outnumber the mega-carriers.
In the News
So, what’s been happening lately? Well, CSA 2010 is almost here, you probably knew that. Next month, FMCSA will supposedly turn on their website, so everyone can see everyone else’s CSA 2010 scores. We’ll see. The White House is still reviewing FMCSA’s proposal for changing the hours of service rules. Any day now, any day. Like I said before, I guess it will be 10 hours driving, 14 hour rule stays the same, and the 70 hour rule goes to a 48 hour reset.
The GOP, aided by the Tea Party took the House of Representatives, and gained a few Senate seats in the election. That may slow down the tide of regulations coming out of FMCSA; maybe not. There is a bill in the Senate called the Commercial Driver Compliance Improvement Act, which will require all trucks in the U.S. to install EOBRs on them after 3 years. This bill has the backing of JB Hunt, Knight Transportation, Maverick USA, Schneider, and US Xpress. I imagine, it probably as the backing of ATA as a whole. Maybe not…. some ATA members may be against EOBRs. Anyway, speaking as a Tea Party member in good standing, I hope this is Dead-On-Arrival in the House. It probably is. After all, we didn’t put them in there to expand government even further, we put them in there to do the opposite.
