Congressman Threatens Driver Health Legislation
I read this in the print version of Transport Topics. I couldn’t find the article on-line, but let me summarize. Congressman James Oberstar (D-Minn), Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has put FMCSA on notice that if they do not publish regulations mandating more stringent medical qualification guidelines for drivers by the end of August, that he will propose legislation forcing the agency to do so.
This is an idle threat, designed to score political points. Oberstar isn’t going to propose legislation, and even if he does, it will almost certainly not become law, if for no other reason, it’s nearly impossible to pass a law. Remember “I’m Just a Bill” from Schoolhouse Rock? As I discussed earlier, there is no need for more medical regulations. In my opinion, more regulations will have unintended consequences, and make us all worse off than we are right now.
Interesting Accident Case Study
Here’s a fatal crash that escaped my attention until now. This happened on April 11, 2003 in Glen Rock, PA, York County. That’s just down the road from me. A 21 year old driver of a 26,000 GVWR dump truck (non-CDL) lost his brakes on a steep hill, crashed into several cars and killed two people.
Here is the NTSB report on the crash. Very interesting. The owner of the truck was Blossom Valley Farms. The local district attorney decided to press charges against those responsible. The driver, Jaysen Newton, nursery manager, Jerry Snedden, and owner of Blossom Valley Farms, Todd Sachs were all convicted of charges stemming from the crash. Newton was sentenced to 9 months in jail, Snedden got probation, and Sachs was sentenced to 2 years in jail.
Summarizing the NTSB report: the truck was slightly overloaded, but they felt that was not a factor in the accident. The truck was on a road which heavy trucks are not supposed to use, because of the steep grade. The signs say no vehicles over 3/4 tons, except for local deliveries. The driver, who had only been working for Blossom Valley for 10 days, had not delivered to this receiver before, and thought he was making a local delivery. He was also following the directions printed for him by Blossom Valley.
The major factor in the accident was the air brakes on the truck were way out of adjustment. Following the crash, the NTSB applied the parking brakes on the truck. They were able to move the truck backwards and forwards easily, even with the parking brakes applied, showing there was virtually no braking force being applied to the wheels.
The truck was equipped with automatic slack adjusters (ASAs). The truck had its Pennsylvania State inspection 3 months before the accident, at which time the mechanic adjusted the brakes. Additionally the NTSB was able to uncover an instance in 2003 when the brakes were adjusted manually. Upon thorough inspection of the brakes, it was found that the clevis pins holding the ASAs on had warped and worn. Once they were replaced, the ASAs worked normally.
The lesson taken from the ASAs is they should work automatically, hence the name. If they are out of adjustment, manually adjusting them will only work temporarily. They will quickly be out of adjustment again. Mechanics should look for other causes and defects, if ASAs are out of adjustment.
The other factor in the accident was the driver. The driver tested positive following the accident for cocaine and marijuana, although the NTSB did not believe that drugs influenced the crash. However, the driver had never driven an air brake vehicle before working for Blossom Valley. When he crested the top of the steep hill, as he went down the hill, he pumped the brakes, which dissipated his air pressure. The driver did not realize that, unlike hydraulic brakes, pumping air brakes makes them stop working faster.
One question I get asked over and over again, and have never really know the answer to, is: do I need an air brake endorsement if I drive a non-CDL air brake vehicle? My answer has always been, call your State DMV, as these non-CDL vehicles are not covered by the licensing regulations in 49 CFR Part 383. I assumed the answer was “yes”, the State would make you pass some type of test to drive air brakes vehicles. After reading the NTSB report, I now know the answer is NO, there is no endorsement or training required to drive non-CDL air brake vehicles.
As for the accident aftermath, the local prosecutor decided the owner of the company was to blame and prosecuted him. It took 4.5 years, but he finally obtained a conviction in October, 2007. At least one employee of Blossom Valley Farms rolled on Sachs, the owner, telling the court he had previously advised Sachs the brakes were bad on the truck.
Other factors which may have played into the conviction: the driver was on drugs, and Sachs didn’t drug test him prior to employment. The truck should never have been on that road to begin with. Following the accident, the next year a Blossom Valley truck was again on that same road and ticketed. That’s really all I need to know about Todd Sachs. Here one of his trucks kills someone because they’re using a shortcut they’re not supposed to use, and he keeps using it! Sure looks to me as if he doesn’t give a damn.
Finally, despite the fact that the truck passed a Pennsylvania State inspection 3 months earlier, which is the equivalent to the Federal annual inspection, Sachs was still responsible for making sure his trucks were in properly operating condition. He was advised by one of his employees the brakes were bad. He should have investigated further as to what was wrong. But he didn’t, probably because it just wasn’t important enough to him.
Lastly, we have the local prosecutor. Well it took him forever and a day to prosecute the case, but in the end, he got the job done. As a consultant, you may think I should be against the Man ruining small businessmen only trying to make a living. That’s not the case here. I do not approve of regulatory agents run amuck strictly enforcing paperwork violations, which have no safety application. However, individuals who are reckess and negligent, like in this case, deserve everything they’ve got coming to them. Guys like Sachs make everyone who operate trucks look bad. Accidents like this happen all the time, and very rarely do the prosecutors actually do anything about it, largely because they don’t know much about the safety laws.
It is important you have a preventive maintenance schedule for your vehicles, and that your drivers are doing complete and thorough pre and post-trip inspections every day. If Blossom Valley had been even remotely taking care of its vehicles, this crash probably wouldn’t have happened.
Truck Hits House
This happened early in June, 2008. It’s really your run-of-the-mill accident, no injuries, but what I found interesting from the article is the box-van driver was 19. The Federal regulations require that vehicles with a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating of over 10,000 lbs. be at least 21. However, nearly all States allow drivers to drive commercial vehicles within their States at 18. I think I would be pretty cautious in putting an 18 or 19 year old in any type of truck, law or no law.
Americans Driving Less
US Department of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters reported that Americans are driving less in 2008 than in 2007. In fact, over the past 6 months, the amount of mileage has declined every month as compared to its 2007 counterpart. This just goes to show that the laws of supply and demand do work. Prices goes sky high, demand drops. I know I’m driving less. I have cut way back on my out-of-town travel, largely due to expense. I combine trips when running errands. I have the Fedex and UPS men come to me, rather than dropping off packages at the store. And, I have just replaced my faithful PT Cruiser (which sucks up more gas than you would think), with a nifty hybrid Prius. Well, almost replaced, as I’m on a 3 month waiting list, which should tell you something right there.
Gas prices will not continue skyward, I predict. I think a bunch of people on Wall Street are bidding up the price of oil, far beyond what it’s truly worth. Sooner or later, the bubble is going to burst just like it did in the early 80′s, or like it did for the dot-com stocks in the late 90′s. Prices may not go all the way back down to $2 a gallon, but I doubt we will see $6 gas any time soon. Then, what do I know?
Back to article, Secretary Peters is using the falling mileage to call for newer fees and taxes. Her reasoning is Americans are buying less gas, therefore, the government is getting less in taxes. Well, we can’t have that, can we? Seems everybody else is having to do more with less, the government should too. Of course government people don’t think that way……..
Street Racer Gets Conditional Sentence After Killing Truck Driver
Here’s a story from Canada. In June, 2007, a truck driver was killed when 3 idiots drag racing on the highway ran him off the road. Yesterday, one of them was sentenced to two years house arrest, and a lifetime ban on driving. The story is below. Seems like truck drivers’ lives are pretty cheap nowadays, eh judge? Two year suspended sentence and a ‘ban’ on driving. Then, when they catch this guy driving on his revoked license, they can give him another suspended sentence.
If you want to read more about this sad story, go to Debbie Virgoe’s website.
TORONTO-Ontario “After 26 years of accident-free driving under his belt, David Virgoe suddenly found himself barreling towards several immobile cars on Highway 400 last June.
The vehicles belonged to three street racers who had lost control and crashed on the busy highway and Virgoe was forced to make a crucial decision. He could keep going and crash into them, risking their lives, or he could swerve his big rig off the road and put his own life in jeopardy.
He chose the latter and was killed after his truck overturned in a ditch. Virgoe was a father or three.
On Tuesday his family reacted with shock when a judge handed one of the men involved in the racing a slap on the wrist. Twenty-year-old Nauman Nusrat received a 2-year-conditional sentence to be served at home and a lifetime ban on driving.
Virgoe’s widowed wife Debbie stood outside the courthouse holding a photo of her deceased husband.
“He died protecting people…and today they didn’t protect us. They didn’t protect us from those people. Today they let those people back out on the highways.” “That’s what I have, that’s what I get to go home to at night-time,” she added, clutching the photo. “And he doesn’t talk back to me. I don’t have anybody to tell me where to go or what to do or how to look after things. I don’t have anybody to guide me anymore.”
Virgoe’s daugther Bobbi believes the sentence was an insult to her father’s life, and his last heroic act.
“I remember asking that my dad not be forgotten and today he was forgotten and he died for nothing,” she said before breaking down.
Preliminary hearings for the two other men accused of racing are expected to begin in June. ”
More Gas Saving Tips
Here’s another article on how to improve fuel economy, lifted from the Yahoo-Finance homepage, where I go every day to see how much money I’m losing in the stock market. Pretty much your standard fare, although if you’re seeing it for the first time, there’s good information in there.
“Here are six ways drivers typically waste gas every on every trip:
1. Racing away from green lights
When the light turns green, you don’t have to take off as quickly as possible. That pedal under your right foot is called the “gas pedal” for a good reason. The more you press down on it, the more gas you’re pumping into the engine.
Press lightly on the gas pedal, and you’ll still accelerate, and you’ll still get where you’re going. You might be surprised at how little pressure it takes to get your car up to speed in a reasonable time.
2. Racing up to red lights
When you’re driving down the street, and you see a light red light or stop sign up ahead, you should lay off the gas sooner rather than later.
There’s no point in keeping your foot on the gas until just before you reach the intersection. Let off the pedal sooner and give your engine a rest as you coast to the stop while braking gently. As an added benefit, your brake pads will last longer, too.
By themselves, these first two tips can improve your fuel economy around town by as much as 35 percent, according to tests conducted by automotive information Web site Edmunds.com.
3. Confusing the highway with a speedway
Even if it doesn’t involve hard acceleration, speeding wastes gas. The faster you go, the more air your vehicle has to push out of the way. It’s like moving your hand through water. The faster you try to move your hand, the harder the water pushes back.
In tests by Consumer Reports, going 75 instead of 65 miles per hour reduced fuel economy by between 3 and 5 miles per gallon, depending on the vehicle.
4. Bumper-buzzing
Tailgating is a bad move for many reasons. First of all, it’s unsafe. You reduce your ability to react if the car in front of you slows or stops. It also means you have to pay ultra-close attention to that car which reduces your ability to scan for other hazards ahead of you and to the sides.
And tailgating wastes gas. Every time the driver ahead taps his brakes, you have to slow down even more than he did. (That’s because you can’t react immediately so you have to slow even more because you’re slowing down later.) Then you accelerate again to get back up to speed and resume your bumper-buzzing routine.
Hang back and you’ll be safer – plus you’ll be able to drive more smoothly and use less fuel. A good rule of thumb is to allow two seconds of space between your car and the one ahead. You can figure that out by counting off two seconds after the car in front of you passes an obvious landmark like an overpass.
5. Driving standing still
You’ve probably heard that it takes more gas to restart a car than to let it run. Maybe that used to be true, but it isn’t anymore. With modern fuel-injection engines, it takes very little extra gas to restart a car once it’s warmed up.
Idling, meanwhile, burns about a half-mile worth of gas every minute, according to the California Energy Commission. That’s why hybrid cars shut down their gasoline engines whenever they stop, even for a moment.
Now you don’t want to shut your engine down for every little stop in your regular, non-hybrid car – it’s not designed for that – but if you’re waiting for someone to run in and out of a convenience store, turn off the engine.
And don’t go through the drive-through at fast food restaurants. You’re already paying enough for the oil in those chicken nuggets.
Bonus tip: Don’t idle your engine to let it warm up before driving. It does your engine no good and it wastes gas. Instead, start driving right away, but drive gently until the engine is warm.
6. Short hops
For really short trips, take advantage of the opportunity to get some exercise. Try walking to the store instead of driving. You can save gas and burn a few calories instead.
If you can’t hoof it, save up your errands. A lot of short hops that let the engine cool down at home between trips can use twice as much gas as starting the car once and making a big sweep to all your stops, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Go to your farthest destination first so your engine has a chance to reach its optimal operating temperature. Then make your other stops on the way back. With the engine warmed up, the car will restart easily and run efficiently all the way home.”
Secretary of Transportation’s Blog
Secretary of Transportation, Mary Peters, has recently unveiled a new blog. I’m not sure if there will be anything interesting on there….. I suppose anything is possible. Rest assured: the blog is 1) being written by some low-level flunky, 2) being written by lawyers, or 3) being written by Peters, and then re-written by the agency lawyers. Nevertheless, anything you get out of the super-secretive DOT is a bonus, so check it, see what they have to offer.
Tips on Better Fuel Economy
High gas prices are simply crushing everybody’s standard of living. Everything costs more…. food, entertainment, housing, everything.
I found an old article I wrote 2 years ago about how to save money on fuel. I edited it to make it current (I changed “$3 gas will soon be here” to “$5 will soon be here”.) What do I think will happen with fuel? I don’t know. My gut tells me eventually gas will plateau, and recede, probably back into the $2.50 – 3.00 range. But right now, there just seems like there is no end in sight. One idea I had was to invest in oil. My broker told me about a fund called “USO”, which pretty much moves in lockstep with the price of oil. So if I put money into that, I am pretty much limiting the pain if gas keeps going up. Lose at the pump, win in the stock market. Anyway, here are some tips:
1. Stay on the highway. Stop and go driving in town uses at least 50% more fuel compared to the same number of miles driven at steady highway speeds.
2. Drive the speed limit. It may take a little longer to get there, but you use 10% to 30% more fuel if you drive 75, instead of 60. The faster your trucks drive, the more fuel they waste. An old rule of thumb says that you lose 0.1 miles per gallon for each mile per hour you drive over 55.
3. Older equipment uses more fuel. Older tractors generally do not have the aerodynamics that later model tractors do. In addition, newer trucks have electronic engines, both of which enable the later model trucks to achieve better 2fuel economy than the old mechanical engines.
4. Avoid using the engine fan when possible. This uses fuel; if possible, use ram air to cool the radiator.
5. Tires. Rib-style tires give you less traction, but they also have less resistance to the road, as compared with the big lug-style tires. Reduced road resistance equals greater fuel economy. Proper tire inflation also reduces road resistance. Under-inflated tires cause more heat and resistance with the road, burning more fuel.
6. Avoid idling whenever possible. The engine is running, fuel is being burned, but you’re not going anywhere! An idling truck will burn around a gallon of fuel per hour.
7. Driver skills. A driver who is paying attention can save you money on reduced fuel costs. Drivers who accelerate and brake gently will always get better fuel mileage than those who start and stop suddenly. Drivers who drive at or near the speed limit will use less fuel than those that speed, not to mention be less likely to get speeding tickets, and have accidents. Many over-the-road trucking companies offer fuel economy bonuses to their drivers.
8. Terrain. Driving in flat areas takes less fuel than in rolling or mountainous terrain.
9. Use the Internet to find where the best fuel prices are. Many people know in advance what their routes are going to be. You can plan how you are going to fuel your trucks (or cars) in advance as well. Not all truckstops or gas stations are created equal. Also, some states have cheaper fuel than others. There are websites out there, which will tell you where the cheapest fuel is. I use www.gasbuddy.com. For example, gasbuddy tells me that there is a station 5 miles away selling unleaded $0.10 cheaper than the station across the street from my house. While that’s only $2.00 savings if I buy 20 gallons, what if I was buying 200 gallons of diesel? That’s $20.
The high fuel prices now make it important to pay attention to how your trucks are being driven, and where you are getting fuel. Your bottom line depends on it!
New Entrant Rules to Get Tougher
I haven’t posted anything in awhile. Why? Well, let’s just say, if you’re not backing up your computer files, you should be. One day you’re going to push the “ON” button on your trusty laptop, and it’s just going to sit there. I was 80% ready for that awful day, next time I will be 100% ready.
Anyway, I came across this article on the Net about FMCSA’s New Entrant program. As you may know, I am selling a DVD training package, for $275 plus shipping and handling. It is designed for small companies who don’t know much about the safety regulations, such as logbooks, driver files, or drug testing. One of the main groups I market to are the ‘new entrants’, which are carriers who have just gotten a DOT number. FMCSA audits all new entrants within 18 months. According to this article, FMCSA is going to make the new entrant audit much tougher to pass. If that’s true, then you really should buy my DVD package.
Anyway, here is the article, from Traffic World, dated April 21, 2008:
“Never mind the record high diesel fuel prices, new trucking companies soon will have to face a barrier that until now hasn’t posed much of a problem for new entrants: The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The agency, under fire at times from critics who say the motor carrier regulator has been too friendly to business, is preparing stringent new requirements for trucking companies entering the marketplace. The FMCSA says it expects the demands, including tighter mandates for training, drug and alcohol testing and insurance, could cause some 30 to 40 percent of new applicants to hit the brakes.
The rules could tighten the lid on capacity as the sagging American economy is pressing larger trucking companies to scale back fleets and pushing many smaller truckers and independent drivers into bankruptcy or out of the industry altogether. “This is a much more thorough program and it’s got some teeth in it,” said Stephen F. Campbell, executive director of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance. “Saying ‘I didn’t know,’ it will not be a defense.”
By the agency’s own admission, its past oversight of new carriers has been less than stringent. Under the current program, new trucking companies could operate without drug and alcohol testing program, although they would have to put one in place within 18 months. “Our entrant program was designed to be more of an educational format,” FMCSA Administrator John Hill said. “Carriers can tell [us] they are doing something and that is all we are required to do … we don’t really do a lot of our verification.”
All that is about to change. The agency is gearing up to complete its New Entrant Motor Carrier Safety Assurance Process in the next few months, the culmination of a process launched by the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act in 1999. FMCSA expects to issue final rules shortly that will govern the 18-month provisional period and the accompanying audits of new trucking companies. These rules will replace interim final rules issued in 2003. The new rules represent the biggest change in entrance requirements for new truckers since deregulation stripped many economic regulatory requirements from the books.
At the heart of the rule will be 11 regulations, including stringent requirements for drug and alcohol testing programs, insurance and use of records. Unlike the current system, a single violation would result in automatic failure. The new requirements – which were proposed in December 2006 – would be effective 30 days after the final rule is published. Hill says they will not make the entry process easier.
“We estimate through some early analysis that 30 to 40 percent of the new entrants will have difficulty” meeting the new standards, Hill told the National Industrial Transportation League’s Spring Policy Forum on April 8. Hill noted that safety audits required for Mexican carriers participating in the agency’s crossborder trucking program place stricter requirements on Mexican companies than on American operators. “We really ought to do that with the American companies as well,” Hill said.
The FMCSA’s strict new carrier requirements come in the face of mounting criticism from safety groups and others that the Bush administration has not taken a strong enough regulatory role. This new rule may be part of the agency’s answer. The agency has more than seven rule-makings coming out this year ranging from issues addressing intermodal container chassis to sleep apnea.
Although instigated by a lawsuit, the agency’s recently proposed entry-level driver training rules – which will require 120 hours of classroom training time – are another example of tougher requirements in the pipeline. The agency says its figures show highway safety improving in recent years. The large truck fatality rate has fallen to its lowest level since the Department of Transportation began tracking the figure in 1975, for instance, while traffic on U.S. highways has increased 22 percent over the past 10 years. And the FMCSA says since autumn 2007 it has published several rules and regulations ranging from fire extinguisher requirements to Unified Carrier Registration fees.
But many fear the new requirement on new carriers could end up harming the trucking industry and its shipper customers just as the freight downturn is expected to subside. “It’s becoming more and more onerous on small operators,” said Brigham McCown, an attorney and former general counsel at the FMCSA. “More and more regulations at some point starts to push the little guy out of business. … At some point you just say ‘To hell with it, it’s not worth it.’”
Small carriers make up approximately 90 percent of trucking companies, accounting for roughly 50 percent of capacity in the market, according to David Ross, a transportation analyst for investment firm Stifel Nicolaus. “These increased regulations will make capacity tighter in the upturn and will favor the large trucking companies already out there,” Ross said. Many large truckload carriers have parked hundreds of trucks over the past year in response to waning demand, but broad figures on trucking activity in recent months belie the negative reports about the larger economy and may even suggest an upturn is on the way. The American Trucking Associations reported increases in its trucking tonnage index in the first two months of 2008, including a 3.5 percent increase in February over the same month last year.
“You’ll get back into the tight demand environment; when that happens the pricing power goes back into the hands of the carriers rather than the hands of the shippers, where it is now,” he said.
“The agency has to balance the realities,” said Donald Schaefer, executive vice president of the Mid-West Truckers Association. “You can put regulations on the industry, but if you put half of them out of business then you’ve created an all-new set of problems.”
Not everyone thinks there will be a problem. The American Trucking Associations supports the new-entrant rule. “It does make sense from our standpoint to make this process tougher,” said Dave Osiecki, the ATA’s vice president of safety, security and operations. “What I hope it does is ensure a more safe company coming into the industry.”
And the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, whose smaller companies would most likely be the ones affected by the rules, supports the new regulations as well. “Generally, we don’t have a lot of problems with it,” said Rick Craig, OOIDA’s director of regulatory affairs. He said new trucking companies that fail one of the requirements can always reapply. “I don’t think they are going to give up,” Craig said.
But Craig, and Todd Spencer, OOIDA’s executive vice president, also have their concerns, questioning the accident data used to develop the rule and whether the rule emphasizes paperwork over safety operations. “While most of the new carriers have shortcomings,” Spencer said, “they weren’t crashing trucks.”
Airlines Ground Thousands of Flights Due to Maintenance Issues
This week, airlines, led by American Airlines, have grounded over 1,000 flights due to airliners not meeting FAA inspection standards. See article here. Apparently, the FAA issued a directive some time ago that a wiring bundle at the fuel pump must be secured in such a way that the wires don’t move, and therefore can’t rub through, causing an electrical short or fire. Not unlike airhoses on a truck rubbing together, causing an airleak. This has to be costing these airlines tens of millions of dollars, but they only have themselves to blame. When money is tight, one of the first things to go is safety. Right after paying your creditors, but that’s the topic of another rant.
I note that my favorite airline, Southwest, is not being forced to cancel flights. I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes at Southwest, and for all I know, their planes are held together with duct tape, and the only reason they got by the FAA is because they paid them off, but I love that airline. They charge a rate usually cheaper than the American United, Delta, etc. They’re on time. Their employees are not surly and unpleasant. In short, they do what they say they will do. Every time I fly with one of the other airlines, without fail, I regret it. They’re late, they cancel flights (see above), they lose luggage, they suck.
I strive to be the Southwest in my little business corner of the world. As I am discovering with all the various vendors I deal with, finding somebody to give you reliable service is hit-or-miss at best. People promise, but don’t deliver, don’t answer the phone, don’t return phone calls, don’t stand behind their work, you name it. All this, I take for granted, because I do it, without fail. Maybe I’ll start selling that part of my service a little harder, sounds stupid, but God knows, nobody else does it seemingly, ‘ARNOLD SAFETY CONSULTING…. WE RETURN PHONE CALLS!”
