Another story from last week: on Friday, September 12 in Chatsworth, CA, just west of Los Angeles, a commuter train ran head-on into a freight train. At least 25 were killed.

What does this tragedy have to do with trucking? The evidence is pointing towards an error by the engineer of the commuter train. It appears that he missed a red signal, which told him to stop short, and wait for the freight train to take a siding, and then pass it. It also shows that he was sending and receiving text messages on his cellphone while driving the train, around the time of the accident. The evidence hasn’t proven that the text messages were what made him miss the red signal, but right now, that seems like the most likely explanation.

Let me tell you where this could be going. If it’s shown that the cellphone probably caused this accident, the DOT might just ban cellphones from use while driving CMVs, as well as trains. It has happened before, where a train crash caused major new regulations across all modes of transportation. 21 years ago, a set of Conrail engines ran onto the mainline north of Baltimore, where they were hit by an Amtrak train going 130 mph. The two idiots in the Conrail train were smoking weed at the time. This accident was the impetus behind DOT drug and alcohol testing regulations.

At any rate, this sort of thing could certainly happen at any time in a truck. Those cellphones, while sometimes necessary, are also a big distraction. Do your best not to use them while driving, and if you must, a hands-free device should be used.

This is somewhat old news, but I’ve been buried in work, and haven’t had time to update the website in a few weeks. Anyway, Fast Eddie Rendell has been trying to soak the taxpayers here in PA every way he can think of. One of his best ideas is to make I-80, a major east-west interstate, a toll road.

Too bad for him, he needs Federal approval, since the road was built primarily with Federal money. And the Feds said, “NO!” Thank God. Another tax averted. Of course, another one of his bright ideas for getting more of my money is leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a Spanish company. But the mean old Republicans in the legislature won’t sign off on that either.

I’m not against paying my fair share for road maintenance and improvements. After all, that’s one of the few services the government provides that I actually use. However, I feel I’m already paying more than my fair share. And, I know that if Fast Eddie got his toll road, or lease plan, the roads would see little if any of that money. Those bucks would be going to the poor downtrodden folks of Philly and Pittsburgh….. after all they need it more than me.

It’s here, it’s finally here! When I was a child, I looked forward to Christmas. Now I look forward to the start of football season. No more Little League World Series games, no more women’s basketball, no more golf tournaments sponsored by car-washes, it’s FOOTBALL SEASON!!!!

And what fun would football season be without predictions? For the record, my pre-season NFL pick in 2007, was Seattle over New England in the Super Bowl. So that wasn’t too awful… granted Seattle was a stretch (at least they made the Conference Semi-Finals!), but it’s more fun to try for the unexpected, than pick the chalk every time. Besides, I was right that some NFC team would win the Big Game. It just happened to be the Giants. And let’s not forget 2006, where I correctly predicted before the season that Payton Manning and the Colts would get their ring, which they did. So pay attention!

NFC East Dallas
NFC North Green Bay
NFC South Tampa Bay
NFC West Seattle
Wildcards: Philadelphia, New York
Conference Winner: Dallas

AFC East New England
AFC North Pittsburgh
AFC South Indianapolis
AFC West San Diego
Wildcards: Jacksonville, Houston
Conference Winner: Indianapolis

It kills me to put the Cowboys in the Super Bowl, just kills me. But I don’t know what else to do. They should have been there last year, but choked it away against the Giants…. a game they should have won. (The Cowboys would have easily beaten the Packers in Dallas for the NFC crown) I think the Eagles will challenge the ‘Boys, but in the end, Andy Reid will find a way to lose, probably involving either a blizzard of ineffective short passes, or a McNabb injury.

On the other side, I think you can pencil New England in as having home field advantage, as they play in an awful division. Indy, on the other hand, has 3 tough division opponents. Still, I think Indy will prevail this year, as age, and the inability to cheat will foil the Patriots.

So in the Big Game will have Dallas vs. Indianapolis, and winner will be DALLAS.

What a nightmare. Oh, well, at least it won’t be New England.

Bonus Prediction: your 2008 NCAA Champion will be…… the Florida Gators

Whoops. I knew I forgot something. This happened Tuesday August 26, 2008 at 5pm in Grand Prairie, TX.

The truck was at a truck-stop which is adjacent to (and uphill from, apparently) the McDonald’s. Next thing you know, the truck, without the driver, is inside the McDonald’s. The driver says he did set the parking brake. Uh-huh. The police says the brakes were working correctly….. if they were set, that is.

By now, you may have heard about the fatal bus crash, which happened last Friday, August 8 just north of Dallas, TX on US 75. A bus, carrying a tour of Vietnamese Catholics heading for Missouri, blew a tire around 12:45am, careened off the road, onto its side, ultimately killing 17 of the passengers. While the investigation is still on-going, it has been reported that a recapped tire on the steer axle blew, sending the bus out of control. It is illegal to use recapped tires on the steer axle of buses.

Here is an article giving you the basics from last Friday. The operator of the bus, Angel Tours, USDOT #544466, 1505 Telephone Rd., Houston, TX, had been placed Out of Service (OOS) on June 23 due to an Unsatisfactory rating generated from an audit on May 1, 2008. Rather than correct the problems identified in the audit, owner of Angel Tours, Angel De La Torre, simply started a new company called Iguala Busmex, USDOT #1786461, 1504 Telephone Rd., Houston, TX.

At the time of the accident, due to the fact that Iguala Busmex had not filed insurance paperwork with the FMCSA, Iguala Busmex was not qualified to operate outside of Texas. In reality, Iguala Busmex should never have been qualified to operate outside of Texas, because it was really just Angel Tours, which was Out of Service.

Where to start with this one? FMCSA looks very bad here. They placed Angel Tours OOS June 23, and six weeks later one of their buses is upside-down on the side of the road with 17 dead inside it. The fact is, FMCSA is not designed to handle the Angel De La Torre’s of the world. Changing company names goes on all the time. I discovered this while I worked at FMCSA, and I see more of it now that I’m on the other side of the fence. A marginal carrier, with a poor safety history is seeking a fresh start? Start a new company, get a new DOT#, and boom! Pure as the driven snow, operate as before, business as usual.

FMCSA has been historically lax in enforcing its Out of Service orders. Their process is, more or less, send out a certified letter, and deactivate the DOT#. Once in a great while, they might make a personal visit to the OOS carrier, just to make sure they’re not operating. At present, FMCSA does not have the personnel, or the desire to follow-through on the De La Torre-types to make sure they’re not operating.

It takes a staggering amount of work for FMCSA to catch guys like De La Torre who are ignoring their orders. First, the FMCSA division office has to determine how they’re operating, who owns the new company, who owns the equipment, is it substantially the same as the old company? This takes work. Then, if they think it’s the same company, they have to convince their bosses and attorneys in the regional office to follow-through. More work. FMCSA bosses, in general, don’t like work, and they hate losing in court, so they are ultra-conservative when it comes to pursuing scumbags like De La Torre. If FMCSA does decide to pursue action, the FMCSA attorneys have to go to court, usually hand-in-hand with the Department of Justice, seeking an injunction against the scumbag skirting the OOS Order. Much more work. An incredible amount of work.

Chasing down one of these scumbags can occupy a whole FMCSA office for weeks. It’s not as simple as just breaking out the handcuffs. One of the things FMCSA does not have is law enforcement powers. If you violate one of their Orders, nobody is going to put you in jail the next day. Ultimately, you could end up in jail, but it takes a long, long time, which is the point. FMCSA does not follow-through on their OOS Orders due to lack of manpower.

I would expect some serious fallout from this crash. We’re already starting to see some it. FMCSA has now declared Angel Tours/Iguala Busmex an “imminent hazard”, prohibiting them from operating anywhere. This is slightly different from the previous Order issued which only prohibited Angel Tours from operating outside the State of Texas. Of course, declaring Angel Tours an “imminent hazard” is kind of closing the door after the horse is gone.

I would expect a number of things to happen. It’s going to become much more difficult to get a DOT number. It will probably be harder to get Unsatisfactory ratings upgraded. No FMCSA official wants to be the guy who upgraded a De La Torre, and then find them in a big wreck. Carriers that are placed OOS will be scrutinized heavily to make sure they don’t move across the street and keep operating. FMCSA will probably become more aggressive in issuing Out of Service Orders. Back in the day, the agency used to issue “imminent hazard” Orders routinely. Now it only happens after someone gets killed. I predict the agency will start using these type of Orders again

None of this will happen tomorrow, as government moves very slowly. But as the investigation continues, and NTSB and Congress weigh-in, expect a crackdown from FMCSA.

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.

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.

Here is a very long piece by the Associated Press detailing what they believe to be a major safety problem. To read the whole thing, go to the link. In summary, the article says that the FMCSA has dropped the ball by not writing more stringent regulations to prevent unhealthy truck drivers from driving. It then goes on to list a number of accidents where a physically unqualified driver may have been the cause.

For example, from the article, “George Albright Jr., 61, smashed his 70,000-pound tractor-trailer into congested traffic on Interstate 70 in June 2006, killing four women in a Ford sedan about 30 miles east of Columbia, Mo. Albright’s employer agreed earlier this year to pay $18 million in a settlement. A Missouri jury acquitted Albright this month on four counts of second-degree involuntary manslaughter, after his lawyers argued in court that a diabetic episode “put him in an altered state of consciousness.” Albright wasn’t injured.”

The AP then quote a senior research director for the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (AHOS), who states that, “we have a major public safety problem, and we haven’t corrected it”.

Wow! That sounds bad. But here’s the thing. We don’t have a major safety problem. Not at all. No one likes to bash the FMCSA more than I do. But they are not at fault on this issue. The fact is, the regulations as they exist now are perfectly adequate in providing a reasonable safeguard that drivers will not black out or otherwise lose control of their vehicles due to health reasons.

In nearly all of the examples cited by the AP, there is no proof that the accident was caused at all by a medical condition. Only, it ‘could have been caused’, or ‘might have been caused’. The fact is, the vast majority of accidents are caused by perfectly healthy drivers who screw up. Or perfectly healthy drivers who don’t get adequate rest, and fall asleep. That has nothing to do with the medical requirements.

Another thing the article references is a driver with a prosthetic device. FMCSA is stuck. On the one hand, the advocacy groups cry about drivers who may not be in top physical shape. On the other, we have the Americans with Disabilities Act, which says these same individuals must be treated the same as everyone else. So how can you deny the one-armed driver a living, when ADA says he has the right to a job?

FMCSA could certainly address these issues with more and more extensive regulations, adding 100 pages to the regulations, which is already over 600 pages long. The number of accidents caused by medically unqualified driver is statistically very small. The safety benefit provided by creating more regulations is not worth the extra burden.

At a certain point, you have to say ENOUGH when it comes to new regulations. There is a flip-side to new regulations. For example, by implementing an extensive new licensing program for DOT physicals, there will be consequences. Yes, it will probably eliminate a few accidents per year. And by few, I mean few, like less than 10. However, many drivers will probably be disqualified from driving, most of which are perfectly able and capable of driving. Doctors will simply err on the side of caution, and disqualify drivers who cough at the wrong time during the examiniation. Drivers will be forced to go to even more doctors and specialists to prove they are healthy enough to drive a truck. Drivers will be forced to hire lawyers, just so they can keep their jobs.

This is America, which used to be the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. In a free society, it is inherent that its citizens must accept some risk. That is what makes us free. If Congress and FMCSA truly wanted to eliminate all highway accidents, it could be done tomorrow. All vehicles would be governed at 15 MPH, and be required to have 2 feet of protective foam surrounding the vehicle. Boom, no more accidents. Of course, nothing would ever get done in this country, the price of everything would go up 10 times, we’d all lose our jobs, and a bunch of us would either starve or freeze to death, but at least there would be no more senseless deaths on the highways.

Bottomline: groups like AHOS and the Associated Press exist to drum up paranoia and fear. Just say NO!

This happened Monday, June 23, 2008 in the Chinatown section of Manhattan.

A dump truck coming down the off-ramp from the Manhattan Bridge lost control, and slammed into the back of a parked bus, which was loading passengers at the time. The truck driver said the brakes failed. One person was killed, and 3 injured.

The truck was operated by CPQ Freight Systems from South Kearny, NJ. A look at their Safestat records shows they have had 6 trucks placed Out of Service (OOS) for maintenance defects out of 12 checked in the past 30 months. That is a 50% OOS rate, which is pretty poor. In addition to the brakes failing, investigators observed that the truck may have been over-loaded.

That’s the thing about heavy truck brakes which are not properly adjusted. The truck may stop just fine while its empty. It may even stop while loaded. But you couple an overloaded truck, going too fast, with brakes in less-satisfactory condition…. well, it’s not going to stop. Not in time, anyway. It is important that motor carriers make sure the brakes on their trucks are adjusted on a regular basis. If the truck undergoes heavy loads, with lots of stop-start driving, that means once a week, or even more often. The fact is, trucks are required to be in proper working condition at all times, to prevent this type of wreck.

Today, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the 2nd Amendment, and struck down the handgun ban in the District Columbia. For you wannabe lawyers, the opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller is HERE.

Well, that’s kind of scary there are 4 Communist judges on the Supreme Court who can read a simple clause in the Constitution guaranteeing the right to bear arms, and think it means that I can’t own a gun for my own protection. If I can’t own a gun, then why is the 2nd Amendment there? Well 5-4, 9-0, whatever, it doesn’t matter, the good guys won.

If anyone is keeping score, the DC gun ban is 32 years old, and DC has some of the worst crime in the country. So clearly, the criminals have no problem owning guns…. they’re criminals!!! Violating the gun ban? Just add it to the laundry list of other laws they’re breaking. Well, finally some common-sense allowing the citizens to arm themselves, too. Maybe this will put the brakes on some of the gun-grabbing idiocy in this country. Gun laws do absolutely nothing to restrict crime. Nothing. The only thing they restrict is freedom. So score one for freedom today.