Trucker Fatigue Still An Issue Give Drivers A Big Say In Any Workday Changes

citizen-times, Mar 21, 2005

In the late 1990s an unusual number of horrific big-rig truck accidents in Western North Carolina prompted the Ashevillle Citizen-Times to put the issue of truck safety under the microscope. With a wide-ranging investigative series, "Dangerous Trucks: Big Rigs, Big Risks," the newspaper became part of a broad-based effort in Congress, the North Carolina General Assembly and among citizens' advocacy groups to reform some laws and improve tractor-trailer safety on our highways.

At that time we thought the momentum for reform that came about had some staying power. So it's disappointing that truck driver safety is a battle that we have to keep fighting.

The perpetual nature of that battle showed up again in Congress last week when an amendment to the federal highway bill sponsored by a congressman and favored by Wal-Mart and some other retailers would have allowed for lengthening over-the-road truck drivers' workdays from 14 hours to 16 hours, adding an unpaid two-hour break during that longer day.

Republican Rep. John Boozman - whose district includes Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., and whose top campaign contributors were Wal-Mart employees - argued that the flexibility of more break time during the course of their day would reduce driver layovers and improve safety.

Public safety groups, the Teamsters, family members of people killed in accidents involving tired truckers and a few other lawmakers got busy mounting a united front against the amendment. The nonprofit safety advocacy group Public Citizen's president, Joan Claybrook, called it "a sweatshop on wheels" move.

Last Wednesday Boozman withdrew the amendment, saying there had been too much misinformation about it. However, he pledged to keep the issue alive, and that means the industry push for a longer day for truckers will surely come back. Claybrook says she has reports that senators' offices have been "deluged with requests to enact this abusive measure."

The current rule for drivers' hours of service had been struck down by an appeals court because it didn't take into account impacts on drivers' health. In October, Congress reinstated the rule for one year.

Settling on the best formula for truck drivers' hours is best left to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), not to retailers and the trucking industry, which have much more interest in profits than what is best for the guys behind the wheel.

The FMCSA is in the midst of revising these rules, and should be gathering testimony from the truckers themselves. Congress should stay out of this process.

Privately, truckers will tell you of enormous pressure to make deliveries on time. Falsifying their handwritten logbooks of hours is still common, and very hard for police or inspectors to catch. Just adding two hours of unpaid break time to their day doesn't mean those two hours will be spent on rest.

Truckers tell of being required to stay with their trucks at loading docks, where the noise of forklifts and general banging around make real rest impossible. Or some have to do the unloading or loading work themselves.

Critics suspect Wal-Mart and other companies want the 16-hour day to increase profits by not paying drivers for the time they spend waiting at loading docks.

And the fatigue issue is real. Drivers are pushed every day by dispatchers, shippers and receivers who demand that they deliver freight on schedules that keep them awake for long hours. The daily driving limit went from 10 hours to 11 hours in January 2004. The remaining three hours of the now-14 hour work- day can be used for breaks, meals or non-driving duties.

Going to a 16-hour day would be equivalent to two full workdays for most Americans.

Scientific studies have shown that safety is compromised after eight hours of driving, as reaction time slows, vision is strained and alertness declines. Most of us who have taken long trips know by experience that those studies are on target.

And we in WNC, with so many winding and steep mountain roads, have even more reason to be vigilant about highway safety.

While locked onto the flank of an 18-wheeler in the narrow Pigeon River Gorge on a rainy day, have you ever wondered just how tired the driver of that spray-throwing behemoth next to you is? Or while corkscrewing down Old Fort Mountain?

The most meaningful reform to ease trucker fatigue the government could take would be to require tamper-proof automated recorders to confirm driving and resting times. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has proposed that change for years, and in 2003 estimated that 70 percent of long-haul trucks already have the onboard Global Positioning Systems needed to make automated records work. These would eliminate the handwritten logbooks so easy to falsify.

The length of truckers' workdays is a labor issue, but far more importantly, is a safety issue for everyone. The driver of a $60,000 Porsche is just as much at risk from an exhausted big-rig driver as the driver of a 10-year-old Ford Escort.

A breakdown of the more than 5,000 deaths a year resulting from big truck crashes shows that 98 percent of the people who die are not in the trucks, according to the group Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.

While studying revisions to its hours-of-service rules for truckers, the FMCSA should get lots of independent - and if necessary, confidential - input from the drivers themselves about what works best to ensure safety.

Any work hours revisions should weigh most heavily on what the drivers themselves have to say. It's a good bet they'll say that extending their day to 16 hours will do nothing but cause more people to die.