[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE IMPACTS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION'S COMMERCIAL DRIVER
HOURS-OF-SERVICE REGULATIONS
=======================================================================
(113-25)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 18, 2013
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman
DON YOUNG, Alaska NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee, Columbia
Vice Chair JERROLD NADLER, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CORRINE BROWN, Florida
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
GARY G. MILLER, California ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
SAM GRAVES, Missouri RICK LARSEN, Washington
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
DUNCAN HUNTER, California MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
BOB GIBBS, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York JOHN GARAMENDI, California
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida ANDRE CARSON, Indiana
STEVE SOUTHERLAND, II, Florida JANICE HAHN, California
JEFF DENHAM, California RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky DINA TITUS, Nevada
STEVE DAINES, Montana SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
TOM RICE, South Carolina ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
TREY RADEL, Florida
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois
MARK SANFORD, South Carolina
(ii)
Subcommittee on Highways and Transit
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin, Chairman
DON YOUNG, Alaska PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina JERROLD NADLER, New York
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
JOHN L. MICA, Florida MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
GARY G. MILLER, California GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
SAM GRAVES, Missouri TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
DUNCAN HUNTER, California ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania ANDRE CARSON, Indiana
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas JANICE HAHN, California
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
BOB GIBBS, Ohio ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York DINA TITUS, Nevada
STEVE SOUTHERLAND, II, Florida SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin, Vice ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
Chair LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
STEVE DAINES, Montana CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
TOM RICE, South Carolina NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma (Ex Officio)
ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania (Ex
Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vii
TESTIMONY
Hon. Anne S. Ferro, Administrator, Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration, United States Department of Transportation..... 5
Steve Williams, Chairman and CEO, Maverick USA, Inc., on behalf
of the American Trucking Associations.......................... 5
Major Mark Savage, President, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance. 5
Edward Stocklin, President, Stocklin Trucking, LLC, on behalf of
the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association............. 5
Joan Claybrook, Consumer Cochair, Advocates for Highway and Auto
Safety, Former Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration................................................. 5
Jeffrey Dean Hinkle, Transportation Manager, Chandler Concrete
Company, Inc., on behalf of the National Ready Mixed Concrete
Association.................................................... 5
PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY MEMBER OF CONGRESS
Hon. Andy Barr, of Kentucky...................................... 45
PREPARED STATEMENTS AND ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD SUBMITTED
BY WITNESSES
Hon. Anne S. Ferro:
Prepared statement........................................... 47
Answers to questions from the following Representatives:
Hon. Thomas E. Petri, of Wisconsin....................... 53
Hon. Richard M. Nolan, of Minnesota...................... 54
Hon. Sam Graves, of Missouri............................. 58
Hon. Lou Barletta, of Pennsylvania....................... 59
Hon. Peter A. DeFazio, of Oregon......................... 59
Hon. Michael H. Michaud, of Maine........................ 61
Steve Williams:
Prepared statement........................................... 63
Answer to question from Hon. Richard M. Nolan, of Minnesota.. 77
Major Mark Savage:
Prepared statement........................................... 79
Answers to questions from the following Representatives:
Hon. Richard M. Nolan, of Minnesota...................... 86
Hon. Lou Barletta, of Pennsylvania....................... 87
Edward Stocklin:
Prepared statement........................................... 89
Answer to question from Hon. Richard M. Nolan, of Minnesota.. 99
Joan Claybrook:
Prepared statement........................................... 114
Answers to questions from Hon. Richard M. Nolan, of Minnesota 156
Jeffrey Dean Hinkle, prepared statement.......................... 160
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
LaMont Byrd, Director, International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
written statement.............................................. 166
Bruce T. Chattin, Executive Director, Washington Aggregates and
Concrete Association, written statement........................ 172
Food Marketing Institute, written statement...................... 175
Daphne Izer, Founder, Parents Against Tired Truckers (P.A.T.T.),
on behalf of P.A.T.T. members Steve Izer, Jane Mathis, and
Lawrence Liberatore, written statement......................... 179
Snack Food Association, written statement........................ 183
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
THE IMPACTS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION'S COMMERCIAL DRIVER
HOURS-OF-SERVICE REGULATIONS
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Highways and Transit,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m. in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Thomas E. Petri
(Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Petri. The subcommittee will come to order. Today's
hearing will focus on the U.S. Department of Transportation's
commercial driver hours-of-service regulations.
July 1st, property-carrying commercial drivers will be
required to meet new hours-of-service regulations that will
have significant impacts on a large segment of the trucking
industry. Truck drivers will be required to take a 30-minute
rest break every 8 hours, and will be able to restart their
hours-of-service clock only once a week, by not driving for a
34-hour stretch that includes two 1:00 to 5:00 periods.
The FMCSA promulgated these new regulations in December of
2011 with the intent to promote safety and to protect the
health of drivers. By allowing drivers ample opportunity to get
the proper amount of rest, the regulations are intended to help
reduce crashes by reducing driver fatigue. Finding the right
balance between providing drivers the opportunity to rest and
the flexibility to account for unanticipated delays during the
workday has been a challenge.
Since Congress directed the Department of Transportation to
issue a rulemaking on commercial driver hours of service in
1995, the regulations have been in constant litigation which
has led to confusion among the trucking industry and the
enforcement community. Every stakeholder that is impacted by
hours-of-service regulation has passionate beliefs on the
correct way to implement them, and it is no wonder that
litigation has persisted.
The regulations that take effect on July 1st are currently
being deliberated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit.
The real-world implications of these new regulations are
difficult to predict because of the diverse nature of the
trucking industry. And I am receptive to the concerns of many
of my constituents who argue that a one-size-fits-all approach
won't provide the flexibility some companies need to take the
appropriate rest breaks. For example, I have been asked, if a
driver is resting in a chair while waiting for a load to be
unloaded or for some other reason and is technically on duty
but undisturbed for 30 minutes, why can't such a break be
counted toward the 30-minute break requirement?
Some specific trucking operations, such as oil field
equipment operators, have a special exemption from some
provisions of the hours-of-service regulations; why not others
with similar operating characteristics?
We most frequently hear concern where driving is just one
small part of the overall job responsibilities, and not the
long-haul drivers who are away from home for several days at a
time. For instance, I have heard from hundreds of drivers in my
State of Wisconsin who transport materials and equipment for
highway construction who drive only 2 or 3 hours during a
workday, but seemingly will be very much affected. Not only
will the drivers themselves be impacted, but how our highway
projects are completed will be affected as well. We will hear
more about these specific concerns from one of our witnesses
today.
I hope today's discussion will focus attention on these
issues, and potentially lead to proposals that allow drivers to
efficiently complete their jobs without compromising safety.
And I am sure that safety is the primary goal of all of today's
witnesses. Effective commercial driver hours-of-service
regulation will help reduce fatigue-related truck crashes and
save lives on our Nation's highways. I hope today's hearing
will provide our committee members with insight into this
important national safety issue.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and recognize
my colleague, Mr. DeFazio, for any opening statement he might
wish to make.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think
the common ground here is--and I don't think anyone will
disagree--that we want to prevent fatigue-related accidents,
you know. But getting to that point using the best data
available, the best science available, seems quite difficult
and tortuous.
As I was walking in, I walked by some staff and I said,
``If any of you can explain to me the new hours-of-service rule
in 30 seconds or less, I will give you a gold star,'' and they
just kind of laughed, because I have struggled with the restart
and the--anyway, it just goes on and on. I understand what
FMCSA is trying to do there, in terms of both protecting safety
and providing flexibility. It is a very, very difficult kind of
combination.
I would observe, as I have previously, that one of the most
neglected and disturbing causes of people driving over hours of
service, is basically you have a lot of people who are paid by
the load, and not by the hour in this industry. And they are in
external diseconomy to the people who actually provide for, you
know, the warehousing and other things of goods, i.e., it
doesn't cost them anything if you have to sit there 8 hours,
and they don't care. We used to have rules regarding detention
time; we don't. I think we should go back to having rules
regarding detention time. It would give us a much more
efficient system, overall. It would give us a safer system
overall, and it would be a lot fewer people tempted to or
forced to drive over their allowable hours of service, if we
could have just-in-time delivery, or close to it, at the
warehouses and other places.
So, I am hopeful that we will broadly address these issues
today, try and find a place that makes sense. Because, I mean,
right now, I mean, we have got one side, the safety advocates,
suing because a rule they believe is overly permissive. We have
the industry suing because they believe the rule is overly
restrictive. The courts have ruled twice in favor of the safety
advocates. Who knows what they will rule this time? And FMCSA
is going ahead with implementation before the judgment of the
court, which I thought--you know, I have got to disagree with
some folks, I thought it would have been prudent to wait and
see.
But that is where we are today. That is what people have to
address on this panel. And I really look forward to some of you
sorting this all out for me.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. And I would like to welcome our panel
and thank you for the prepared statements that you have
submitted, invite you to--oh, yes, excuse me. Mr. Shuster.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Mr. Petri. I thank you for holding
this hearing today, and thank our witnesses for being here
today. The new hours-of-service regulations that go into effect
July 1st are something that we, as the committee, need to fully
understand, how they are going to be implemented, because it
has significant impact on the trucking companies in this
country.
As Mr. Petri mentioned, I think this is a one-size-fits-all
approach to safety. And while safety is paramount to all of us,
whether we are here in Congress, or whether we are owners of
trucking companies--I know Mr. Stocklin here and Mr. Williams,
who run trucking concerns--if they are good business people,
safety should come first, and it does come first.
So, again, we need to focus on that. But also, make sure
that when we are implementing new rules and regulations, we let
the science drive it, not a knee-jerk reaction to something
that happened, you know, last year or two years--but when I
look at the statistics since 2005, the numbers have been
steadily declining on fatalities and accidents. So that is
something we ought to make sure we put into the equation.
It was mentioned there are some exemptions for some of
these operations, whether it is emergency services and disaster
or oil field and others out there. But again, this committee
needs to make sure that we fully understand how we are going
forward.
There are new technologies out there, also. I was at Mack
Trucks in Hagerstown, Maryland, and they let me drive a truck
which was not on the highway--so for all those concerned about
safety, know that I was not in the flow of traffic--but it was
an automatic transmission, which they, the folks at Mack told
me, it causes less fatigue on drivers. They don't have to fight
the clutch and the stick.
So, I hope that is something we are looking at. And they
say they are selling more and more of these because they--to
attract a different kind of driver. It is less intimidating to
some folks that otherwise wouldn't drive a truck. And so,
again, I hope we are looking at those new technologies and
taking that into the equation because, as I said, there is less
fatigue to a driver.
And of course, another great concern of mine, whether it is
on this committee or any committee in Congress, is the growth
of the fourth branch of Government, and that is the Federal
bureaucracies taking more--gaining more and more power, with
Congress having little to say in these matters. So our
oversight is going to be critical to make sure that we, as the
elected branch of Government, make sure that we don't allow the
bureaucracies to overregulate and do things that are going to
cause great harm to this economy.
A statistic I saw in 2007, the--while the Congress passed
138 laws, the Federal agencies put forth over 2,900 new rules
and 61 significant regulations without Congress or without many
stakeholders having much to say about it. So, again, this is a
great concern of mine. You know, we are going to have
aggressive oversight to make sure that these rules don't
overstep their bounds, that they certainly want to make sure
that they provide safety to the traveling public and on our
highways. But again, it should be based on the science and not
based on an emotional play here.
So, again, I thank the chairman for holding this hearing,
and yield back.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Our panel of witnesses consists of
Administrator Anne Ferro, who is the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration representative; Mr. Steve Williams, the
chairman and CEO of Maverick USA, Inc., on behalf of the
American Trucking Associations; Major Mark Savage, president,
Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance; Mr. Edward Stocklin,
president, Stocklin Trucking, on behalf of the Owner-Operator
Independent Drivers Association; and Ms. Joan Claybrook,
consumer cochair, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Former
Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Welcome to all of you, and Mr. Jeffrey Dean Hinkle, who is
transportation manager, Chandler Concrete Company, Inc., on
behalf of the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association. Excuse
me. And again, by unanimous consent, your full statements will
be made a part of this record.
We would invite you to summarize them in approximately 5
minutes. And to help you do that, the green light turns yellow
a minute before the 5 minutes are up.
And we will begin with Administrator Ferro.
TESTIMONY OF HON. ANNE S. FERRO, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL MOTOR
CARRIER SAFETY ADMINISTRATION, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION; STEVE WILLIAMS, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, MAVERICK USA,
INC., ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATIONS; MAJOR
MARK SAVAGE, PRESIDENT, COMMERCIAL VEHICLE SAFETY ALLIANCE;
EDWARD STOCKLIN, PRESIDENT, STOCKLIN TRUCKING, LLC, ON BEHALF
OF THE OWNER-OPERATOR INDEPENDENT DRIVERS ASSOCIATION; JOAN
CLAYBROOK, CONSUMER COCHAIR, ADVOCATES FOR HIGHWAY AND AUTO
SAFETY, FORMER ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY
ADMINISTRATION; AND JEFFREY DEAN HINKLE, TRANSPORTATION
MANAGER, CHANDLER CONCRETE COMPANY, INC., ON BEHALF OF THE
NATIONAL READY MIXED CONCRETE ASSOCIATION
Ms. Ferro. Chairman Petri, Ranking Member DeFazio, Chairman
Shuster, members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me
today to discuss how changes to the new hours-of-service rule
will improve safety on our roadways and ultimately save lives.
The top priority of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration is safety. The number of people killed each
year, as the chairman indicated, and those killed in large
truck crashes has, in fact, fallen significantly--in fact,
almost 30 percent--between 2000 and 2011, from 5,282 to nearly
4,000. This number is still unacceptably high. And it shows
there is still work to do. Every life is precious. One life
lost is one too many.
In 1995 Congress agreed. They directed this agency to
revise the current hours-of-service rule to reduce truck-
related crashes and fatalities. A leading factor in truck
crashes is fatigued drivers. And under the hours-of-service
rule, drivers operating large trucks can work extremely
demanding schedules, including working up to 80 hours per week
and 14 hours per day. These extreme schedules increase the risk
of fatigue-related crashes, and they do lead to long-term
health problems for drivers.
The hours-of-service rule that will be fully implemented on
July 1 makes reasonable and commonsense changes to reduce the
number of fatigue-related crashes, the risk of chronic fatigue.
These changes include limiting the maximum allowable workweek
from 82 hours to 70; restricting the use of the 34-hour restart
to once in a week or once in 168 hours; and requiring a very
reasonable 30-minute break at some point during the first 8
hours of a driver's shift.
Most of the industry's truck-driving workforce--in fact, 85
percent--will see little to no change in their work schedules.
However, those drivers working the most extreme schedules, that
schedule that can go up to 80 hours in a 7-day period, are the
ones that will, in fact, certainly feel an impact by the
changes in this rule.
FMCSA developed this rule through an unprecedented level of
transparency, by engaging all sectors, including business, the
safety community, advocates, drivers, business owners,
shippers. We included recommendations from our Motor Carrier
Safety Advisory Committee, which is a working group cross-
representative of industries, law enforcement, labor, and
again, safety. We also included input from thousands of
stakeholders, drawn not just from comments submitted during the
comment period, but from five listening sessions, an
unprecedented number of listening sessions for any of our
agencies, held across the country.
And finally, we incorporated years of peer-reviewed safety
studies and research into crafting this complete rule. This
high level of public engagement does contribute to a very
balanced rule, a rule that provides a net gain in public safety
and driver health, including savings of $280 million from fewer
crashes and $470 million from improved driver health. Most
importantly, the rule will result in important safety benefits
for the American public, including saving and preventing an
estimated 1,400 crashes, 560 injuries, and saving almost 19
lives.
Our work did not end when this rule was published 15 months
ago; we are working with industry and law enforcement to
implement these changes. On FMCSA's Web site, you can find
resources such as training materials, a guide to the new hours-
of-service rule, very clear and robust examples of hours-of-
service logbooks under the new rule. And, because of our
efforts, the earlier changes that took effect in the rule--by
the way, changes did take effect within a month of this rule
being finalized almost 15 months ago--those changes went very
smoothly, and we are confident that the changes we are talking
about today will also go very smoothly.
Overall, this is a very important tool to advance our
fundamental safety mission and our solemn responsibility to
protect the public and save lives. After all, our citizens
deserve no less.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I will be pleased
to answer questions as the hearing progresses. Thank you.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Mr. Williams?
Mr. Williams. Chairman Petri, Ranking Member DeFazio,
subcommittee members, thank you for this opportunity. As a
safety leader, I am here today to express ATA's concern about
the changes to the hours-of-service rules, and describe how
these rules will impact my company, safety, and the economy.
Since 2003, when the framework for the current rules was
published, truck-involved fatalities have dropped by 25
percent. And also, a more recent analysis found a 31-percent
drop in preventable collisions before 2004 and 2009, which begs
the question why was the change to the hours-of-service rule
truly necessary.
Well, one thing is clear. FMCSA's motivation to change
these rules was not based on evidence of a real problem. FMCSA
did not undertake its own effectiveness analysis of the 2003
changes to the rules, even though they represented the first
substantial changes in over 60 years. FMCSA's purpose and need
for regulatory action did not cite any research or data
analysis showing a problem. And I can confidently tell you that
the industry will lose operating flexibility and productivity,
which will raise cost. And the rules will increase driver
stress and frustration without the corresponding net benefits.
Initial data gathered by ATA reflects the likely average
productivity loss will range between 2 and 3 percent. This
estimate is consistent with a recent Wells Fargo security
analysis finding a likely productivity loss of 1.5 and 4
percent. This translates into $500 million to $1.4 billion
annually lost in productivity. My own company's analysis of
recent electronic logging data found that 30 percent of our
drivers would be in violation of the next rest break
requirement because their breaks were not 30 minutes
consecutively long. Thirty-six--excuse me--forty-six percent of
our drivers did not meet the two consecutive 1:00-to-5:00 a.m.
rest periods. These findings will cause Maverick to make
operational changes that will affect my drivers and my
business.
And these changes are not warranted based on Maverick's
safety performance, nor that of the industry. It is also
important to note that Maverick's drivers currently use the
restart not because they have exhausted their maximum weekly
hours, but to ensure that they have met a full--that they have
a full set of weekly hours available to them the next week--for
future work schedules that can be unpredictable in the
irregular route trucking.
This type of use is common and was completely discounted by
FMCSA. The agency erroneously claimed that only night-time
drivers who work extreme hours would be affected, when in fact
most drivers who use the restart do so in order to have the
flexibility to manage future schedules.
Maverick has trained its drivers and operation personnel
and has spent conservatively more than $57,000 doing so. But
our costs are going to be less than others, relatively, because
of the technology that we employ. FMCSA estimated that
training, reprogramming, and transition costs would total at
least $320 million. Because FMCSA declined your request for a
short delay, the industry will spend this considerable amount
of money, though the rule may be altered in court.
It is difficult, bordering on impossible, to accept FMCSA's
suggestion that offsetting benefits will result. Yesterday,
ATRI published a new analysis entitled, ``Assessing the Impacts
of the 34-Hour Restart Provisions.'' This is the only analysis
of its kind. ATRI used representative industry data and a far
greater data set used by FMCSA to test the validity of the
agency's cost benefit findings. ATRI replicated FMCSA restart
analysis using the agency's own methodology. And its findings
contradict those of FMCSA. FMCSA's claim that 15 percent of
drivers work more than 70 hours a week is grossly overstated,
likely because their data was gathered from compliance reviews
and safety audits. But carriers are typically chosen for
compliance reviews based upon poor safety performance
histories.
ATRI also discovered FMCSA's analysis did not capture many
other costs. By following FMCSA's methodology using
representative data, including a small amount of weekly time
lost--15 minutes week, for example, from impacts ignored by
FMCSA--ATRI found a strikingly different outcome. Instead of an
annual net benefit of $133 million, in fact ATRI found a net
cost of $198 million--$189 million, for a difference of $322
million. ATRI's findings call into question the credibility of
FMCSA's analysis. Congress could help, but time is growing
short.
Congress could direct FMCSA to postpone the effective date
of the new rules until the MAP-21-directed restart field study
is completed, and the results are reported to Congress.
Maverick is actually participating in that study, as one of
three carriers. And Congress should require FMCSA to postpone
any rule changes until it implements the mandate for electronic
logging devices. There are good reasons to have this mandate in
place first, and I would like to elaborate on those in Q&A, if
possible.
Finally, I want to thank the chairman and ranking member of
both the subcommittee and full committee for asking the
Secretary to consider staying the new rule until 90 days after
the court rules in the pending litigation. Though denied, your
request meant a great deal to those of us in the industry.
Thank you, and I would be happy to answer any questions at
the appropriate time.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Major Savage?
Mr. Savage. Good morning. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member,
members of the subcommittee, thank you for holding this
important hearing, and for inviting the Commercial Vehicle
Safety Alliance to testify. My name is Mark Savage, and I am a
major with the Colorado State Patrol, and the president of the
Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance. The Alliance represents
State, provincial, and Federal commercial vehicle safety
officials responsible for the enforcement of commercial motor
vehicle safety laws in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
We work to improve commercial vehicle safety and security on
the highways by bringing safety and enforcement agencies
together with industry representatives to solve problems and
save lives.
In Colorado, I am responsible for the commercial vehicle
safety and enforcement program for my State. The troopers and
officers who work for me will be enforcing these new
regulations, starting on July 1st.
Regardless of our opinion on any given regulation, CVSA
members will enforce the rules set forth by Congress and the
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. We appreciate
FMCSA's effort on the development of this rule to balance
safety and commerce.
The hours-of-service regulations are a critical component
of commercial vehicle safety. There are four key principles
that should guide the crafting of any regulation and its impact
on safety: uniformity, clarity, enforceability, and science-
based and data-driven. While CVSA is not equipped to comment on
the science behind the rules, we are hopeful that as we gain
experience with these rules we will see an increase in safety
and compliance.
We view the new rules as fairly straightforward. However,
we do believe the 34-hour restart provision, the 30-minute rest
break requirement, and the new definition of ``on-duty time''
provide greater opportunity for concealment and
misrepresentation of hours of service by drivers and carriers
who are so inclined. These changes have the effect of
shortening the driver's workday and workweek, which may create
more incentive for some to falsify.
Furthermore, the new rules will require more time and
effort from enforcement to identify inconsistencies and
concealed hours. The new rules will be more difficult to
enforce roadside, because the rules expand, rather than reduce,
opportunities for concealing hours. In my written testimony I
have provided several examples to demonstrate why enforcement
will have challenges with the new rules.
The implementation of electronic logging devices will help
to alleviate some of the concerns regarding the enforceability
of the new rules. While it is true that a persistent driver
might find a way to trick or beat the device, the provisions in
MAP-21 call for more stringent certification and tamper-
resistant requirements, which will make cheating the devices
more difficult.
CVSA continues to support the requirement for electronic
logging devices for hours-of-service compliance for all
commercial vehicles. The devices will help improve the
enforceability of the rules. However, electronic logging
devices will not address all the enforcement gaps. Drivers
should also be required to maintain supporting documents in the
vehicle, so the documents can be reviewed by roadside
enforcement and compared with the information being recorded in
the record of duty status or the electronic logging device.
With no current regulation regarding maintaining supporting
documents in the vehicle, the ability for inspectors to check
the validity of records of duty status roadside is compromised.
It is true that some of these violations can be detected during
the compliance review. However, the roadside inspection program
is designed to be proactive to help identify unsafe vehicles
and drivers and get them off the road before there is a crash.
If an inspector cannot detect an hours-of-service violation
roadside, a driver who has exceeded his or her hours could be
allowed to continue driving.
Further complicating the matter is the priority for
conducting compliance reviews is set, in large part, by results
from previous roadside inspections. If violations are not
discovered roadside, then that motor carrier might not be
flagged for a review.
In summary, while CVSA will enforce the rules to the best
of our ability, we believe the pending hours-of-service changes
will continue to make enforcement more difficult, especially
for those drivers and carriers who choose not to comply. While
the hours-of-service regulations are designed to help the
driver to obtain quality rest, each of the three new rules can
be disguised or falsified. The rules have shortened the work
period for some drivers, thus increasing the temptation to
falsify the records of duty status.
While we will not know for some time what impacts this
ultimately will have on safety, we do know that without
additional tools, such as electronic logging devices and
supporting document requirements, roadside enforcement's job
will continue to be challenging. And those who seek to break
the rules will have more opportunities to do so.
Each year there are approximately 3.5 million roadside
inspections conducted in the United States. The roadside
inspection programs identifies high-risk operators and removes
them from the road before a crash occurs. If we do not have
regulations designed properly or provide roadside enforcement
with the appropriate tools to be effective at their work, the
anticipated safety impacts will not be realized to their full
potential.
Last, but not least, research by FMCSA has determined that
in 2009 there were 573 lives saved from roadside enforcement
activities conducted through the Motor Carrier Safety
Assistance Program, which equates to about $3.4 billion in
safety benefits. In 2009, these grants to the States totaled
$162 million, equating to a 21 to 1 benefit-to-cost ratio.
Clearly, the roadside enforcement program provides a remarkable
return on our investment.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to be here
today, and I will be happy to answer questions at the
appropriate time.
Mr. Petri. Thank you for your testimony.
Mr. Stocklin?
Mr. Stocklin. Good morning. My name is Ed Stocklin. I am
from Wauna, Washington. I have been a professional truck driver
for 35 years. I have driven more than 2 million miles and have
hauled almost every imaginable kind of freight. Today my wife,
Michelle, and I own and operate Stocklin Trucking, where I haul
overdimensional loads. I am also a member of Owner-Operator
Independent Drivers Association, OOIDA, which represents the
small business truckers that are the majority of the U.S.
trucking industry, with more than 90 percent of all carriers
owning 20 or less trucks. Half of the trucking companies one-
truck operations, like mine.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide truckers'
perspective on hours-of-service rules, and how upcoming changes
will impact our ability to drive safely, efficiently, and
profitably. The changes that start on July 1 continue to trend
the reducing flexibility afforded to truckers. This makes it
harder for us to meet many demands of customers, regulators,
and on-the-road environment.
To fully understand our perspective, it is important to
recognize that the majority of truckers are compensated on a
per-mile basis. Simply put, if wheels aren't turning, you
aren't earning. Further, we can begin our 14-hour on-duty
period--that clock keeps running unless we take 8 hours of off
and then in the sleeper berth. While it may be easy for you to
wait out traffic, bad weather, or an accident because of an
unstoppable 14-hour clock, the trucker does not have that
luxury.
Our situation is made even more complex by our operational
changes. For example, if planning a morning departure doesn't
happen until the evening because the warehouse waited all day
to load our truck. Our customer only takes night-time
deliveries. All of these challenges impact our ability to
operate safely, efficiently, and profitably.
Most--excuse me. Most of our--flexibility does not mean--
allows--does not mean allows truckers to drive when tired. It
means to give us the ability to rest when we need, and to drive
when we are rested. Nothing should come in the way of me
stopping to take a rest break. Yet truckers are commonly placed
between inflexibility and customers, regulatory demands, and
demands that will only become more inflexible starting July 1.
I generally haul from west coast to east coast and back. My
oversized loads often prevent me from driving outside of
daylight hours. Further, I also play an active role in loading
and unloading my truck. This often exhausts my time available
for me, under the seven-day duty cycle, before I am able to
complete my cross-country trip. Under the current rules, I am
able to restart that cycle whenever I need, by taking 34-hour
break. This ensures I am well rested, with enough time for my
trip back cross-country. However, under the changes that start
July 1, it would limited--I will be limited to taking one 34-
hour restart every 7 days. This means I will no longer be able
to restart when I need to, and a restart may become an extended
off-duty layover.
Additionally, the 1:00 to 5:00 a.m. period are based upon
my home time zone. When I am taking an east coast restart, I
will need to be off between 4:00 and 8:00 a.m., reducing my
already limited daylight driving time. Needless to say, this
completely changes everything, even truckers.
Even--as these additional restrictions further reduce a
trucker's flexibility, the demands we face have only increased.
Well, not only all demands are under DOT controls, all changes
that start next month will make it more difficult for truckers
to balance them and to operate safe and efficient and
profitable business. While Administrator Ferro deserves credit
for efforts to examine the demands faced by truckers in more
detail, they are not reflected in changes going into effect
next month.
OOIDA supports rules that are flexible, allowing and
encouraging truckers to rest when tired, and to work when
rested. This will provide an important tool for balance--to
balance the day-to-day demands, and would be--best improve
highway safety.
Thank you for your opportunity to testify in holding this
hearing today. Questions, if you like to, any time. Thank you.
Mr. Petri. Thank you, Mr. Stocklin.
Ms. Joan Claybrook.
Ms. Claybrook. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman Petri,
Ranking Member DeFazio, and Chairman Shuster, and members of
the committee. I appreciate this opportunity to testify today
on the commercial driver hours-of-service regulation last
issued in December 2011, and currently in litigation. I am Joan
Claybrook, Former Administrator of the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, and the consumer cochair of Advocates
for Highway and Auto Safety, a unique insurance company and
consumer coalition dedicated to improving traffic safety.
Truck crashes are serious and they are deadly. On average,
over the past decade, from 2002 to 2011, large truck crashes
each year claimed 4,000 lives and injured nearly 100,000
people. Despite declines during the recession, fatalities and
injuries have increased every year since 2009. This is the
equivalent of a major airline crash every other week all year
long. Large truck driving is one of the most dangerous U.S.
occupations, killing 547 drivers in 2011. The annual cost to
society of large truck crashes is over $83 billion a year.
But the public pays the biggest cost in personal loss and
tragedy. In the audience today representing thousands of
families whose family members have been killed and injured by
tired truckers are Jane Mathis of St. Augustine, Florida, who
lost her son and daughter-in-law returning from their
honeymoon, when a driver virtually ran over their car in slow
traffic; Daphne and Steve Izer of Lisbon, Maine, who lost their
son and three friends when their vehicle, while stopped in a
break-down lane, was struck by a driver who had fallen asleep;
and Larry Liberatore, whose son was killed when a truck driver
fell asleep behind the wheel, crossed three lanes of traffic,
and plowed over the car his son was in on the shoulder of the
highway.
The problem of tired truckers is not new. Almost 20 years
ago, the 1995 National Truck and Bus Safety Summit organized by
DOT with experts and stakeholders, identified driver fatigue as
the number one safety issue in the trucking industry. In
response, Congress immediately enacted Section 408 of the
Interstate Commerce Termination Act, requiring DOT to adopt
necessary ``countermeasures for reducing fatigue-related
instances and increasing driver alertness.''
Unlike strict rules and enforcement with fatigue in
commercial air transportation, the Government has done little
to improve trucker fatigue. In 1937, truck drivers were exempt
from the Fair Labor Standards Act, meaning that companies
cannot be required to pay overtime. As a result, drivers are
paid by the mile, not the hour, like other employees in
America, encouraging drivers to drive as far and as fast as
they can.
But despite almost continuous rulemaking and litigation
since the late 1990s after passage of this legislative mandate,
the rules governing truck drivers got worse, not better. In
2003, the Department of Transportation increased the 10-hour
limit on continuous driving to 11 hours, and that is 3 hours
more than Americans are required to work in far less arduous
jobs. And it allowed a recalculation of the limit on weekly
hours of driving by instituting a 34-hour restart, essentially
short-cutting the end of the workweek rest and recovery period
for drivers who drove up to their maximum weekly hours before
the end of the week.
The restart allows drivers to take only 34 hours--or you
might say a shortened weekend--and then recalculate driving
hours with a fresh start, cramming 17 hours more driving into
the week. This maneuver allows drivers to significantly expand
their driving hours beyond the prior hard limit of 60 hours for
a weekly driving cap, or 70 hours for a driver in an 8-day
schedule.
Truck crash victims, citizen groups, the Teamsters, and
others sued DOT and won two rulings from the Federal Court of
Appeals overruling DOT in 2004 and in 2007. The subsequent 2011
final hours-of-service rule, which is about to take effect on
July 1, 2003, failed to cut back the continuous hours of
driving to 10 hours, which had been in place, by the way, for
70 years, and only minimally considered the restart issues.
Even the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
estimates that about 13 percent of fatal truck crashes involve
driver fatigue, which we think is an underestimate. The agency
made only modest adjustments to the hours-of-service rule,
which you have heard described.
I believe that we can do better, and I think we know what
it takes. These limited safety benefits of the current rule,
compared to the size of the problem, are why other improvements
are essential to protect drivers' health and protect the
driving public. Studies have found that since the current HOS
rule was issued, large numbers of drivers admit to being deeply
fatigued behind the wheel. Nearly 48 percent of drivers
admitted that they had fallen asleep while they were driving.
Other historical research shows that the crash risk for drivers
increases exponentially after 8 hours of driving, and is at
higher levels with more driving. And you know that if a driver
nods off for even a second in those 11 hours of driving, it
could result in a deadly crash.
Cumulative sleep deprivation can only be overcome through
extended periods of off-duty time for rest and recovery. And
for all these reasons, we felt compelled to sue once again. We
have several appendices in our testimony which I hope are
helpful to the committee, including excerpts from court
decisions and a chronology--history of the rulemaking.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
And last, but certainly not least, Mr. Hinkle.
Mr. Hinkle. Chairman Petri, Ranking Member DeFazio, and
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to
share the ready mixed concrete industry's concerns with the
upcoming changes to the Federal hours-of-service regulations.
My name is Jeff Hinkle, I am the transportation manager for
Chandler Concrete Company, a family-owned-and-operated ready
mixed concrete company based in Burlington, North Carolina.
Chandler Concrete Company was founded in 1946, and
currently employs 380 people. We operate 40 ready mixed
concrete plants, 256 commercial motor vehicles, deliver 655,000
yards of concrete annually, and have operations in North
Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee. Today I am also testifying
on behalf of the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, of
which I am the current vice chairman of the operations,
environment, and safety committee.
The current hours-of-service regulations our Nation's
commercial motor vehicles are operating under are not perfect.
However, they are manageable and much more flexible for
operations of the ready mixed concrete industry than the new
and pending hours-of-service rule changes. As with most small
businesses, operating a ready mixed concrete company means
there are finite amounts of resources for everything, whether
it is ordering inventory, hiring employees, dealing with an
array of mandates, or, in the case of hours of service, making
sure our drivers are compliant with an already complicated and
burdensome safety measure, while trying to deliver a perishable
product as soon as possible. Adding another layer of regulation
to this only hinders the ability to run a successful business.
Here is why the hours-of-service changes do not work for
Chandler Concrete Company and the ready mixed concrete
industry. The mandatory break of 30 minutes every 8 consecutive
hours is, by far, the most overburdensome and difficult for the
ready mixed concrete industry. Ready mixed concrete drivers
typically spend far less than 50 percent of their own duty time
actually driving. The other 50 to 75 percent is spent at the
plant, waiting to be dispatched, at the job site, waiting for
the contractor to receive the concrete, unloading concrete, and
performing other administrative duties.
Companies need to have the flexibility to give breaks as
the schedule dictates throughout the day. For example, a
concrete delivery often takes more than 2\1/2\ hours to
complete. Concrete is a perishable product, needed on a just-
in-time basis. Once a delivery is started, it must be
completed, or the concrete may harden in the truck, causing
thousands of dollars worth of damage, and potentially violating
a delivery contract.
Every day is different in the construction field. Thus,
companies need the flexibility to deliver concrete when a
customer needs it. Drivers also have a flexible start time,
where one day they start at 7:00 a.m. and the next at 12:00
p.m.
Ready mixed concrete deliveries do not happen on a regular
9:00-to-5:00 schedule, nor do concrete customers always plan
deliveries. Often, customers order concrete on an as-soon-as-
possible basis. As well, by requiring this 30-minute break,
which more often than not will be required to be taken as off-
duty, nonpaid time, this break ultimately keeps drivers away
from their families longer, and with no additional pay. Due to
all of these factors, compliance with a 30-minute break
unfairly affects the effectiveness of delivering ready mixed
concrete, and the practices of the ready mixed concrete
business without improving safety.
The ready mixed concrete industry has estimated
industrywide compliance with the hours-of-service rule change
to cost roughly $268 million in the first year alone. This
cost, in part, includes driver training, new technology,
administrative expenses, customer complaints, additional fuel,
hiring of more drivers, and buying more equipment.
In conclusion, the easiest and clearest solution to the
problems outlined above is to reinstate the pre-December 2011
hours-of-service regulations. We should be smart enough to
recognize unique industries and how these types of regulations
unnecessarily adversely affect them.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to comment on how the
hours-of-service rules changes will affect Chandler Concrete
Company and the ready mixed concrete industry. I am happy to
answer any questions the committee may have.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. And thank you all for your testimony.
The testimony of the last witness on the difficulty for the
concrete industry--and I suspect asphalt as well--is
reminiscent of previous hearings, where we had people
testifying on previous hours-of-service rules who were working
for utilities, for example, driving to and doing work. If you
have a storm and wires are down, are they supposed to stop and
let people stay in the dark, or should there be exceptions,
some flexibility?
For the agricultural industry, during harvest times and
other times a year, it is very important that they not just
stop and let crops rot or fail or whatever. The same thing,
evidently, is true in the petroleum industry, where some
exceptions have been granted. And I am a little surprised that
in the rulemaking process, I don't know if you failed to
comment on it, or if they just ignored the concerns that you--
--
Mr. Hinkle. The National Ready Mixed Concrete Association
did submit comments on the ruling.
Mr. Petri. I would like to ask Mr. Savage if--you alluded
to the possible increase in enforcement difficulties with the
new rules and said your written testimony provides some
concrete examples. If you could expand on that for a minute or
two, it would be much appreciated.
Mr. Savage. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Absolutely. My written
testimony provides several examples, I believe three. I will
briefly discuss one, and it is specifically related to the fact
that we don't have the ability to check supporting documents.
For example, the new rules allow or require a driver to
take 30 minutes off before they reach 8 hours of driving. And
currently, there is no requirement to maintain supporting
documents. So a driver, conceivably, if they were inclined to
falsify their log, could go into a truck stop and fuel their
truck. During that time that they were fueling their truck and
checking their load, load securement and checking the truck,
that actually, at that time, is supposed to be counted as on
duty, not driving. The driver could conceivably log that time
as being their off-duty time. And without us having the receipt
for the fuel, we may not be able to determine whether or not
that driver was actually resting during that 30-minute break.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Ms. Ferro, if you would care to
respond to any of the other panel members' testimony.
Ms. Ferro. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for that
opportunity. Two quick things I want to follow up on.
Mr. Chairman, you rightly asked about special exceptions
for certain industry categories, understanding that oil fields
have certain special exceptions from hours of service,
agriculture has certain special exceptions from hours of
service, as does the concrete industry. The concrete industry--
and that was not changed under this rule that takes effect July
1--has the opportunity for a 24-hour restart at any point in
time when they are operating on a job site. And of, course,
utilities also have a special exception for responding to
emergencies.
So I want to be sure that that is clear. It is a 24-hour
within operations within a 50-mile radius, and it is something
that Congress put in place some time ago.
Mr. Petri. I think what they have indicated to me is that
the half-hour break is a real problem because the concrete
could set, or it could interfere with the process. They are
dealing with a natural substance that is not going to rest for
half-an-hour, it is going to keep on congealing, or whatever.
And the same thing with hot asphalt and so on. Could you
comment on that, or how that can be managed more effectively?
Ms. Ferro. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this
opportunity to comment, because the 30-minute break is a very
reasonable expectation. It is a 30-minute break within a 14-
hour workday. In fact, if you work an 8-hour day in this
industry you wouldn't even be required to take the 30-minute
break, because it only starts if you are going to drive after
that eighth hour.
With regard to areas of confusion--and so, again, this is a
great opportunity to clarify--the 30-minute break can be taken
by the driver at any point in time during that 14 hours,
providing it happens before any driving occurs after the eighth
hour of work. So, in many cases, a driver might take--to
maximize the use of that 30-minute break and just only have to
use it once within a 14-hour day, they would optimally take it
some time between the fourth and eighth hour of working.
In the case of the concrete industry, they might choose
when that driver is on a loop back to the plant to pick up more
product to say, ``All right, go off duty, you know, hop in your
cab''--and this was a different change we made in the hours--
``and take a 30-minute break, you are off duty, you are not
responsible for the load, we are not going to reload you until
you have had that 30-minute break.''
So there are certainly--this idea of having flexibility,
that 30-minute break is accessible throughout that day. But
again, it is optimized if the driver takes it some time between
the fourth and eighth hour. And----
Mr. Petri. Mr. Hinkle, would you care to respond?
Mr. Hinkle. Yes, sir. To optimize our workdays in the
summertime, you know, a 14-hour day is a normal day. Drivers
get 10-, 15-, 20-minute breaks throughout the day probably
every couple of hours.
So, you know, our biggest reason is to sit them down and
take them off the clock for 30 minutes is going to be tough for
us to deal with. When they go through the day, they don't deal
with the fatigue than an over-the-road driver--you know, maybe
driving 6, 8, 9 hours at a time. You know, they are constantly
getting short breaks throughout the day. Maybe not 30 minutes,
but you know, 15, 20 minutes, and such. So they don't reach the
fatigue level that a driver driving a long distance would
reach.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Since this is a
subset of a very complicated issue, I am almost grasping it.
So, in the aggregate case, it seems to me there are two
things that might apply and might be within the capabilities of
the Administration. There is the exemption for the time a
driver spends resting in a parked commercial motor vehicle--may
be considered off-duty time. If--a lot of these guys are--and/
or women--are sitting in line, just with the truck rotating so
the concrete won't set up. And every once in a while they might
have to move. I mean I wonder if that would solve the problem,
if there was an exemption for you are not actively doing
anything with the truck, but it is just rotating because you
don't want your concrete to set up.
Mr. Hinkle. Well, that is why we have got to clarify the
definition of on-duty and off-duty time.
Mr. DeFazio. Right.
Mr. Hinkle. Because----
Mr. DeFazio. But that could help, because, I mean, they
really are in line here, right?
Mr. Hinkle. Yes, sir. That could help. If they are waiting
you know, 30 minutes. But then again, we don't know how long we
are going to be waiting----
Mr. DeFazio. Right. But that could take care of some of it.
Mr. Hinkle. Right.
Mr. DeFazio. But the other issue would be--and perhaps Ms.
Ferro can address this--I was kind of wondering about the 8
hours and 14 hours, and I was thinking, wow, these guys--I
mean, you know, how are they taking care of bodily functions?
And as he is pointing out, they are getting short breaks during
those 8 hours or 14 hours.
Mr. Hinkle. Right.
Mr. DeFazio. What if those were--if they could aggregate
those? If these guys are, you know, they drive there, they get
there with a truck, they know it is going to sit for a minute,
they get a 15-minute break back in the truck. I mean what if
you could aggregate those, as opposing to, say, in a lump sum?
What does the research say about--because they all say--you
know, the stuff I read says really short naps can refresh a
person. Like just nod off, you know, and come back--except if
you are at the wheel, obviously.
So, what about allowing aggregation of these shorter breaks
that people take, particularly in this industry, which is
short-haul driving?
Ms. Ferro. So back to Chairman Shuster's expectation that
any kind of a rule for any agency is research-based,
scientifically identified, defined, developed, when it comes to
breaks and the opportunity and the--all findings, whether it is
in a standard manufacturing plant or in a heavy-duty vehicle
operation, a 30-minute break where the individual is completely
off duty from operations, does in fact contribute to a much
lower crash risk in that subsequent hour. That is what the
research says. It is very clear. A semi-off-duty break, a
little bit of--less of an improvement in reducing crash risk.
The concept here is there is a clear safety benefit. I am
sure Mr. Hinkle also wants safety on the worksite, given the
kind of heavy equipment his operators are running. So that
optimum break is one 30-minute break. It improves that driver's
clarity, that operator's ability to respond quickly, if there
is an issue.
One opportunity to consolidate a break is to take two of
those 15 minutes he referenced and allow the driver to grab it
when they are going back to the plant, when they are back to
the plant, before they reload. Another is to take the off-duty
issue described and ask another driver, ``Hey, watch my truck
while it is turning. I am going to be here for another 2 hours.
Can you take 15 minutes while I take 15 and we will split that
time and watch each other's rigs?'' I suspect that also goes on
at worksites.
But at the core of this is the concept of improving the
ability of that operator to be as safe and alert as possible in
a very challenging work environment, understanding that
everybody still needs the flexibility to get the job done. That
concrete is very important to get poured.
Mr. DeFazio. OK. Well, I am--if the research is that
definitive, I am just not sure. I mean you are saying there is
some improvement with aggregated, shorter breaks, you are just
saying you don't capture the full benefits. I mean did the
research drill down to the level of short-haul driving versus
long-haul driving, in terms of those sorts of breaks?
Ms. Ferro. I will have to go back and check, and I will
respond to----
Mr. DeFazio. Because, I mean, short-haul driving, to me, is
very different----
Ms. Ferro. Well----
Mr. DeFazio [continuing]. Attention span.
Ms. Ferro. If I could respond real quickly, the research
generally is not unique to operating a heavy-duty vehicle. It
is any sort of heavy equipment operation. The research with
regard to workplace safety reinforces, under any kind of OSHA
standard or OSHA research, NIOSH research, that, in fact, an
operator that takes a 30-minute break off duty has the optimum
opportunity to reduce any sort of accident risk within that
first hour when they come back on duty.
We do it all the time. The difference is that we are not
operating heavy equipment. And the risks of us bumping into
somebody aren't as severe as somebody who is using heavy
equipment----
Mr. DeFazio. If I could--just one other quick thing, Mr.
Chairman.
Ms. Ferro. Yes.
Mr. DeFazio. You know, again, I have been trying to puzzle
through the restart. And Helena, who I didn't talk to when I
said no one could get an award for explaining this fully, has
done a very spiffy little chart here. And what she--her
conclusion here is that, with the 34-hour restart, you could
still get to over 80 hours in a week.
And then that--what would happen would be your restart
would move a couple of days every week, and it would back up
through the week. But you still could be consistently driving
more than 80 hours in a week. So I am not even sure that this
extraordinarily difficult to explain concept is accomplishing
your stated goal, which is to prevent anybody or everybody from
driving more than 80 hours in a week in consecutive weeks.
Ms. Ferro. Well, if I might clarify now, Helena is right.
She gets to this stuff very quickly and very accurately. You
can, in fact, under the new rule, run 80 hours, take the
restart. Your next run will be limited to about 57 to 60 hours,
and then you will have to take a longer break before you can
run back at 80.
Again, the whole concept behind this rule is pretty
straightforward. The vast majority of the industry operates
very well and within any kind of reasonable expectation of
driver fatigue and driver wellness within this current
construct. It is that opportunity to stretch the margins under
the current rule by using that restart to move the week in that
creates the risk that a driver would run 80 hours, 34-hour
break, 80 hours, 34-hour break, 80 hours, week after week after
week. And that creates the condition of cumulative fatigue,
chronic fatigue, which not only makes that driver a real risk
behind the wheel, it also impacts that driver's health in the
long term.
What this rule does, it limits the use to one time, let's
say, within a 2-week period. You can use it--80 hours you are
on, you take the 34-hour restart, now your next week you are
stuck at 57 hours to 60 hours. You have a longer break, and
then you might resume again with a restart at the end of that
longer break.
So, it reduces the risk that that 80 hours is run week
after week after week. We worked very hard to ensure that there
was some flexibility still in this rule, recognizing the
demands of the trucking industry.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Ferro, in MAP-21
we put in the law that FMCSA shall conduct real-world field
studies. And I know that Washington State University, who
conducted the lab experiment, recommended that the next
positive--or strongly recommended, I should say, that the next
appropriate steps should be to conduct a field study. And I
know the industry has recommended you put these off until we do
a real-world study. So why have you decided not to postpone and
perform this real-world study that it seems everybody think is
a good idea?
Ms. Ferro. We are doing a real-world study. We launched it
as soon as Congress incorporated this into MAP-21 and MAP-21
was enacted. We began the work, both to scope out and define
and award a contract to carry out the field study. In fact, we
actually used--had the first driver start under the field study
conditions in January this year.
Mr. Shuster. But it is not going to be concluded by July
1st, and you are going to move forward with these regulations--
--
Ms. Ferro. That is right. Right.
Mr. Shuster [continuing]. Without any real-world data.
Ms. Ferro. Look. The----
Mr. Shuster. What will you do if it comes back and it says
something different? You will change the rules? I think it
would be better off for all of us if we temporarily postponed
and let the real-world study go forward.
Ms. Ferro. I appreciate that perspective. Flash back 10
years ago. The 34-hour restart that the industry prizes so much
today was developed through a lab study with fewer subjects and
not field study. But it was identified as an improvement in
efficiency, operations, and, in fact, rest for drivers. So the
model is not unique.
Mr. Shuster. Mr. Williams, do you share that view?
Mr. Williams. I would prefer to have the facts----
Mr. Shuster. Absolutely.
Mr. Williams [continuing]. In front of us before we make
the changes. Even though we have already spent the money, you
know, the impact of it is going to be significant.
Mr. Shuster. Right. And it is true, let's have the real-
world facts.
The other question I have is while we are looking at this--
and certainly safety is, as I said, is paramount--but my
numbers that I have say about 75 percent of the accidents that
occur out there with trucks are not caused by the truck driver,
it is by the passenger car that cuts them off. And these things
are are not going to look at that at all, and in fact, the CSA
scores that impact the industry greatly, they do not
differentiate between an accident where the driver was not at
fault, somebody cut him off and that is what caused the
accident.
It seems to me that fundamental in our justice system, that
ought to be taken into consideration.
I am a truck driver. I am well rested. I am unlucky because
I get a passenger car every so often cuts me off.
How is that fair in the CSA scores to not differentiate
between who is at fault?
Ms. Ferro. We refer to this particular issue, Mr. Chairman,
as ``crash weighting.'' I think the industry for a long time
has called it ``crash preventability.'' We recognized that in
the analysis that we used through the CSA program to prioritize
the carriers that are putting the highest risk to the public,
we used all crashes.
The neutralizing effect is every carrier is treated the
same, it is all their crashes. No one gets a break.
Mr. Shuster. That puts luck involved in it. Mr. Williams'
firm may have had some unlucky drivers, people driving
passenger cars pulling out in front of them and causing
accidents. That does not seem to me to be a fair way to go
about this. It is not a scientific way.
If a truck driver is safe, he is safe. If a truck driver
has five accidents and zero are his fault, they are not his
fault. I do not think it is a fair way for us to proceed.
Ms. Ferro. The important last sentence I talked to is we
are studying the issue. We expect a report to be completed this
summer to both examine how the agency can best gather
information on preventability and nonpreventability, or really
that driver's contribution to the crash and weight it
accordingly, for all crashes, about 100,000 crashes, or just on
the 4,000 annual fatal crashes. That analysis will be available
for everybody----
Mr. Shuster. If it is not my fault, it is not fair. If it
is not my fault, I should not be held accountable. I should not
have to jeopardize my living, I should not be jeopardizing my
company's well being, if I am not at fault.
That is something we have to look at very, very seriously.
It is a problem. I hear from trucking companies all the time.
I would like to ask Mr. Williams and Mr. Hinkle, if you
have an accident in your business, what kind of economic impact
is that on you? Whether it is your fault or not your fault. How
significant is that?
Mr. Williams. It is something we obviously have to manage.
We spend millions of dollars trying to prevent accidents.
Obviously, there is some recent research that has come out that
the industry may be underinsured based on statutory limits,
minimums we are required to carry. Suffice it to say every
event has the potential to be--aside from bodily harm, the
property damage alone is probably significant.
Mr. Shuster. Mr. Hinkle?
Mr. Hinkle. We take it very serious. We spend a lot of
money in training. Any time we have an accident, we do a very
thorough investigation. If somebody needs to be retrained,
obviously there is a cost, loss of equipment or personal
injury, anything like that.
When you refer to a CSA crash score, I have to agree with
you 100 percent. We have had several of those instances where
our score has gone up, we may have had three incidents in 6
months and zero were any fault whatsoever of our drivers. We
get the letter in the mail saying your score is too high. What
do you do?
Mr. Shuster. All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate
the input of our witnesses.
Mr. Petri. Ms. Hahn?
Ms. Hahn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate us
having this hearing. I think for all of us this hearing is
providing an opportunity to figure out how safety, of course,
is a priority and as we balance that with the truck drivers,
the independent owner-operators, and business people across
this country.
May I first offer my deepest sympathy to the families that
are here today for loss of your loved ones. Tragic stories,
which we do not like to hear those stories. I think everybody
here will agree that we want to get to the point where we have
less fatigue in our drivers.
I represent the Port of Los Angeles. I think Ranking Member
DeFazio talked about drivers getting paid by the load, not by
the hour. I was told by many of my drivers in the area that
sometimes one drop off of a load was sometimes 13 hours because
of traffic conditions, because of the ports only operating
certain hours.
When I was on the City Council, I pushed to move more off
peak hours at our ports because I thought that made better
sense for our truck drivers. By the way, they do not like to be
on the road with the rest of us drivers either. They do not
think we know how to drive. A lot of the accidents, I think,
with our big rigs are caused by incompetent commuters on the
road who do not understand what it takes to brake one of those
trucks.
While certainly these rules are meant to create less
fatigue on our drivers, as we have heard, many of them are
going to be unenforceable. We cannot mandate folks get 8 hours
of sleep at night. We think there would be a lot of people who
would wish that was true in their own lives.
What I was going to ask the drivers, particularly those who
represent drivers and the drivers, this is the Transportation
and Infrastructure Committee. We are really looking at the
infrastructure in this country.
Many of us are on a freight panel. We are going to make
recommendations for national freight policy in this country.
What besides rest, taking time off, getting more hours away
from driving, could we look at in terms of our infrastructure,
in terms of more off peak opportunities at our ports across
this country?
What else could we do in Congress that might relieve the
stress of drivers, might create a better infrastructure that
causes less fatigue?
Is there something we could look at besides just regulating
your time away from your trucks, your time resting, your time
sleeping, that would actually make for a better driving
environment, which we know ultimately would lead to less stress
and fatigue?
Any ideas? I would like to hear from Mr. Williams, Mr.
Stocklin, and Mr. Hinkle.
Mr. Williams. First, I think we are all in agreement that
we want to reduce fatalities. We want to reduce bodily injury.
We are all on the same page. It is just a question of how we
can get there.
I think the context of your question is really, really
important because we also need to understand that over the next
20 years, the economy will double in size. However successful
you are in our infrastructure investment, it is going to pale
in comparison to the challenges the infrastructure system is
going to have.
We are already 20 years behind, so we have a lot of
catching up to do. The reason that is important is because
congestion really creates a awful lot of challenges not only
for safety but for the environment as well, not to mention the
economy.
Infrastructure, yes. More lane miles of highways is
certainly important. Fatigue is only one of the components of a
good safety management system.
On our fleets, we have about 1,500 trucks, they all have
collision avoidance systems, lane departure alert systems, roll
stability control, disc brakes. The list goes on and on, all
the technology. We use electronic onboard recorders.
You asked what could be done. We need to make sure that we
get the mandate implemented on electronic onboard recorders, or
the rest of this is really kind of irrelevant, not to be
disrespectful. Regardless of the rule that we have in place, if
it is not enforced, and the CVSA does not have the ability to
leverage the resources they do have to ensure a higher degree
of compliance, we do not have much hope of any progress.
The foundation from which all improvements can be made are
the electronic onboard recorders. They are what rationalized me
spending tens of millions of dollars a year to continue to want
to grow my business.
Without that confidence that there is some reason brought
into the equation, it is really not prudent for me to continue
to invest in all the safety technologies that we have already
invested in.
I really truly believe the EOBR mandate, which we want to
compliment you all on the leadership role you have taken on
making sure that became a reality, but we need to make sure
that is implemented as soon as it possibly can be. I think that
should be paramount over everything else.
If I may also add as a part of that, like hair follicle
testing, we need to be allowed to use that. It improves safety.
The drug and alcohol clearinghouse, there are so many
commonsense things that are laying before us that we need to
get implemented, we need your help to get all those things
done.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Hahn. Mr. Crawford?
Mr. Crawford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
holding this hearing. I want to thank the witnesses for being
here and particularly my fellow Arkansan, Mr. Williams. I
appreciate the work you do, 33 years in the business. You have
grown Maverick Transportation and you and your staff have done
a fantastic job, and you are an industry leader in safety.
You alluded to this in your comments just now. I want you
to elaborate on why you believe the EOBRs are so critical to
the enforcement of the hours-of-service rule and collection of
data.
Mr. Williams. In the spirit of what we are trying to do
here, manage with facts, as Ms. Claybrook said before the
hearing, we are all trying to get to the bottom, what are the
real facts of the situation.
In fact, EOBRs--we manage literally 1,500 trucks by the
minute. We know how long it takes them to load, how long it
takes them to unload. We know when we are waiting, we know
where we are waiting. We know actual transit times.
That is one of those facts, much like my concern over the
34-hour restart, for example. I can factually say my concern
over us focusing on the elimination of the 34-hour restart when
in fact the concern is to mitigate the people that drive
bumping up against the 70 hours, and year to date, my fleet,
which are considered pretty good runners, 37.18 hours of
driving per week and 49.43 hours per week on driving. They are
not getting anywhere close to 70.
In my case, where I use the 34-hour restart for a different
purpose, again, to get flexibility on a schedule, the average
length of haul for our fleet, 650 miles, we are considered a
long-haul, irregular route carrier. We are a steel hauler. We
are a flat-bed carrier. I use that to illustrate--we have the
facts to the hundredth of a minute.
EOBRs give you the correct data so you can manage it from
an operational standpoint, from a safety management standpoint,
from a pricing standpoint, how you utilize the equipment.
The part that makes it obviously the most important is it
gives law enforcement the ability to quickly with technology
aggregate data with the help--which I am a tremendous advocate
for CSA--a combination of those tools that we in fact can focus
the resources on those carriers and drivers who have habitual
driver hours-of-service problems, from a fatigue management
standpoint.
Yes, the system can be beat. These guys have a lot of time
on their hands. This is interesting. These guys and gals are
trying to find ways of creating flexibility for themselves so
they can work harder. They are not trying to go out and hurt
people.
We have to constrain them in many cases with these
regulations and that is understood, but they have to be right
sized, if you will.
EOBRs, again, are the tool--again, I do not really believe
there is much hope for any real progress unless we can get an
EOBR mandate in short order. It is the foundation that will
ensure people will do the right thing.
So many people think that running a truck line is an
entitlement. It is not. It is a privilege. We need to look at
it that way.
Mr. Crawford. Thank you, Mr. Williams. I am going to direct
my attention now to Administrator Ferro. You have heard what
Mr. Williams has to say about it. You know the data on it. You
know we authorized EOBRs in MAP-21. I do not think you are
going to hit your October 1 deadline for the rulemaking.
Do you want to elaborate on that, kind of let us know where
you are at with respect to the timeline for implementation?
Ms. Ferro. Yes. Let me just reinforce, the electronic
logging device rule, ELD, is a very important rule. Frankly, we
cannot get it done fast enough. I felt very strongly about this
and for a very long time.
You may be familiar with the court history on it, and we
need to be sure not only do we get every piece right, it has to
be completely defensible, and we also incorporate the elements
of MAP-21.
The Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, because we
are building on an NPRM we had issued in 2011, will be on the
street in the fall of this year. You are absolutely right, it
will not be the final rule. It will be the Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking.
It will incorporate four very important pieces. One of
which is the broad mandate across the industry that uses it as
record of duty status to monitor hours of service to ultimately
improve compliance.
The second component, very important, and you heard Major
Savage speak to it, is the supporting documents piece, ensuring
there is clarity and efficiency in the supporting document
retention requirements and accessibility requirements.
If you are using technology, you should not have to keep as
many papers, but certainly law enforcement ultimately needs to
be able to use the tool.
There is a component of the electronic logging rule that
must prohibit the use of that technology to harass drivers.
That is the third major component in that rule.
The fourth major component, sort of underlining all of it,
is the technical specifications, the broad open technology
reflects kind of all the advances that have been made so that
it is affordable, it is accurate, it is hamper proof--tamper
proof--pardon me.
Those are the four components. Again, I could not agree
with you more, we need to get it out there.
Mr. Crawford. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Walz?
Mr. Walz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the ranking member
for holding this. Thank all of you for being here. I for one am
grateful that all of you are a part of this. I know my family
is out on the highway, our economic well being is dependent on
that, and trying to strike that proper balance.
We do not often times get an issue that I do believe the
core issue here is safety and then making sure people have the
ability to be profitable in moving products. We have to be able
to strike that balance.
As I am listening, I do not think there is a lot of space
between there. There are a couple of things. I think Mr.
Crawford started to hit on this, and I am trying to get at, how
do we focus on the bad actors without doing damage in a blanket
report?
I think, Mr. Williams, you were kind of getting at that. I
have to tell you the one thing I find, and maybe it is just the
nature of this business, but when I go to visit my small
carriers, safety is the air they breath. I get that impression
when I go in there that is the air they breath.
When I talk to my State patrol, it is about safety, moving
commerce, and understanding it.
We are really similar in this. Who are the bad actors in
this? How are these folks getting around it or how does that
happen? Is the margin so tight that it just creates a
situation?
Mr. Williams, I think you hit on something really
interesting, that it might not be bad intent a lot of times, it
is just folks that are just really trying to work hard, and it
is one of those jobs.
I know this military-wise, forcing people to sleep in the
military was really, really hard, because they are driven, they
want to get the job done, but if they do not sleep, they
degraded our capacity.
Mr. Williams, I am looking to you and Mr. Stocklin first.
What do you think? How do we weed out those bad actors without
putting you in a bind for doing the right thing?
Mr. Williams. Well, again, going back to the context of the
challenges going to get much greater, I am really glad we are
doing the things that we are. Again, I believe CSA is doing the
right thing. It is identifying who those bad actors are.
We are eliminating--once identified in the past, a bad
driver, for example, could leave a bad carrier that has been
characterized as such and show up at another carrier and taint
his record. We are closing all these little loopholes, if you
will.
The Administrator has done a really good job of trying to
accelerate that process. There is an awful lot of people in the
shipping community--I have customers that think she and her
Administration has been making idle threats, that their world
is going to change, that in fact, there are no teeth in this,
and I am waiting for--there is evidence there are actions being
taken against bad carriers and bad operators. It goes on. It
just has not been maybe as visible as I would like to see it.
I am a firm believer it needs to be tough to get into this
industry and it needs to be tough to stay in this industry, and
those of us that are here can afford to invest in the solutions
from driver pay, driver benefits, proper work schedules and all
such to make the job a better job.
It is an economic issue, yes, but again, we cannot get
there without the help of the regulators, with leveraging the
technology. Again, embracing CSA.
I think the framework is there and the clock is running. I
just wish we could get there a little quicker.
Mr. Walz. Major Savage, if I could ask you on this, your
folks see this, and I was pleased to hear the Chairman of the
full committee talk about science a lot on this, you mentioned
there are folks trying to game the system or whatever.
I do not know how to frame this other than are there
carriers that just have that air they breath culture of safety
and are there others just trying to get around it? You are just
identifying the bad actors as you stop them, no matter where
they came from.
What is your take on this?
Mr. Savage. Mr. Congressman, that is an excellent question.
I am very glad you asked it. In our business, our goal is to
remove the unsafe drivers and carriers from the road. That is
my ultimate goal.
I have been on the scene of terrible crashes and I do not
want to continue to go on those scenes. I want to remove those
drivers from the road, whether they be in cars or trucks, it is
irrelevant to me. I want to make the road safer. That is our
goal.
One way to do that and probably the most effective way to
do that, given the data that we have, make sure that data is
the highest quality possible, it is accurate, it is uniform,
and then use that data to prioritize and identify those
carriers that should not be on our roads, and target those
carriers and remove them from our roads.
If we use the data, we are data driven to begin with, if we
use the performance data to identify those carriers and spend
the majority of time focusing on those folks, removing them
from the highways, those carriers, like you say, who are
compliant, and a great majority of them are, those carriers
that are compliant, allow them to continue to operate as they
should.
Mr. Walz. When we come back around I want to get at this
issue, Mr. Chairman, I think that is exactly what Mr. Williams
and Mr. Stocklin--the issue I have is the ability for them to
be able to know who that bad actor is before they get them.
At times, I do feel like they are forced to almost take
this person. There is a shortage. This is a tough business. It
turns over. If you end up getting someone where you do not have
a background they have been convicted of this or whatever, that
does seem inherently unfair and wrong, and they do not have the
resources to weed them all out at this point.
Mr. Petri. Thank you, Mr. Walz. Mr. Rice?
Mr. Rice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the
witnesses for being here today. It is certainly an educational
experience for me.
Mr. Stocklin, I want to hear from you. I want to hear about
what you think about these onboard recorders, how much do they
cost, how effective are they, do you think they are something
that is really going to bring down the accidents? I want to
hear your opinion, sir.
Mr. Stocklin. I do not really know anything about the
onboard recorders. Probably if they force me to do it, I will
just quit. They may work in large companies because they can
keep track, where you get these bad guys on there that cause
you nothing but problems.
I am kind of looking at it from a different perspective
because I am one truck, one guy. I only have to worry about me.
I have a good safety record and my whole goal is to be safe
while I am driving all the time.
I do overdimensional, overheights, overwidths, all the
time. That is what I do.
I have trained quite a few guys and watched them leave.
Just trying to make the money, running too cheap, because it is
all about the money, they do not take care of their trucks
because they do not have any money because they are running too
cheap.
In other words, you have to make enough money to maintain
your truck, make your house payment, and all those things you
need to do. I am looking at this as an one truck guy. It is
hard to do. It is not easy. I have been doing it for years. It
is all about the money with trucks going down the road. Some
guys, you know, run for $1.50 a mile, think they are making
money and they are not.
Mr. Rice. You acknowledge there are bad actors out there.
Mr. Stocklin. Absolutely.
Mr. Rice. People who will falsify writing down records?
Mr. Stocklin. Yes. Just a few weeks ago----
Mr. Rice. How do you attack that if you do not have these
onboard recorders?
Mr. Stocklin. I do not know. For me, I do not run illegal
anyhow. I guess for those guys, that is what you need, and
maybe you should look at their safety record so far, maybe you
should put that recorder in their truck, just like you do when
guys get DUIs, they have to blow in the little thing. You see
my point.
Let the good guys, the guys that do a good job take care of
that. I do not know what the cost is. It could be $4,000. I do
not know.
It is all about how much more it costs you to run, just
like this 34-hour restart, I run from coast to coast, I may go
to the Midwest, from the time I load to get to the Midwest, and
I have curfews, I have daylight hours, all this, it may take me
five and half days, total days, to do that in one direction.
Then I sit there and I have to wait that 168 hours out
before I can do my restart which I am sitting there for
nothing. It is actually more tiring to sit there for extra
days, you are not accomplishing anything.
Mr. Rice. If you could change one aspect of this new rule,
what would it be?
Mr. Stocklin. I would leave the 34-hour restart exactly the
way it is. I never run over my hours. I have plenty of rest. A
lot of it is the time of the week or when you haul the freight.
I try to haul freight in the right time of the week where I am
not in the traffic. I try to stay out of traffic as much as I
can.
Mr. Rice. If this 34 hour rule stayed the way it is, you
would be happy with it?
Mr. Stocklin. Yes, absolutely.
Mr. Rice. I am running out of time. Mr. Hinkle, average
drive time for your drivers from point A to point B, what is
your average drive time?
Mr. Hinkle. Probably 15 to 20 minutes to 30 minutes,
somewhere in that range.
Mr. Rice. If they are driving 30-minute increments, they
are waiting 15 to 20 minutes or up to an hour or more; right?
Mr. Hinkle. Could be. In our operations, driving time never
really comes into play. It is the on-duty time. In a common 14-
hour day, 5 hours----
Mr. Rice. You think a 30-hour mandatory break would
decrease driving fatigue if they are only driving 15 to 20
minutes?
Mr. Hinkle. That is our whole thing, having to mandate they
take a 30-minute break, that is not going to increase their----
Mr. Rice. One-size-fits-all requirements do not really
work?
Mr. Hinkle. Absolutely not.
Mr. Rice. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Petri. Mrs. Napolitano?
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry I have
been in and out. I may be asking questions that have already
been addressed.
I am wondering why the release of the U.S. Court of Appeals
continues to be defied when it comes to revising the hours-of-
service ruling. Anybody?
Ms. Claybrook. The first court decision was made in 2004.
After the court ruled they made one minor change, and the
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration just reissued the
rule, because that is what they wanted.
I do not know if they thought they were going to be sued
again. I was very much involved in that litigation. We decided
to sue again because they had essentially ignored the Federal
Court of Appeals. The court of appeals then ruled again in
2007. FMCSA did the same thing yet again.
Mrs. Napolitano. Twice?
Ms. Claybrook. Twice. When the new Administration came in
in 2008/2009, it asked if we would hold off on the new
litigation until they could develop a new rule. We agreed to do
that. They developed a new rule which we considered to be a de
minimis improvement in safety.
We sued again. That is the case that is now pending. It was
argued in March 2013.
Mrs. Napolitano. Is there any scientific data there to
support that an increase to 11 hours actually improves safety
for a truck driver and any studies that verify driver
performance increases after 10 hours of driving?
Ms. Claybrook. No, just the opposite. The scientific
evidence shows that after 8 hours of driving--which is what
other full-time employees in America work--truck driver
performance degrades. By the 10th and 11th hour, it is really
bad.
Really, I know the industry will go crazy when I say this
but what should happen is drivers should be paid by the hour,
and they should be paid overtime when they work overtime and
over 8 hours a day.
The 10-hour rule which was in effect for 70 years was
something we thought ought to be reduced, and instead, it was
increased.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you. The Highway Patrol in
California has given me some information. They are telling me
there are many unemployed, but why cannot the trucking industry
hire and retain drivers. They say it is 20,000 to 25,000 short.
You are right, maybe paying them hourly might change the
ability for them to be a little safer.
Ms. Claybrook. I think the life of a truck driver who works
14 hours a day when everyone else in America works 8, that is a
pretty miserable existence. A lot of drivers quit the business
because it is a really, really tough job. That is one of the
reasons they have a shortage.
If you look at what they are paid in relationship to the
amount of time they work, it is a pretty low pay. They get
better jobs.
Mrs. Napolitano. I am being informed the median is almost
$38,000. If they work 70 hours, it works out to $11.15 an hour.
Ms. Claybrook. That is right. It is a very small amount of
pay. It is above minimum wage but not a whole lot.
Mrs. Napolitano. The other area that concerns me is the
health risks and life expectancy associated with trucking. I
have known several of them and it is the nature of the job,
whether it is diesel exhaust, body vibration, excessive noise,
the constant shift changes, the roadway dangers.
They are reduced to 61 years, 60 years, less than average,
and the high risk would be in personal injury, high blood
pressure, heart attacks, diabetes, obesity, cancer, liver,
kidney, bowel and bladder issues, sleep abnormalities and
hearing loss.
Is that worth it?
Ms. Claybrook. A lot of drivers do not think it is. In
addition, as I mentioned in my testimony, it is one of the more
dangerous occupations in America; the likelihood of being
killed is higher than in many, many other occupations, in
addition to all those other health risks.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you. Does anyone care to respond?
Mr. Stocklin. You are asking about health issues?
Mrs. Napolitano. Yes.
Mr. Stocklin. Number one, in the truck stops, they do not
have any good food.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Stocklin. Number one. That is a fact. These guys sit in
there for 2 to 4 days waiting to get reloaded, like it would be
with a restart, more time sitting in a truck stop. All they
have is junk. They are way overweight.
I am 65 years old. I have been doing this for years. It is
the industry. It is the truck stops. It is the whole thing. It
does pay those guys cheap. It is cheap pay to them. That is why
you have a hard time getting them.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have
other questions for the record.
Mr. Williams. Mr. Chairman? Can I respond to that very
briefly?
Mr. Petri. Very briefly.
Mr. Williams. I think there is some research, data from
trucks involved in fatal accidents, a study done in 2007, where
in fact the 11th-hour driving was in fact the safest hour of
the day. There was only 1 percent of the accidents that
occurred in the 11th hour of driving compared to all the others
that were measured.
Secondly, in regard to driver pay, our starting driver will
make $50,000 a year and it goes up. There is an awful lot of
truck driving jobs in this country that pay $100,000. Also,
there is an awful lot of the major truck stop people that are
providing health centers now and better options for food.
I can tell you drivers will stand and eat, given the
chance. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him
drink.
Ms. Claybrook. Mr. Chairman? Could I just comment 1 second
on that? I just want to say the 11th-hour driving reveals lower
deaths in that particular study because there were fewer
drivers driving the 11th hour. You have to look at the data.
That is not scientific. Thank you.
Mr. Petri. Mr. Ribble?
Mr. Ribble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the panel
for being here. I would like to start with Mr. Williams.
Mr. Williams, I spent 35 years as a commercial roofing
contractor before coming here to Congress. I need a 30-minute
break because I am getting fatigued being here.
My question is this, it was my observation that if we could
get a new employee beyond 6 months without an accident, we
typically had a pretty safe employee. A lot of stuff happened
in the early times. It was not whether they worked long days or
short days, it was the amount of safety training they had and
experience.
Could you talk a little bit about that? Also, would you
tell me whether you believe this rule is going to affect the
ability for you to recruit new drivers to this trade?
Mr. Williams. Thank you. Those are really great questions.
Historically, we were a company that hired only experienced
people. Last year, we actually hired 1,069 individuals, 922 of
which we trained, 86 percent, at a cost of close to $8 million.
That is just because of the demographics of our workforce
has changed dramatically. We have an awful lot of people that
are leaving the industry because of age.
In the LTL industry, the unionized LTL industry, Wal-Mart,
for example, has a lot of the top line jobs, there is an awful
lot of people that are exiting the industry because of
demographics.
We are compelled if we are going to seat people in our
trucks to reach out and train to do that. The important thing
is that training be done correctly and we are using driver
simulators to simulate situations, hands on training. It goes
on for up to 10 weeks depending on a person's level of
experience. There is a tremendous cost associated with it.
The good news is that it works. We are actually putting up
some of the best safety numbers in the industry as a carrier
using people that have tremendously less experience than they
previously had.
A training requirement and ability to train properly in the
world we are living in and the challenges we are going to face
with changing demographics going forward is going to be really,
really important.
Mr. Ribble. Would it be more important than hours-of-
service changes?
Mr. Williams. I do not think I am capable of distinguishing
that. I truly believe in getting the hours of service right. I
think there are limits to that, as to how much a person needs
to work. I agree with that completely.
I do believe that losing the 34-hour restart is going to
lessen our driver's home time, which in fact is going to make
it more difficult for us to keep a driver working for us. Most
of our drivers are home every weekend.
This will prevent that from happening, and that will
increase turnover, which we had an industry leading turnover
rate of 59 percent last year, to me, it is pathetic, but it is
almost half of what the balance of the industry is.
As the economy heats up, you are going to see driver
turnover move up as people move around from company to company
trying to find a better job. That is not good for anyone
necessarily.
The 34-hour restart will probably be problematic from a
retention standpoint, not so much for attracting people.
I would also maybe use this opportunity to say that the 30-
minute break and the part that we really want to point out is
in order for us to get the 30-minute break, it will probably
take us an hour in order to achieve that.
These trucks have to get off the road, go through an
intersection, get into a truck stop, take the 30-minute break,
and start that process over again.
I am not saying that the 30-minute break is wrong, I am
just saying the impact on the industry is not 30 minutes, it is
more of an hour. I just wanted to point that out.
Mr. Ribble. Mr. Stocklin, first of all, I want to thank you
for coming. I want to thank you for your service in Vietnam. I
know you have come all the way from Washington State and you
are an independent.
What would you be doing today if you were not here?
Mr. Stocklin. Trucking. My wife would make sure I was
trucking, I guarantee that.
Mr. Ribble. I appreciate that. I apologize if you feel that
what is going on here is so important and affecting your
business that you had to come from your business to tell us
these things.
In your testimony you said if we get in an accident,
regardless of fault, it is our truck that is in the shop, we
have to pay the out of pocket to get it fixed, we will not be
out there hauling freight and earning money until it is fixed,
the down time alone can mean bankruptcy for owner-operators.
You say a little bit later regarding flexibility,
``Flexibility means giving me, the professional truck driver,
the ability to drive or take rest when I am best able to get
the rest I need, and when I am best positioned to operate my
truck safely and efficiently.''
Do you believe that during the rulemaking process the
Administration took into consideration those thoughts?
Mr. Stocklin. No, they do not see it like I do at all. In
order to see what really goes on, you have to get in the truck
and go with me for a week, then you will know.
Like I say, if I leave Seattle and have an overdimensional
load, I go to the east coast or Midwest, wherever I go, I take
5\1/2\ days to do the whole turn, depending on the situation,
depending on weather, depending on all of the above, when I get
there and I unload and I have to restart my clock, which I take
my 34 and restart, I have plenty of time to do the maintenance
I need to do on the truck, whatever I need to do, usually end
up waxing it because I am so bored, I load my load, I try to
load it in a certain time of the week where the traffic is the
best, because in a lot of cities, I am in curfew, I cannot go
through, so I have to do certain times.
That is where Mr. Williams was saying half an hour is not
just pull over and park for half an hour. Now you have to get a
safe place to park so it takes you a lot longer. You could have
an hour or more.
This restart they want to do, it just takes more time for
me to do it. It is going to cost me $30,000 or $40,000 this
year for 1 year to do this. I will lose that money, which means
less revenue to maintain the truck and do these different
things.
Mr. Ribble. Thanks again for being here and for your
testimony today. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Carson?
Mr. Carson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is for
Administrator Ferro. MAP-21 includes language requiring the DOT
to issue final regulations establishing minimum entry level
truck driving requirements, which would include both classroom
and behind-the-wheel training for first time commercial
driver's licenses.
Can you talk a little bit about the importance of behind-
the-wheel driving, if you will? From what I understand, it was
not even mandatory prior to MAP-21 language.
I would like to know if you agree a truck driver should
spend time behind the wheel of a truck before obtaining the
CDL. I have seen numerous reports of driver training schools
offering programs that advertise that drivers can obtain a
commercial driver's license in as little as 24 hours or a
shorter period of time.
Will the upcoming rulemaking include a core curriculum that
every driver training school must instruct before drivers can
graduate?
Ms. Ferro. Thank you, Congressman. Yes, I agree some level
of behind-the-wheel training must be part of any sort of entry
level driving training requirement.
The agency has worked on this issue for a number of years
and has been challenged to identify the benefits, the safety
benefits of training in the longer term career of a driver.
What is so challenging about this rule is that it is common
sense. Everybody agrees. This is a very complex task. Drivers
should be trained. They should be well trained. It should
include behind-the-wheel training. The challenge is to find the
research that documents there is a cost/benefit, a net benefit
when you do this rule.
We have undertaken that research. That research is
underway. The rule is very important on our agenda. We have
begun our working groups. We have done several listening
sessions. We had a great listening session at the Mid-America
Trucking Show in March and heard from lots of drivers about
just the points you made, and what should the credentials of
the trainer actually be.
Today, some trainers have only had 3 months of driving and
they are popped into a truck to train another driver. Drivers
are saying they should have at least 3 to 5 years. I expect Mr.
Williams would agree based on the investment he has made in
training.
Yes, I agree, and we are pressing forward. It is absolutely
part of MAP-21, which is a positive development.
Mr. Carson. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Petri. Mr. Williams?
Mr. Williams of Texas. Thank you very much. I appreciate
all of you being here. I, too, want to acknowledge the families
that have lost loved ones. God bless your families.
Also, I want to first of all say I am from the private
sector. I have owned a business, still own a business, for 42
years, car and truck dealerships, transportation.
I want to thank Mr. Williams, Mr. Stocklin and Mr. Hinkle
for your investment in the free enterprise system and for what
you do. I appreciate that greatly.
I guess what I would ask you is what can we do as Congress
to help improve your industry and your safety, and at the same
time, making sure that we help your business so you are able to
do business and not be regulated out of business?
I am one of those that I believe you know your business
better than the Federal Government. There is no question that
you want to be safe and safety is probably the most paramount
thing you have.
I would just like to hear what can we do? This is your
chance to tell us. I am a business guy.
I would just like to say one thing before you answer to Ms.
Claybrook, in the private sector, many, many more people work
more than 8 hours a day. I must tell you that. Eight hours is
not the standard. I found that only to be frankly since I have
been up here in the Federal Government.
With that being said, Mr. Williams, let us know how we can
help your industry.
Mr. Williams. I think there is a proper amount of
regulation. I have done this--I started the company 33 years
ago, recognized as a leader in safety. I am very proud of our
people. We do a really good job with the challenges we face.
I have also seen the good, the bad and the ugly in
trucking. I can say that left without any regulatory oversight,
the trucking industry, like many other industries, will not be
what we need it to be to meet the fundamental challenges we are
going to face in the years ahead with congestion and growth of
the economy and all of the above.
I think it is important that we encourage and continue to
evolve in the proper regulatory oversight. Again, I give credit
to Ms. Ferro and her group for the work they have done on CSA
and their willingness to continually try to make things better
that maybe needed additional tweaking.
Again, I think it is important we understand the necessity
of good regulations, to ensure constraints are placed upon the
people that need to have constraints placed upon them.
By the name of my company, Maverick, it kind of implies I
do not really like to be hemmed in too much. I am not sure
which came first, the name or whatever.
The fact is there are constraints that must be placed upon
us in order for us to have a positive outcome that we need to
have. I would say just continually committed to listening and
willingness to modify and change and improve. We all believe in
continuous improvement or we really will not be around here
much longer anyway.
Mr. Williams of Texas. Thank you. Mr. Stocklin?
Mr. Stocklin. I think there are a few things you can do. I
think you need to make sure when they are doing the training on
some of these people, I have seen a lot of trucks that come
into truck stops that cannot even back into a parking place or
back out of one, I have actually had to do it for them, and I
ask them how long have you been driving, they said oh, like 2
months, and where did they get their driver's training, I do
not have a clue.
I think some regulation is fine but too much is going to
put the little guy out of business because you just cannot
absorb the cost of it. That is just my opinion from what I can
see.
Mr. Williams of Texas. Mr. Hinkle?
Mr. Hinkle. In the ready mixed concrete industry, just like
Mr. Rice brought out, the regulations are not one size fits
all. The short-haul or the ready mixed industry is a totally
different animal when it comes to looking at hours of service,
on-duty time, driving time.
We need to look at that specific industry, just like we
have exemptions for agriculture, the ready mixed industry is
different and we would like to be looked at and see if we can
adjust the regulations to help us.
Mr. Williams of Texas. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I yield back.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Perry?
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to just
start out by acknowledging the families that are here for their
loved ones. I assure you if the same thing had happened to my
family, I would imagine I would be sitting right where you are.
That having been said, I have to say that I am concerned
that maybe we are getting the cart before the horse here, in
deference and in honor of the folks that have lost their lives
and your families, I want to make sure we are getting to the
point. I have to be truthful, I am not sure we are.
As I read this, there is a restart field study that I guess
is required. I do not know if that is part of or if it is
something separate than the real-world study.
Ms. Ferro, if you could let me know if those are the same
thing or if they are two separate things.
Ms. Ferro. The study that supported the development of the
rule and restricted use of the restart was a laboratory study,
with the theory that if an individual has a challenge sleeping
with recovery sleep, after this kind of a grueling schedule,
with the current restart, under ideal conditions, then imagine
what it will be like with someone who is not as healthy----
Mr. Perry. Are there two studies or one study?
Ms. Ferro. That is the first study. The second study is
mandated under MAP-21 and it is the field study that we
launched as soon as MAP-21 was enacted. The first driver was
entered into the actual field test----
Mr. Perry. It is not complete yet?
Ms. Ferro. It is underway now; that is correct.
Mr. Perry. The first one, the restart, is that one
complete?
Ms. Ferro. The lab study is complete. That is very much a
part of what is supporting this rule in the context of the need
for recovery----
Mr. Perry. The real-world study is not complete yet?
Ms. Ferro. That is correct.
Mr. Perry. The first one is a lab study?
Ms. Ferro. Yes.
Mr. Perry. The rule goes into effect July 1?
Ms. Ferro. That is correct.
Mr. Perry. Why are we not getting all the information
before we--it seems to me you have incomplete information. I
hear some of the episodic data here.
Let me ask you another question because that is somewhat
rhetorical. With all due respect to the folks in the agency and
so on and so forth, what is their experience? The people that
are making this rule, that are writing the rule? I hear you are
receiving testimony and so forth. Have they driven a cement
truck? Have they driven 80,000 pounds across country? What is
their experience level?
Ms. Ferro. We have plenty of employees who have prior
industry experience. They are either CDL holders themselves and
in some cases CDL holders, prior safety managers, a specific
number of this team was a dispatcher and safety manager in the
industry.
Yes. Is that the basis on which we hired them? No, but they
bring all that perspective to the table.
The hours-of-service rule that takes effect on July 1st is
based on years of peer-reviewed research, more current research
into fatigue and its impact on workplace safety, and
specifically with regard to the 34-hour restart, a study to
examine how that restart used under today's rule, where a
driver could actually run up to 82 hours in a week, how that
contributes to chronic fatigue week after week after week.
The majority of the industry does not maximize the use of
that 34-hour restart. In fact, they do not even have to use it.
It is a voluntary restart provision.
The vast majority of the industry does not run the
currently mandated limits of 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in
8 days. Those limits existed prior to 2003. They existed during
the 2003 and subsequent rule, and they exist under this current
rule.
The only difference that happened between 2003 and 2013 is
that 60- and 70-hour workweek could be restarted sooner with
the use of that 34-hour restart. Again, it is lab based in
terms of specific to the restart, but the science behind
fatigue, the impact of chronic fatigue on a driver's health,
the impact on fatigue on a driver's safety, are absolutely
solid research.
Mr. Perry. From my background, I am fairly familiar, but I
can tell you from personal experience that I can leave home to
come here, I could pull over within 15 minutes and take a nap
on some days because I am tired before I leave.
I can also tell you overseas in a combat zone, I went days
without sleeping and still operated safely and operated complex
machinery safely.
I just feel like we are throwing this rule out which does
not support Mr. Hinkle's business at all. I have also been a
contractor that received plenty of loads of concrete where the
guy on the truck, unless he is pulling the lever, he is just
standing there waiting for me to get done with my work, and he
is getting plenty of rest while I am toughing it out.
I feel like this one-size-fits-all approach is not in line
with the practical reality of what is happening in the
industry. With all the input you have gotten, it seems like
these folks from industry, this gentleman here represents 40
percent of trucking, independent truckers, they disagree with
your findings completely.
If you have gotten all the input, it seems to me without
the results of this final study, you are putting the cart
before the horse in some respect and issuing the rule. Once
these rules get issued, they get a life of their own.
That is one of the problems people have with the Federal
Government, it goes unbridled and there is no accountability
and there is no turning back. It only gets worse from here.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Hanna?
Mr. Hanna. Thank you. I want to concur with Mr. Perry. The
divergence between the practical and the real world and the
theoretical world to me, as I listened to this conversation
from all of you, could not be greater.
I have heard accusations, Ms. Ferro, that you do not use
science, that your opinions are subjective, they sound somewhat
value based, that in fact there is some data mining.
Long haul trucking for the 8 hours, it may be applicable to
ask someone to rest for half an hour, but for the concrete, the
asphalt, the aggregate delivery system, it has no bearing and
yet we are perfectly comfortable costing these people maybe
hundreds of millions of dollars over time, when it would be a
simple fact, you could just exclude them from the process,
local deliveries like that.
You have heard Mr. Stocklin accuse the CSA of being
impractical. You heard Mr. Hinkle say it is impractical. What
these people are saying is they want to be safe, they want to
run a tight, competent business. Their insurance companies,
believe me, have more of a hammer over their head than you ever
will.
We have heard the State policeman say none of this may help
or may or may not help without a way to monitor these people on
an regular and scientific basis through these truck mounted
devices, GPS devices, et cetera.
All of this makes me feel as though we are creating a whole
host of rules, confining a whole lot of people to do less, make
less, cost the public more, and without doing the one thing I
thought we were charged to do, and that is to do a study before
we write the rule.
Are you not concerned, Ms. Ferro, applying all of this, and
arguably it is not all this way, applying these rules before
the study is complete actually undermines the credibility of
you and your agency?
Ms. Ferro. There is a significant amount of research and
study behind the rule that is taking effect July 1. Let me be
very clear about that. It is substantial. It is a full body of
peer-reviewed research and analysis. It is in the rule that was
published. We incorporated it into our NPRM.
When we issued the NPRM, we held an enormous number, really
unprecedented number, of listening sessions.
Mr. Hanna. Do not their opinions count?
Ms. Ferro. Their opinions count a great deal.
Mr. Hanna. Where do they count? Apparently, they do not
count. Mr. Hinkle is sitting here telling you none of this is
going to make things safer, to paraphrase, but it may make
things worse. It may make the public pay more. In his case,
asphalt, and I assume asphalt and concrete and other local
deliveries, are completely irrelevant to what you are trying to
talk about.
Have you ever done a study about concrete specifically or
asphalt specifically?
Ms. Ferro. Two things. The relevance of what I am doing is
all about safety, saving lives. The fact that the agency has
been tremendously transparent and responsive to a host of
concerns that were raised, where we went out and did listening
sessions across the country, we heard a great deal of input--
this rule started out with the option of a 10- to 11-hour drive
time. We were not sure. We had our finger on 10.
Our research, our analysis, our listening sessions, all led
us to conclude the 11-hour driving time is the right time, and
in fact, it cut the cost of the rule by half a billion dollars.
Mr. Hanna. Have you studied Mr. Hinkle's business?
Ms. Ferro. Mr. Hinkle's business has the opportunity to
take advantage of a 24-hour restart. They already have an
exception in law that provides them the flexibility that he
wants.
Mr. Hanna. Mr. Hinkle, would you like to respond to that?
Mr. Hinkle. It is the 30-minute break that we are concerned
with. Thirty minutes consecutive is going to be a problem for
our industry, where they get several breaks shorter than that,
which I think are sufficient to keep their fatigue level down.
Ms. Ferro. All right. The 30-minute break is a body of
scientific research that goes well outside of the trucking
industry, any sort of workplace science.
Back to your original point, the concept and the challenge
of this one size fits all, I think that is at the heart of much
of what you have heard. I understand this.
This is a very big industry. It is a very diverse industry.
Half a million companies that we regulate across the country,
some private, some for hire, some hauling steel, some operating
locally within a 20-mile radius doing concrete.
The agency long before I was here tried about 15 to 20
years ago to do a rule that segmented out the sectors, that
recognized short haul had a different operating environment,
construction had a different operating environment, oil fields.
That was roundly panned. That thing did not see the light of
day beyond the NPRM.
I am not saying that should not be examined again, and my
sense is with the use of electronic logging devices, with
improved registration requirements, we will be able to look
again at that concept of segmentation, but today, it is true,
the best structure we can use is a rule that constrains the
margins of abuse while still sustaining the vast majority of
today's operation in a very healthy and productive way.
Mr. Hanna. Thank you, ma'am. My time has expired.
Mr. Petri. Mr. Duncan?
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I had to
come late to this hearing because of another hearing. I did
hear Mr. Williams, part of his testimony, when he said these
new rules are just not supported by the facts or evidence. I
have been in and out.
It seems to me that the gist of the testimony of all the
witnesses who work in this field seems to be that they just
need and want more flexibility. And I actually can understand
that. These truck drivers are human beings. They are not
computers or machines. People need different amounts of rest.
They need different--they have different body clocks and so
forth. And it seems to some people that these new regulations
would keep drivers from splitting up their break time and
really adjusting in the way that they need to.
But, Administrator Ferro, is it correct that these new
rules are in litigation at this time? They are in court right
now?
Ms. Ferro. That is correct. Oral arguments were heard March
15th of this year.
Mr. Duncan. Would it not have been better to have given the
courts the time to determine if these regulations--I mean what
happens if we put these in effect, then the court turns around
and throws them all out?
Ms. Ferro. In my view, it is not worth the trade off of
losing the safety benefits today while we are waiting for the
court decision. And I say that for two reasons: One, the safety
benefits of improved driver rest for those operating at the
margins and their health are significant. Second, I have very
high confidence that the rule is strong. It will be upheld by
the court.
The last time there was a court challenge, I think it took
almost a year for the court--the court has a lot on their
plate--a year for a decision. We could have conceivably had to
delay this rule a year or more. It was put into effect. It was
finalized almost a year and a half ago. So, there has been lots
of time for folks to prepare.
Mr. Duncan. Was Mr. Williams incorrect when he said that
these deaths and accidents were going down significantly over
these last few years?
Ms. Ferro. He was correct. I used some of the same data in
my opening remarks. He is absolutely correct, and that is very
positive news. And it does not stop us from driving forward
towards getting to zero.
Mr. Duncan. Let me ask Mr. Hinkle and Mr. Stocklin and Mr.
Williams, these Federal agencies come up with these comment
periods to make themselves feel like they are getting some
public input, but they really do not. They get comments from
the professionals and the lobbyists and so forth, but from the
ordinary people, they hear very little. Have any of you--have
your drivers been polled or has there been any significant
effort, have some of these Federal officials come to your
locations to interview your drivers? Or have you heard about
that happening any place? Mr. Williams, has that happened at
your business? Or, Mr. Stocklin, has that happened to you or
drivers that you know? Or Mr. Hinkle?
Mr. Stocklin. No, it has not happened to me at all. Nobody
has asked me any opinions of what--how it should be. I just
want to say one thing, part of this 34 restart, and the money
that you would lose, and they are all concerned about safety,
well, part of safety is maintaining your equipment. And if it
costs you money, and you cannot, you lose that money to
maintain your equipment, is not that part of safety? You have
got to do brakes. You have got to do tires and all of these
above things.
Mr. Duncan. Mr. Williams, how many drivers do you have?
Mr. Williams. About 1,450. And I would have to say that the
listening sessions were very publicly acknowledged. I think
CVSA would probably agree with that as well, that they did a
really good job on their listening sessions. And I had many
drivers of ours that did participate in those. And then, of
course, in the radio blitz and everything that they did as
well.
Mr. Duncan. Do your drivers support these new rules?
Mr. Williams. Well, no, our drivers do not like the 34-hour
restart, anticipated challenges--changes in the 34-hour
restart. They do not particularly like having to take the 30-
minute break. So, no, it is--yes, I have heard their voices,
and I have passed those along. And they have spoke them
individually at a lot of these different listening sessions.
Mr. Duncan. Mr. Hinkle?
Mr. Hinkle. Well, I can tell you at Chandler Concrete, we
spent the last 3 to 4 weeks going through bringing all our
drivers in and going through all the changes that are coming up
because we are going to comply one way or the other, whether we
agree or not. Do they like it? No. Just like I said, the 30-
minute break is the biggest issue with us. And basically they
are going to lose 30 minutes of pay a day.
Mr. Duncan. Alright, thank you very much.
Mr. Petri. Mr. Mullin?
Mr. Mullin. Thank you and thank you for this opportunity.
Mr. Williams, Mr. Stocklin, Mr. Hinkle, I kind of feel what you
guys are talking about. I have said this over and over again
that our biggest threat anymore to our companies are Federal
Government trying to comply and still be profitable.
And, Mr. Stocklin, I found it very interesting that you
said, ``I will just quit.'' It is not because of your safety
record. It is not from the fact that you cannot manage your
company and make a profit. It is the fact that it is going to
eventually get not worth it, where you cannot invest in it
because, see, there is a fine line between a 7 percent profit
margin and being able to reinvest in your company, and 6
percent profit margin when you just try to maintain your
equipment. And when you just try to maintain any company, you
begin to die.
And that is the reason why I sit in front of you today
because we also have over 80 trucks on the road. And what Ms.
Ferro and some other groups are trying to push, just simply, it
does not add up with the industry. If you look at the industry
since 1975--since 1975, 77 percent fatality--we have reduced
fatality rates by 77 percent. There is something to be said
about that. And I commend the industry for the work that you
guys have done, constantly working on trying to improve the
safety records of our own companies. As I tell everybody, it is
our best interest. None of us want to have an accident. It is
our companies, and it is the lives of those who are around us
too.
Ms. Ferro, I have got a quick question, and then I am going
to kind of switch gears. But, as you are probably aware, I
introduced a bill, H.R. 1097, that would ensure the on-duty
times not included on--not include waiting times and natural
gas and oil sites for operators of commercial vehicles
transporting supplies and equipment. This is an exemption that
had been place for over 50 years, and for some reason it was
taken away in 2012. Can you explain why that was taken away?
Ms. Ferro. Congressman, thank you for that question. The
exception policy that applies for oil field operators was not
taken away. There are two provisions. One allows oil field
operators and servicing organizations to----
Mr. Mullin. It actually has been taken away because we are
not allowed--a wait time is not included anymore when we are
sitting at a drill site. So what do you mean? It has been taken
away.
Ms. Ferro. So the first provision uses a 24-hour restart.
They take full advantage of it, not unlike the concrete
industry.
The second exception that you are speaking of that was put
into place by the Interstate Commerce Commission 50 years ago
provides an exception to on duty----
Mr. Mullin. I know what the exception is. What I am saying
is why is that exception not provided anymore? Why was it taken
away in 2012, increasing the number of trucks on drill sites
now, increasing the costs to deliver those supplies have
increased now. Essentially, when they are waiting at a drill
site, it is like a country truck stop. They can go in and get
coffee, watch TV, do whatever they can. But now that is having
to count as on-duty time.
Ms. Ferro. Yes, we restated the exception that was put in
place by the ICC 50 years ago to allow special equipment that
requires specialized training to operate in the oil fields an
exception from the on-duty nondriving time. The entities that
were excluded from that from the beginning and today now, since
they are operating in much higher numbers, are generally water
trucks and sand trucks.
Now, again, we had a comment period. We received lots of
good input.
Mr. Mullin. I almost crack up all the time when I hear
agencies saying we had a comment period, a comment period, a
comment period. It does not. The fact is that the industry rate
just went up. The trucks on the road have increased. And we
have wrote letters to you. We have got zero reply. We have
introduced a bill, and have got zero comment from you guys on
this.
Ms. Ferro. Yes.
Mr. Mullin. Now, with that being said before my time runs
out. Mr. Hinkle, you made a comment that you think we would be
smart enough to figure out exemptions on this when we are
talking about 30-minute down times. That does not always exist
in DC. I am sure you are probably aware of that. But, Ms.
Ferro, you made several comments suggesting to Mr. Hinkle and
the Concrete Company of how they could do things. Have you ever
been in a concrete truck? Have you ever been to a job site?
Have you ever ran a full 24 hours with any construction
company?
Ms. Ferro. No.
Mr. Mullin. So, for you to make suggestions is saying that
every party that graduates from a college with a business
degree is going to be successful in business. You talk about
these researchers and these studies and all this, but you have
no practical experience yet. Until you have practical
experience, what you have learned in college and what you have
learned from research and all these studies is just numbers and
it is just paper. It does not really apply yet.
My suggestion would be why don't you go and visit the job
site? Since you are the head of the department, since you are
the one making these rules, why don't you go to Mr. Hinkle? I
bet you he would allow you to run 1 day in his company, and see
what he is talking about by this time that is waiting, these
individuals. Why it does not make any sense why someone would
have to stop for 30 minutes when they stop every few--every
hour or why they are sitting there waiting for their truck to
be loaded, why they would all of a sudden have to stop. What
would be so hard about you actually going and getting hands-on
experience other than just having studied? You would probably
learn a lot more.
Ms. Ferro. Nothing stops me, and I look forward to the
invitation. And I will say I have been--several times reached
out to your office to meet with you to talk about the very
concerns you have raised, and for some reason that----
Mr. Mullin. Ma'am, I have never--I would assure you I would
meet with you in a heartbeat.
Ms. Ferro. I would be pleased to.
Mr. Mullin. We could meet tomorrow morning because I have
never had your office reach out to me that I am aware of.
Ms. Ferro. We will call, and we will set that up.
Mr. Mullin. OK.
Ms. Ferro. Thank you.
Mr. Petri. Mr. Barletta?
Mr. Barletta. Thank you. I am probably not one of the last
people you want to speak to right now because my family was in
the construction business, asphalt and concrete.
When people ask me about Washington, I have a common phrase
I usually say is that, ``Common sense is not so common in DC.''
And this hearing is pretty interesting because it reminds me of
one we had last week about a rule. And I had a big problem with
the rule. It was with HHS Secretary Sebelius, who tried to
defend a rule that anyone under the age of 12 could not qualify
for a lung transplant, that you had to be 12 or older in spite
of the fact that the little girl that I was advocating for was
10 years old. She had approximately 3 weeks to live. Her
doctors at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia said that they
could take an adult lung and modify it. This girl would have a
good chance of living. However, the Secretary defended the rule
that you needed to be 12. And we were OK with letting a little
girl die because she was only 10.
Now, I know this hearing is not at the same level as that,
but it reminds me of that, that this is not practical. I
understand what you are trying to do. My family was in the
concrete business, was in the asphalt business. I had a line
painting business where our drivers would drive 2 hours to a
job site and sit on a job site and wait before we could paint
the lines. When you are dealing with a business like in asphalt
and concrete and line painting, and there are many others, the
rule if it does not make sense, and we do not have the
scientific data to claim that it is going to make anything
safer, why do we do it? Why cannot Washington sometimes just
use practical everyday common sense and still try to achieve
the goals of making our roads safer?
I offered an amendment to keep heavier trucks, triple
trailers, off the road because I had a problem with safety. So
I understand what you are trying to do, but it just does not
make sense for so many businesses.
Ms. Ferro. Congressman, I appreciate your comments, and I
think I join so many in being impressed by the advocacy you
exercised that saved that little girl's life. And I would
suggest that today's hearing is just as significant because you
are talking about 4,000 lives. In the case of this rule, 19
lives.
Mr. Barletta. But do you have scientific data to back that
up?
Ms. Ferro. Absolutely.
Mr. Barletta. But the 30-minute rule----
Ms. Ferro. The 30-minute break.
Mr. Barletta. The 30-minute break.
Ms. Ferro. The 30-minute break, yes, absolutely improves
the ability of that operator to operate more safely, to
minimize the risk of any kind of cumulative fatigue with that
quick 30-minute break. They are more alert behind the wheel.
They are more ready to respond if someone does----
Mr. Barletta. Well, how do they--I guess I just cannot
understand how they could do that study. When you are
delivering asphalt, you are driving the truck. Then you are
getting in line, waiting to back into the paver. The driver is
sitting there. I just do not understand how they assess a 30-
minute break when there may be periods of breaks throughout the
day. Every day is different. How do they accomplish that?
Ms. Ferro. Well, it sounds though we are not that far
apart. Certainly, I have watched many a construction site. I
have certainly been around a lot of construction folks. And you
and Mr. Hinkle both identify the number of breaks that
operators are taking just by virtue of the cycle and the
schedule and moving product quickly and moving it fresh. And
then going back for more. I do not think that we are that far
apart in understanding how those breaks work in that operation.
I am not sure where else to go on that point other than again
to reinforce----
Mr. Barletta. But how does another----
Ms. Ferro [continuing]. This rule is research-based.
Mr. Barletta [continuing]. Thirty-minute break when there
may be periods of breaks throughout the course, how does
another 30-minute break increase the safety?
Ms. Ferro. It is not another. It is taking advantage of
existing breaks they are already taking. It is the simple fact
that the break itself improves the safety performance of that
operator after the break, within that first hour after the
break.
Mr. Barletta. So even if they have had four 30-minute
breaks during the course or five 30-minute breaks, adding
another 30 minutes----
Ms. Ferro. They do not need another one. They only need
one. They only need one. Under this rule, they only need one
within the 14-hour workday. And it has got to occur some time
before that operator gets behind the wheel after the eighth
hour of work, just one under this rule. So, if he is already
doing four, if your guys were doing four, my gosh, they are way
ahead of the curve, and they are probably much more alert as a
result of that.
Mr. Barletta. So if they are just sitting alongside the
road waiting to unload into the paver, how do you enforce that?
How do you enforce that? They are not keeping a log, so how
enforceable is that?
Ms. Ferro. That is the challenge. It gets back to Major
Savage's point. The enforceability generally comes through
compliance reviews in this case until we have electronic logs
in place. Now, in the case of those operators, because, again,
you are right, they are not keeping logs, they need to measure
it within their normal timekeeping system.
Mr. Barletta. But how would you enforce whether or not
somebody complied or not? I mean there is no record of whether
or not, so basically it is up to the driver to say I did not
have a 30-minute?
Ms. Ferro. It could be. It could be driver interviews. It
could be, you know----
Mr. Barletta. How else other than that?
Ms. Ferro [continuing]. Outside observation.
Mr. Barletta. How else other than that? How else other than
that if there is not a log----
Ms. Ferro. Yes.
Mr. Barletta [continuing]. Could you determine whether or
not they had the 30-minute break or not? Other than the driver,
how else could you determine?
Ms. Ferro. Well, again, Mr. Savage can speak to it because
he spent a lot of time doing compliance reviews and more
inspection work. Thank you.
Mr. Savage. Mr. Chair, Congressman, there are two ways that
I would suggest we could enforce it. One would be to provide
the enforcement officer with the ability to enforce it by
giving--making a requirement that they keep supporting
documents on the vehicle to confirm that the driver may have
taken the time off. And the other thing is to increase
enforcement through the MCSAP, which is a particularly
effective program, and making sure the States are fully funded
so that they can do the good work that the officers are doing
on the road.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Mr. Barletta. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Petri. Mr. Davis?
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It looks like I am it,
so your day is almost over. First off, the benefit of being in
freshmen row here and going last is that most of my questions
have been asked already, so I will not be redundant and ask
them again. But thank you to all of you for being here today.
Administrator Ferro, I actually want to say thank you. I
want to say thank you on behalf of the agricultural industry in
my district and the rest of the country for quickly issuing
rules under MAP-21, exempting our agricultural producers. It is
extremely important in my rural district.
Secondly though, I am wondering if the FMCSA has considered
exemptions or the issues faced by other companies that are
involved in helping ensure that our crops get from the field to
our elevators out into the global marketplace? For example, in
Atwood, Illinois, in my district, a company repairs grain
elevators. And during harvest, their technicians can spend up
to 5 hours driving to a site, 2 to 3 hours for repairs, and
then driving home to be ready for their next job in the
morning. And because of the weight of their trucks, they are
included under the HOS rules.
And in a letter to my office, the company's owner, Mr.
Harris, wrote about the impact of these regulations. And I will
quote him. He says, ``As you can see, driving hours accumulate
quickly. Should we get caught, one fine could put us out of
business financially. On the other hand, not responding ASAP to
our customers' needs spells disaster for our business. Losing
one customer can mean losing all the individual grain elevators
owned by that company.''
So, my business owner is in a conundrum. We have helped one
portion of the agricultural sector with the exemption. Are
there any ideas, any other opportunities we can have to make it
a little more flexible for those who work in that same
business?
Ms. Ferro. Congressman, first thank you for your
recognition of the agency's work and for the nature of that
question. Of course, my starting point is to encourage all
operations and operators and business owners to look at their
operation and their customers' needs and work them within the
pretty broad hours parameters that exist today. That is my
starting position.
Understanding that, the agency does have, and the law
allows us to have, an exemption application process. Any
individual company, or in some cases a sector, can apply to the
agency for consideration for an exemption. And we will examine
it. In some cases, some of these exemptions we are talking
about, like the agriculture exemption, is enacted by Congress.
In other cases, there is a broader authority.
The condition we start from is that should an exception be
granted or an exemption be granted, it has got to ensure that
the operating condition is as safe or safer than the condition
today.
And so that inlet, I should say, to the process exists
today. And I will be happy to follow up with your office and
make sure your constituent has a clear understanding of where--
what that process is. It is spelled out on our Web site.
Mr. Davis. I appreciate that. Speaking of that, how many
exemption requests do you get on an annual basis?
Ms. Ferro. Well, I will have to follow up. I can either
lean out to my help line here if----
Mr. Davis. Go ahead. I used to be part of the help line.
Ms. Ferro. Thank you. Ten? Thank you very much.
Mr. Davis. About 10?
Ms. Ferro. About 10 per year.
Mr. Davis. About how many of those are approved?
Ms. Ferro. About 20 to 30 percent.
Mr. Davis. Twenty to thirty percent.
Ms. Ferro. Oh, pardon me.
Mr. Davis. No, no, you are fine.
Ms. Ferro. Yes, that is outside of the exception process
that drivers apply for routinely for a vision exemption or a
diabetes exemption. Those are a different process, much higher
numbers. But in this case, it is--did I say a vision? Yes, or
hearing. In this case, it is about 20 to 30 percent.
Mr. Davis. OK, so about 2 to 3 a year out of 10 on average.
My time is running out, and I know you all want to leave too.
Can you provide my office with a listing of what those
exemption requests were and the ones that were granted?
Ms. Ferro. Certainly.
Mr. Davis. So we can kind of get an idea of what to expect
when we tell constituents about that process?
Ms. Ferro. We certainly will, and we are required to post
every one in the Federal Register. And we will provide all of
that to your office.
Mr. Davis. Well, thank you very much.
Ms. Ferro. You are welcome.
Mr. Davis. Thank you all. I yield back.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. And I would ask unanimous consent the
record for today's hearing remain open until such time as our
witnesses have provided answers to any questions that may be
submitted to them in writing. And unanimous consent the record
remain open for 15 days for additional comments and information
submitted by members or witnesses to be included in the record
of today's hearing. And without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Petri. It is very easy to get unanimous consent if you
wait.
Beyond that, I will really thank you all for a civil,
somewhat contentious but very important discussion. And we hope
it will help work things out as we go forward in a way that
continues the improvements we have seen in highway safety over
the last 10 years.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]