ATA Writes to Congress Demanding Higher Safety Standards
You have probably heard murmurs of a trucker shortage if you have been driving on the road for any time longer than two months, but should resolving any supposed lack of workforce come at a compromise of lowering safety standards? American Trucking Associations’ President and CEO Chris Spear wrote to Congress saying that the answer to that question is a resounding “no.”
Details
In the letter dated October 8th, during the governmental shutdown, Chris Spear argued a simple position: higher standards save lives.
“This summer, three lives were lost when a commercial driver executed an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike. Investigators later found he had obtained a non-domicile CDL through improper channels and failed to meet basic federal requirements, including English proficiency. Similar crashes have pointed to the gaps in driver vetting, oversight, and training at the state and training provider levels – tragic evidence of the need for immediate congressional action to close these dangerous loopholes.”
While Spear mentions numerous suggestions to make the nation’s roadways safer, perhaps the most effective was his final idea of implementing more fines and harsher penalties for those who violate safety rules, kicking them squarely in the wallet.
“Congress should also establish meaningful penalties – such as fines, disqualification, or loss of operating authority – for carriers found to be repeatedly violating cabotage restrictions. Ensuring that only qualified, compliant operators move domestic freight protects highway safety and preserves the integrity of U.S. carrier operations. By focusing enforcement actions on a relatively small group of motor carriers that are engaged in these practices, DHS and USDOT can send a strong deterrent message that reverberates across the industry.”
Conclusion
A parallel could be drawn between airplanes and commercial trucks: while the nation’s airways are heavily regulated to the point of being stifling, the airline industry also expects only the highest level of performance: “good enough” is not good enough. The end result is that the odds of dying from an airplane is 1 in 11 million, an exemplary rate of safety that Spear believes the nation’s roadways, especially trucks weighing more than 70,000 pounds, should aspire to attain.
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