Driver compensation ‘huge factor’ in safety, FMCSA leader says

Last year, FMCSA Administrator Robin Hutcheson took a ride-along with OOIDA member Carmen Anderson. During that brief trip from Maryland to Washington, D.C., Hutcheson said she gained a better understanding of the challenges truck drivers face in terms of how they are compensated.

Most truck drivers are paid by the mile instead of by the hour. In addition, the Fair Labor Standards Act exempts motor carriers from having to pay its drivers overtime. So there’s often no pay for when drivers are getting fuel, inspecting the load, or waiting hours to be loaded or unloaded.

Another easy way to explain it is that drivers generally aren’t earning if the wheels aren’t turning.

“I spent unpaid time with (Anderson) while loading and unloading, and it just became crystal clear to me that the structure of compensation for drivers is a huge factor in industry success for safety and economic strength,” Hutcheson said.

The administrator’s remarks on Wednesday, Jan. 18, helped kick off the National Academies of Sciences’ Transportation Research Board driver compensation study. The study aims to determine how driver pay affects retention and overall safety performance.

“There is a good understanding that compensation is a driver of safety,” Hutcheson said. “That’s the way we are seeing it in our work at FMCSA. We are increasingly looking at root causes of why drivers become unsafe in the first place. Everything we can surround a driver with in terms of their success, is going to be helpful for safety. We think – and we think the study will verify – that some of the structures in compensation really prevent drivers from staying in the industry, and conversely we have data that says that drivers that stay in the industry for a long time are the safest drivers on the road.”

The driver compensation study was mandated by Congress as part of the 2021 infrastructure law. FMCSA was directed to task the Transportation Research Board with conducting a study on the effects of various methods of driver compensation on safety and driver retention, including hourly pay, payment for detention time and other pay methods used in the industry.

“This is a critical study to determine the kind of work environment that will help drivers stay in the industry … This is about driver retention. This is about safety,” Hutcheson said.

The committee will try to determine if there are relationships between compensation methods, driver retention, driving behaviors and safety performance. After the study is completed, the committee will produce a final report about the effects of compensation methods and other relevant factors on driver retention and safety performance.

Wednesday’s meeting included presentations from a variety of experts, including Tom Weakley of the OOIDA Foundation.

The committee will continue its work on Thursday, Jan. 19, with a closed session. LL