House passes bill requiring more oversight of U.S. Postal Service truck contractors
The House of Representatives passed a bill requiring more oversight of trucking companies contracted by the U.S. Postal Service following a report revealing no accountability for truckers involved in fatal crashes.
On Monday, the House passed the Mail Traffic Deaths Reporting Act by a voice vote. Introduced by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., the bill would require the Postal Service to collect, track and publicly report information related to deaths and injuries resulting from crashes involving trucks contracted to transport mail.
“For too long, the Postal Service has taken an ‘out-of-sight, out-of-mind’ approach to truck safety,” Connolly said in a statement. “This legislation is about saving lives and protecting families on our nation’s roads.”
Formally HR7527, the bill would require contractors and Postal Service employees transporting mail to report any crash resulting in death or injury within three days of the incident. The agency must publicly publish an annual report summarizing information from those reports. Failure to report a crash can result in fines, contract suspensions or termination of contracts.
In a statement, the U.S. Postal Service said legislation is not needed to accomplish the goals of the bill. The agency pointed out that its Highway Contract Route (HCR) Safety Team, established in October 2023, is responsible for collecting and reviewing carrier crash and incident reporting, vetting carrier requirements, and enforcing any safety violations.
“Postal Service employees and third-party trucking companies and brokers are contractually required to report every accident, which we track and monitor,” the agency said in a statement. “They are also expected to operate safely, and adhere to all federal, state, and local laws, and our contracts provide for termination, withholding of awards and renewals, and other appropriate corrective actions to be taken with respect to highway contractors that have a poor highway safety record.”
According to the Postal Service, the agency moves 55,000 loads by truck every day – nearly 2 billion miles per year – and fatalities are less likely to occur with trucks carrying mail than other cargo on the nation’s highways.
Passage of the bill comes just one year after Rep. Connolly urged the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General to investigate safety oversight, or the lack thereof, of trucking companies contracted by the agency.
Just days before Connolly introduced his bill in March, the Office of Inspector General released a damning report unveiling a contracting system with little to no vetting or monitoring, allowing unsafe motor carriers to obtain contracts and keep them.
The final report could not determine the total number of crashes involving contracted truckers, because the Postal Service does not track them. Based on data from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, there were nearly 400 crashes resulting in nearly 90 fatalities that were directly related to 43 on-duty truck contractors from October 2018 to December 2022. Those crashes did not account for all contractors due to data limitations. Not a single contract was terminated.
The Postal Service’s report also revealed that officials did not know when a contractor subcontracted to another company, eliminating any vetting process for the trucking company actually engaged in the transportation of mail. And even with motor carriers contracted directly with the agency, the screening process did not always include a driver’s history.
“The Postal Service does not have a single written policy requiring the tracking of fatal accidents involving its contractors,” Connolly said in response to the report. “We are talking about lives that have been lost. I have met with the victims of these trucking accidents. They want to be seen. The report confirmed several of our worst fears about contract trucking practices at the United States Postal Service.”
The bill will now go to the Senate, where its fate is less clear. LL