A unified voice

Before the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association started in 1973, small-business truck drivers lacked a unified voice to defend their rights and relay problems to lawmakers and regulators.

Over the past 50 years, OOIDA has fought for truck drivers through lawsuits, petitions to government agencies and by helping members of Congress craft legislation aimed at improving the profession.

To kick off OOIDA’s fall 2022 Board of Directors meeting in November, President and CEO Todd Spencer spoke about the Association’s mission to provide a voice for all of the small motor carriers, owner-operators and company drivers attempting to make a living in an industry where the megafleets attempt to call the shots with the feds.

“Just because you’re small shouldn’t mean you have to be vulnerable,” Spencer said. “That’s why OOIDA was started – to fight back.”

As OOIDA celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2023, it is clear that the Association has provided small-business truck drivers a place at the table. Through OOIDA’s team in Washington, D.C., small-business truckers have a direct line of communication to lawmakers and regulators.

OOIDA has recently used that voice to help introduce bills in Congress that would provide truckers adequate and safe parking, overtime pay and access to restrooms.

Over the years, OOIDA also has established a direct channel with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to help steer the agency toward solutions that will help the men and women behind the wheel and away from burdensome regulations that encourage the safest drivers to turn in their keys.

As evidence for this direct communication, FMCSA Administrator Robin Hutcheson and FMCSA Chief Safety Officer Jack Van Steenburg met with the OOIDA Board for more than two hours at the fall meetings.

OOIDA’s Board used the time to provide its concerns on such issues as electronic logging devices, broker transparency, speed limiters, electronic IDs and truck parking.

FMCSA fielded questions from the board members, but the agency is limited by law in how much it can say regarding active rulemakings. That’s the case with many of trucking’s top issues, including ELDs, truck parking, speed limiters and broker transparency.

ELDs

In September, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration requested feedback from truckers about how it can improve the ELD mandate. The agency accepted comments through Nov. 15.

FMCSA’s advance notice of proposed rulemaking considers changes to the ELD mandate in five areas.

• Applicability to pre-2000 engines
• Addressing ELD malfunctions
• The process for removing an ELD from FMCSA’s list of certified devices
• Technical specifications
• ELD certification

One area of concern for truck drivers is the possibility of the agency removing the ELD exemption for trucks with pre-2000 engines.

OOIDA Board Member Doug Smith said he would like to see data that shows the need to require ELDs on older trucks.

“We would like to see the data showing that these trucks make up a large number of the crashes,” Smith said. “I would maintain that these are not the droids you’re looking for. The trucks that are maintained such that they can cross the country at that age are not driven by the rookies who are causing the wrecks. This is a solution to something where there is no problem unless you can show us the data for it.”

Van Steenburg said that the ELD notice is not a formal proposal and the agency is just looking for feedback at this point. Now that the comment period is over, the agency will review the more than 1,100 comments and decide whether to follow with a proposed rule.

Truck parking

Lawmakers didn’t include money for truck parking in the latest infrastructure package, but Hutcheson said the Department of Transportation has heard loud and clear from truck drivers and is working on the problem.

The administration is encouraging state DOTs to use existing grant funding for truck parking.

A memorandum from the U.S. Department of Transportation revised guidance regarding funding eligibility for commercial motor vehicle parking projects.

The Surface Transportation Block Grant Program, National Highway Freight Program, Highway Safety Improvement Program, National Highway Performance Program, PROTECT funds, Carbon Reduction Program, and the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program are all potential funding avenues states can use for truck parking projects.

In September, the Department of Transportation announced investments to expand truck parking capacity on the interstate system. These investments included $15 million to add about 120 truck parking spaces in Florida and $22.6 million to add about 125 spaces in Tennessee.

“Todd says OOIDA has been working on this problem since the 1970s, and I believe it,” Hutcheson said. “I’m astounded how often … I see drivers that are parked on and off ramps and places that you wouldn’t think. Inside of the cab, there is a human driver who is just trying to make things work. So I have seen the shortage in a very acute way that I had not before.”

Hutcheson said the agency is working closely with states and the Federal Highway Administration to solve the truck parking crisis.

“We know we have a long way to go,” Hutcheson said. “We are hearing you, and we are working on it.”

Speed limiters

In May, FMCSA issued a supplemental advance notice of proposed rulemaking to get feedback on a potential mandate. Under the initial proposal, commercial motor vehicles with a gross vehicle weight of 26,001 pounds or more and that are equipped with an electronic engine control unit capable of being governed would be subject to the mandate.

Truckers responded in a big way. More than 15,000 comments were submitted to the docket. The majority were opposed.

Johanne Couture, an OOIDA board member from Canada, asked the agency to review the safety data regarding a speed limiter mandate in Ontario.

“I implore you to look at the data of crashes in Ontario and Quebec, where we’ve had a speed limiter rule since 2009,” she said. “Our crash history is terrible. It’s unsafe – the elephant races and the tailgating.”

According to a U.S. DOT report, FMCSA targeted June 2023 for the release of its notice of proposed rulemaking. However, Hutcheson told the board members that the number of comments received makes it likely for the next notice to be delayed. Like the ELD notice, speed limiters are only at the advance notice stage. The next notice will be a formal proposal – likely with a top speed included.

Broker transparency

In 2020, OOIDA petitioned FMCSA to begin the rulemaking process for more transparency in transactions with brokers.

The petition asks the agency:

• To require brokers to automatically provide an electronic copy of each transaction record within 48 hours after the contractual service has been completed.
• To explicitly prohibit brokers from including any provision that requires a carrier to waive their rights to access the transaction records.

CFR 371.3 already requires that brokers keep records of each transaction with a carrier and that each party to the transaction has a right to view these records.

Hutcheson declined to provide much detail as the agency is still working on its response. However, she told Land Line in October that the agency plans to address the petition soon.

“We have been considering the issues raised by the petition for rulemaking, and based on that work we are targeting early 2023 to issue a decision,” she said.

Regulations and safety

Spencer told the FMCSA leaders that a common frustration from truckers is that the regulations often create burdens on their business without doing anything to improve safety.

“There’s probably no one here or in D.C. that thinks we need more regulations or less regulations – we need effective regulations,” Spencer said. “If it doesn’t do what it was intended to do, then why do we continue to do it?

“I can tell you that most of the people who have trucked for their whole lives now basically feel like the regulations are an impediment to them doing their job safely. Enforcement for the sake of enforcement – there really isn’t any benefit to that.”

Many drivers point to the ELD mandate as an example. The costly mandate forces truckers to purchase devices, pay subscription fees, and follow the hours of service to the second. However, crash rates have not decreased since full enforcement of the mandate took effect in 2018.

Since 2017, fatality crashes in the U.S. have risen by 14.5%.

“There is a difference between compliance and crashes,” OOIDA Board Member Danny Schnautz said. “We all know that just complying with a regulation doesn’t necessarily make you safer.”

OOIDA Board Member Tilden Curl said that in order to comply with the regulation, many drivers feel like they have to speed in order to get stopped in time.

“ELDs are a compliance device and not a safety device,” Curl said.

Although Hutcheson did not address any specific regulations, she mentioned that FMCSA is working on a Large Truck Crash Causation Study in hopes of determining the key contributors to truck-related crashes.

Persistence pays off

Spencer said conversations with government leaders are important even if they don’t always lead to the desired outcome.

OOIDA’s presence for the past 50 years has allowed those conversations between truckers and decision-makers to become a reality.

“That challenge that I hope everyone in trucking would embrace is that you don’t accomplish anything if you don’t have a dialogue,” Spencer said. “Even if you aren’t able to agree on everything … we just have to be professional and persistent in what we do. Being persistent does pay off.”

OOIDA’s persistence in recent years led to more flexibility within the hours-of-service regulations and the creation of an entry-level driver training rule. Spencer said that OOIDA didn’t get everything it wanted in either of those negotiations but that they indicate progress.

“You make an accomplishment, and you build from there,” he said.

OOIDA has built a lot in 50 years and plans for even more expansion over the next 50. LL