Through the difficult times

OOIDA conducted its spring Board of Directors meeting during a time when freight rates remained low and broker fraud remained rampant.

“It’s a crazy business in trucking right now,” said, Todd Spencer, president of the Onwer-Operator Independent Drivers Association. “All of us are affected. The economic environment that currently exists in trucking is one that sucks the rates down on almost everything. There’s so much capacity out there. There’s certainly far more trucks than there were and far more brokers too.”

After the start of the pandemic in 2020, new carriers flooded the market. Even though many of those trucking companies are already out of business, overcapacity is still driving prices down.

“When you’re a shipper and receiving calls every day from brokers and carriers offering to do it cheaper, even if you have good carriers that you’ve done business with, the temptation to take advantage of a lower price is there,” Spencer said. “A lot of people will do it.”

As difficult as the times are, however, the cyclical nature of trucking isn’t new.

OOIDA, which started in 1973, has maintained its mission to fight for truck drivers through all the peaks and valleys.

“We will get through it because we’ve seen these cycles many times, and we’ll see them many times more,” Spencer said.

In the meantime, OOIDA is working with FMCSA and lawmakers to improve conditions for truckers. For instance, OOIDA met with FMCSA officials at the board meeting in April to find ways to tackle broker fraud.

“FMCSA can do some things. They certainly can’t do everything we’d like them to do for a lot of reasons,” Spencer said. “We want to endeavor to find the things they can do – pursue those and look to other areas when needed.”

OOIDA’s Government Affairs team informed board members of several of the ways the Association is trying to improve the trucking profession through legislation.

Truck parking

OOIDA helped craft the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act, which would provide more than $750 million for truck parking projects over three years.

The House version of the bill, HR2367, was introduced by Reps. Mike Bost, R-Ill., and Angie Craig, D-Minn., and has 48 co-sponsors – 24 Republicans and 24 Democrats. The Senate version, S1034, was introduced by Sens. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and has 15 co-sponsors.

Although the lack of truck parking is well-known, the fight for federal funding has been a long one.

In addition to the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act, OOIDA Board Member Danny Schnautz said some of the problems can be addressed at the local and state levels.

“You see closed-down rest areas everywhere,” he said.

Restroom access

OOIDA worked with Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, to get the Trucker Bathroom Access Act introduced.

HR3869 simply would require shipper and receiver facilities that have restrooms accessible to their customers and employees to make those same restrooms available for truck drivers who are delivering or receiving a load. The legislation would not require businesses to construct new restrooms. As of press time, the bill had six co-sponsors.

OOIDA also is working to get a Senate version of the bill introduced.

Overtime for company drivers

The GOT Truckers Act, which has been introduced in the House and Senate, would simply amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to end the overtime exemption for motor carriers.

Although the bill would apply only to company drivers, OOIDA believes it would go a long way toward valuing the time of all truck drivers.

“The bill is focused on fairness and is the simplest way to fix the detention time problem in the trucking industry,” said Bryce Mongeon, OOIDA’s director of legislative affairs.

Stopping speed limiters

OOIDA also is working with Congress to stop FMCSA from imposing a regulation that most truck drivers oppose.

The DRIVE Act, which has been introduced in the House and Senate, would prevent the agency from moving forward with any rulemaking to mandate speed limiters on commercial motor vehicles.

Collin Long, OOIDA’s director of government affairs, said the bill is gaining more support from lawmakers, as well as from industry groups who are joining the Association’s coalition to stop the mandate.

Thousands of truckers have submitted comments to FMCSA saying that a speed limiter mandate would create dangerous speed differentials and that states are best equipped to determine their respective speed limits.

Fighting For Truckers

OOIDA encourages all of its members to go to its Fighting For Truckers website and learn more about Association efforts. The website provides an easy way for truckers to contact their lawmakers about the issues that affect them the most. LL