OOIDA’s Pugh to testify at House T&I hearing

Next week, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will have a hearing to discuss the transportation industry’s next steps in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Protecting Transportation Workers and Passengers From COVID: Gaps in Safety, Lessons Learned, and Next Steps” will be conducted virtually at 11 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, Feb. 4.

OOIDA Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh is scheduled to be one of the witnesses.

“It’s an honor to represent the hardworking men and women who drive trucks every day to keep American rolling,” Pugh said. “Truckers face countless obstacles, both during and pre-COVID. While FMCSA and FHWA both stepped up to provide relief, Congress was pushing more costly mandates, including a massive cost increase for insurance. You can’t refer to truckers as heroes while simultaneously trying to put them out of business. It just doesn’t work that way.”

OOIDA’s fight against minimum insurance hike

Pugh was referencing last year’s House vote in favor of an amendment that would have increased motor carriers’ insurance requirements by 167%. Ultimately, the bill stalled in the Senate, but OOIDA is fighting to prevent a similar measure from making it in to a highway bill this year.

In December, Pugh wrote a letter to members of Congress criticizing them for not doing more for small-business truckers in the latest relief bill and, instead, pushing for legislation that could drive many small trucking companies out of business.

“Let that sink in a moment,” Pugh wrote. “The House voted to dramatically increase the insurance costs of small-business truckers during a historic economic crisis so their trial lawyer friends could bring home bigger payouts when suing blue-collar workers. “Is this how out of touch you’ve become?”

As of Monday, Jan. 25, the T&I Committee hadn’t released the full list of witnesses.

Pugh’s Senate testimony

Coincidentally on Feb. 4, 2020, Pugh testified at the Senate’s Transportation and Safety Subcommittee hearing to discuss stakeholder perspectives on trucking in America.

Speaking on behalf of truck drivers, Pugh delivered a series of “truth bombs” about the state of the trucking industry. He called the current state of trucking “dysfunctional,” and called out regulations that don’t improve safety, enforcement motivated by profits, and drivers being forced to contend with long hours and “notoriously low pay.”

“From the perspective of small-business motor carriers and professional drivers, the state of the trucking industry is dysfunctional,” Pugh said. “This is because too many people who know virtually nothing about trucking have an oversized role in shaping trucking policy. Drivers feel the negative effects of this firsthand, myself included.”

Pugh, who became a member of OOIDA in 1996 and worked as a commercial truck driver for 23 years with 2.5 million safe miles, came off the road in 2017 to start working at OOIDA headquarters. LL