The Trucker Newspaper - December 15-31, 2015

Perspective December
15-31, 2015 • 22
Letters
Driver offended at the way FMCSA
treats unavoidable crashes in CSA
I realize that when any truck accident occurs
it has to be determined who is at fault.
However, through the years I have had trucks in
accidents that were not their fault. The party at
fault would in turn reimburse me for any damages
and injuries. Common sense will tell you
that someone would not pay unless they were
indeed at fault.
These accidents, although not our fault,
have still been classified reportable. These “reportable”
accidents run our safety score up. The
position I take is that this is totally unfair.
Most recently my company has had two
unpreventable accidents that have dramatically
affected our safety score. One in which it was
found in court that the other driver intentionally
caused the accident. The other in which my
driver was stopped a red light and rear ended.
Even though these are statistically reportable
accidents it is not an indication that we, as a
carrier, are unsafe.
The FMCSA has been quoted to say: “Independent
research has demonstrated that a motor
carrier’s involvement in a crash, regardless of
their role in the crash, is a strong indicator of
their future crash risk.” This makes absolutely
no sense. Being struck by another motorist is
supposed to make my drivers more likely to
strike others? I do not believe that accidents
that were not caused by me are any indication
that I will be involved in a future crash.
Upon researching the controversial issue of
CSA ratings degrading due to accidents where
the truck driver had no fault I have found several
examples from other companies where
there was reckless, careless, and even drunk
driving by the at-fault party. Also, when requesting
that my CSA score be reviewed over
not-at-fault accidents I am presented with this
generated message: “Important Notice: If you
still choose to continue, you may provide information
that will be used for counting purposes
only — your request will NOT be upheld and
will be automatically closed. The crash will remain
on your carrier or driver record.” This is
the FMCSA simply saying we don’t care if it
is not your fault, we are going to blame you
anyway and punish you for it.
I do not believe that it is an unreasonable
request to ask that the FMCSA hold us accountable
for only what we can prevent and not hold
us accountable in the CSA program for crashes
that we cannot prevent.
I request a response.
— Jerry McClure
Army vet says there are indeed atheists
in foxholes, bunkers, ’copters and more
Recently read your column about public
prayer. I have a few points you may want to
consider.
Your Savior says to pray in private. It’s right
See Letters on p23 m
Finding out where they cook up all that alphabet soup
Lyndon Finney
editor@thetrucker.com
Eye on
Trucking
My curiosity got the best of me.
After all, for the last several months, we’ve
been bombarded time and time again with all
those names assigned to the various versions of
long-term surface transportation legislation.
You know:
GROW AMERICA (Generating Renewal,
Opportunity, and Work with Accelerated Mobility,
Efficiency, and Rebuilding of Infrastructure
and Communities throughout America
Act), the Obama administration’s version.
DRIVE (Developing a Reliable and Innovative
Vision for the Economy), the Senate’s version.
STRR (Surface Transportation Reauthorization
and Reform), the House’s version. It was
pronounced star, so somewhere along the way
the appropriate “A” must have fallen into a pothole,
or maybe the folks in D.C. just can’t spell.
Doing our research, we found there is strong
precedent for coming up with a lot of words
— often unnecessary — and fashioning them
into an acronym.
All this jolliness began in 1991 when Congress
decided to call the Intermodal Surface
We have moved next door to my son and
his PERFECT family. I wish to be home with
them for Christmas.
— Carla Barnes
Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA,
pronounced ice tea).
The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st
Century passed in 1998 was called TEA-21.
Our guess is that all this work to come up with
acronyms made for a raging thirst.
In 2005, Congress came up with a name to
honor the wife of an Alaska Congressman.
The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient
Transportation Act: A Legacy for Users was
called SAFETEA-LU in honor of Lu Young,
wife of Rep. Don Young, who was chairman
of the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee when the act was passed in 2005.
Lu Young passed away in 2009.
Then it was Moving Ahead for Progress in
the 21st Century (MAP-21) in 2012, and now
it’s the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation
(FAST) Act, the name given the version
of the current bill after it had gone through a
House and Senate conference committee.
We figured that for these acronyms to be so
clever, there must be a federal agency assigned
to come up with all the fancy names.
Sure enough there was.
We learned it was located deep in the bowels
of the U.S. Capitol, and it’s called the Department
of Pontification and Erudite Senselessness
(DOPES).
We called the 800 number to get a little
more information: 800-227-6696 (look on your
telephone keypad if you can’t figure out where
this little story is going).
I wish that all the drivers on the road
could start seeing eye-to-eye again and
give each other the mutual respect we all
deserve so the trucking life would be better
for everyone.
— Jeff Jones
A congenial young man answered: “DOPES,
John Edward Dobbs speaking.”
He told us he’d been employed there since last
January, so we figured he must be pretty brilliant
to help the administration and those lawmakers
come up with such creative acronyms.
So we asked him about his qualifications.
“Just look at my name,” he responded. “It
makes a great acronym, JED.”
* * *
Putting aside the frivolity of this column, as
everyone in trucking knows by now, the Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration has
finally issued its final rule on electronic logging
devices and Hours of Service supporting
documents.
We even noticed some of our peers in the
trucking media called this “breaking news.”
However, we classify “breaking news” as
news that is not expected.
The issuance of the ELD Final Rule has
been expected for days, weeks, month, even
years, 21 years to be accurate.
In fact, the FMCSA’s own website says that
the rulemaking was first initiated August 26,
1994.
* * *
And finally, and we think most importantly,
we hope you all have a Merry Christmas (none
of that happy holidays stuff) and a Happy New
Year, and that you stop and reflect amidst of the
glitz and glamor, what Christmas is really all
about. 8
The Christmas season is here.
What is your Christmas wish?
The elimination of a push for speed regulators
being mandatory in commercial motor
vehicles.
— John Brohl