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SPEED LIMITERS
Will the proposed rule requiring speed limiters get swallowed up in President
Donald Trump’s pledge to reduce the number of federal regulations imposed on the
American public?
And just how necessary is such a rule in the first place, especially one that doesn’t deal
with the differential between the speed of trucks and the speed of passenger vehicles?
“A clear majority of members have speed limiters on their vehicles,” said David Heller,
vice president of government affairs at the Truckload Carriers Association. “They are all
limited at different speeds, all the way from 58, where they are operating in urban settings,
to as high as 68 miles per hour. The inherent argument is what is the right speed and if
all the trucks are going that speed, will that create a logjam and at what point do we start
talking about differentials?”
Those differentials already exist, Heller said.
“As long as this industry has been around we’ve been dealing with cars operating in
and around trucks and doing so in an unsafe fashion,” he said. “And when you have cars
operating in a manner where they can go faster than trucks, or vice versa, the differential
is going to exist. We don’t have a limiting standard right now in this country and the differential
is there. If we did have a limiting standard in this country the differential would
still be there.”
For the record, TCA’s policy on the issue of speed limiters is that all vehicles should
be limited at 65 mph.
Meanwhile, safety advocates are concerned about the future of speed limiters in light
of the new administration’s regulation freeze.
“I am really disappointed if the rule is not done right away,” said Truck Safety Coalition
Executive Director John Lannen, who hoped for quick action because the measure
has been in the works for more than a decade. “I’m hoping that safety regulations do get
looked at differently than maybe just generic regulations because we’re trying to save
lives.”
Steve Owings, co-founder of Road Safe America and who originally proposed the rule,
said advocates will reach out to the new administration to keep the regulation going.
“This, as well as other needed changes, certainly fits the description of ‘common
sense,’ which the president-elect has spoken of recently,” said Owings, whose son was
killed by a speeding truck while returning to college in 2002.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association “vehemently” opposes the rule,
the organization said in comments filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, calling it “damaging to owner-operators’
and independents’ ability to compete in the marketplace against larger carriers.”
Independent truckers, many of whom filed comments against the rule, say the government
is actually creating conditions for more collisions by focusing on the severity of the
crash while ignoring the dynamic of trucks and cars traveling at different speeds. They
warn of traffic jams caused by slower trucks and of a potential increase in crashes caused
by fast-moving cars hitting the rear of trucks.
Owings says the rule should apply to existing trucks instead of just new ones because
speeds could be limited with an inexpensive software update.
The speed limiters also would take care of the problem of trucks traveling at faster
speeds than their tires can handle.
An investigation by The Associated Press last year found that most truck tires can’t
handle speeds above 75 mph, yet some states let trucks go 80 mph or even 85 mph.
SLEEP APNEA
There appears to be no middle ground when it comes to the prospect of a
rulemaking on sleep apnea based on a review of the comments received in response
to the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the Evaluation of Safety Sensitive
Personnel for Moderate-to-Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea issued jointly last
year by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the Federal Railroad
Administration.
The following comments summarize the polarization between those for such a rule and
those against, especially in light of the recommendation of the FMCSA Medical Review
Board (MRB) that would require mandatory screening for any truck driver with a body
mass index (BMI) of 40 or more who has admitted fatigue or sleeping during wakeful periods,
or for any drivers who have been involved in sleep-related motor vehicle accidents,
and for anyone who possesses a BMI of 33 and has at least three of a number of risk
factors, two of which are being male and age 42 or older.
A primary care physician who is a certified medical examiner had this to say:
“I agree that sleep apnea is a major concern for commercial drivers. I have seen many
drivers apply for their CDLs who suffer from morbid obesity, an unfortunately common
consequence of the driver lifestyle. Some even show up to the test appointment looking fatigued.
While many work longer hours than anyone should, and some have an easily-fixed
unhealthy lifestyle that contributes as well, the rate of sleep apnea among this morbidly
obese subset is astounding. As there are [now] no definitive guidelines about sleep apnea,
drivers often become angry when I request they undergo testing. The rate of moderate
or severe apnea among these drivers in my experience has been quite high though, so I
continue to push them for evaluation. As an examiner and physician, I am not only trying to
reduce traffic accidents among these drivers, I am trying to save their lives.”
One professional driver said:
“I find the logic of using either BMI or neck size as an indication of obesity outrageous
and unscientific. For example, BMI makes no allowance for the relative proportions of
bone, muscle and fat in the body. But bone is denser than muscle and twice as dense as
fat, so a person with strong bones, good muscle tone and low fat will have a high BMI.
Thus, athletes and fit, health-conscious movie stars who work out a lot tend to find themselves
classified as overweight or even obese. Moreover, neck size is a poor indicator
of the possibility of obstructive breathing during sleep. What sort of ‘junk science’ is the
FMCSA promoting these days? A terrible waste of money and time are spent on this illogical
reasoning. This is the most cockeyed piece of regulatory thinking ever.”
Another driver stated that:
“The presumption for requiring a test is ridiculous. When I was a junior in high school, I
weighed 120 pounds and had a 17-inch neck. I couldn’t buy clothes then and can’t now. I
have done a sleep test three times, passing each time. The fact that anyone with a badge
can condemn me to a $4,000 test and lost wages is outrageous. I will not submit to another
test without sound scientific reasoning that would indicate a test is necessary. And I am not
paying for it. It takes 10 percent of my yearly income for a test and I could be remanded to
take another the next day I am on the road. I will go flip burgers. They make more money
for less time out of their lives anyway.”
The problem is that the MRB’s recommendations — which are non-binding — are
vast, said David Heller, vice president of regulatory affairs at the Truckload Carriers Association.
“Their recommendations would affect the majority of the trucking industry,” Heller said.
“We can’t have a rule that doesn’t pass muster with the Office of Management and Budget
because of its vastness.”
“TCA takes the position that it supports the overall health and well-being of drivers
and that those health improvements will hopefully decrease the diagnoses of sleep apnea
or other fatigue-inducing conditions, restless leg syndrome being one. If you narrow the
scope to sleep apnea, we are limiting our playing field, so to speak, when we could take
steps to improve overall driver health and thus reduce sleep apnea among drivers and
probably reduce other health issues as well, including diabetes, congestive heart failure
and high blood pressure, to name a few.
“Maybe if we as an industry circumvented any regulations proposed by MRB and started
talking preventive medicine, we could turn out far better in the long run than we could
with a rule on sleep apnea.”
In support of its members who oppose mandatory screening, the Owner-Operator
Independent Drivers Association through the OOIDA Foundation recently published a
white paper pointing out that sleep apnea is a medical condition that has been common
for many years and that the FMCSA’s own statistics don’t support the “sudden” need for
increased scrutiny in the form of a new federal regulation.
The foundation said data from the FMCSA’s “Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts” in
2013 and 2014 supported its claim.
The data showed that in 2011 only 1.8 percent of fatal crashes were attributed to
impairment-related factors. In 2012, the figure was 1.7 percent, in 2013 it was 1.4 percent
and in 2014 it was 1.8 percent.
“Irrespective of the facts, FMCSA as well as others continue to disseminate misperceptions
and falsehoods concerning sleep apnea and its safety impacts on the trucking
industry,” the foundation said.
OOIDA also cited a 2004 crash risk study that said patients with sleep apnea had no
greater probability of having a crash than patients without sleep apnea, either before or
after their diagnoses.
The white paper also questioned the effectiveness of using CPAP machines to treat all
sleep apnea patients, noting that some users of CPAP machines had reported a decrease
in restful sleep.
The Department of Transportation’s report on significant rulemakings does not reflect
a date when the agencies might move to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
stage, or even if they will, especially in light of the Trump administration’s freeze on
new regulations.
TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 13