Melissa Theriault-Rohan is Associate Director of Government Affairs for OOIDA’s Washington, DC, office.

Theriault – who attends the Medical Review Board’s quarterly meetings – says board members routinely approve recommendations for proposed regulations after having little discussion on the topic.

In January, the board heard less than 10 minutes of comments before voting to recommend the “Fitness for Duty” matrix.

“I don’t think they gave enough discussion to something that deserves more debate and discussion. That was a shame,” Theriault-Rohan said. “You’re talking about something that could pull millions of drivers off the highway. And for drivers that have to get requalified every six months – that’s a lot of money from a population that isn’t flush with income right now, particularly in this economy.”

In short, truck drivers have once again been viewed as ATMs for certain niche industries. Instead of state tolls, permit fees or taxes, this time the benefactors are sleep study centers, medical equipment manufacturers, and doctors who have doubled or tripled their patient visits from millions of CDL-holders.

So why are truckers being singled out?

Follow the money.

According to opensecrets.org, the American Medical Association spent $200 million lobbying between 1998 and 2008, second only to the United States Chamber of Commerce. In fourth place was the American Hospital Association at $163 million, followed in sixth place by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America at $147 million.

And few industries are bigger or more powerful than the medical industry.

“These are doctors that are going to get paid off the backs of our membership,” Theriault-Rohan told Land Line. “They’re looking for more and more opportunities to make more money. This is such a self-interested, self-serving bunch here. The driving population isn’t being represented at all.”

Dr. Kurt Hegmann, the current chairman of the Medical Review Board, refuted the point that he or other board members stand to benefit from the recommendations made by the board.

“I don’t think any of the individuals on the Medical Review Board will personally benefit from changes in this system. I doubt any of them will see any change in income,” Hegmann said. “If anything, considering the time they’re spending on this process to try and improve the health of truckers and the public, they have foregone income.”

The “fitness for duty” proposal comes during a time when America has never been heavier per person. While drivers face increasing scrutiny over their weight, the U.S. Army is relaxing its fitness standards, and ambulance operators are ordering continually heavier gurneys.

For the Medical Review Board’s part, Hegmann said an estimated 4,000 lives annually is a high number of deaths tied to any occupational group. The Large Truck Crash Causation Study documented the fact that the vast majority of truck-car fatal wrecks are the fault of the automobile driver.

“This has been a problem the agency has recognized for many years and to my knowledge has never solved,” Hegmann said, adding that FMCSA is working to solve the problem.

While not endorsing the reputed fatality figures, Hegmann later said, “Let’s say your stats are true – that 1,200 people per year die due to injuries from a crash that wasn’t the fault of the (automobile driver). That’s a lot of people.”

To put highway deaths into context, Land Line compared those transportation fatalities to the number of deaths attributed to physician error at U.S. hospitals.

Medical News Today reported that an average of 195,000 people died in the U.S. annually in 2000, 2001 and 2002 following errors by staff at medical facilities.

The National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine released a study in 2000, which estimated that between 44,000 and 98,000 U.S. deaths annually are a result of medical errors.

To put it bluntly – Americans are at least 10 and 20 times more likely to be killed by taking a hospital visit than they are to be killed in a wreck with a big rig, including the majority of wrecks caused by four-wheelers.

Hegmann disagreed with the comparison, saying he believed hospital statistics included more fatalities to elderly patients than deaths tied to wrecks involving commercial trucks.

“I think that is an inappropriate use of statistics,” Hegmann said. “The issue is in the working age population – what causes death. The statistics you are citing right now are heavily weighted toward the old and the very heavy. Or the old-old. If you just simply deal with the issue of your probability of living to go home to provide for your family tomorrow, this is a major cause of death and disability in the United States.”

Hope on the horizon

The board includes five members, each appointed by the Secretary of Transportation for two-year terms.

In 2008, OOIDA President and CEO Jim Johnston and satellite radio broadcaster Dave Nemo nominated Dr. John McElligott to serve on the Medical Review Board. That hasn’t happened yet, but if in the future, McElligott is appointed to the board, no doubt the interests of truckers will be represented.

Regardless, McElligott plans to attend most of the board’s quarterly meetings to ensure that medical perspectives from truck drivers are heard.

“There’s a chance,” McElligott said. “I’m not going to hold my breath. But we need to educate these folks. I don’t think they understand the life of a trucker or the consequences of their recommendations. I don’t know of any other profession, including doctors, where workers are as regulated as truck drivers are.”

– By Charlie Morasch, staff writer
charlie_morasch@landlinemag.com