Editor's note: On July 9, OOIDA Executive Vice President Todd Spencer delivered the following testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit

Mr. Chairman and Representative Borski, thank you for inviting me here today to testify on truck safety issues. The thrust of my comments is -- if we want to make great strides in highway safety we must look at long-neglected issues rather than merely intensifying the efforts that have been giving us incremental improvements in truck safety.

"Turn 'em loose and then try to catch 'em"
Perhaps the most neglected issue in trucking safety is the qualification of truckdrivers. Truck safety enforcement today is based on what I call the "turn them loose then try to catch them" plan.

Under the current regulatory scheme, we allow practically anyone to obtain a commercial drivers license, turn them loose on the highway behind the wheel of a truck, and then hope we can catch and punish them if they act unsafely. When we don't see an improvement in truck safety, the government increases the enforcement budget, creates more safety rules and increases driver penalties. While this kind of enforcement works to punish unsafe operators, and sometimes forces them out of the industry, it does nothing to stop unqualified people from becoming drivers in the first place. It is a reactionary system that only works, many times, after the damage is done.

There has been no change in years to the requirements for obtaining a commercial driver's license and becoming a truck driver. OOIDA, the representative of 80,000 small business truckdrivers, thinks there ought to be. Our members deplore the poor driving abilities of many of the new drivers with whom they must share the road.

We have long advocated mandatory driver training, a graduated driver's license, and a mandatory period of apprenticeship with an experienced driver. Only if drivers get such preparation can we be confident we have allowed the safest people possible behind the wheel of a truck, and those people have learned how to operate a heavy truck in many types of weather and on many different road conditions.

Some motor carriers fight this idea. They want no barriers to recruiting cheap, inexperienced people to put behind the wheel of a truck. They blame the mythological driver shortage on the quality of the people they hire. The final insult is when they ask Congress to spend more on driver enforcement activities rather than take responsibility themselves for the drivers they recruit and place behind the wheel.

We believe if there were substantive requirements for the CDL, there would be better truckdrivers and fewer accidents on America's highways. The investment we make in preparing drivers will cost less than our never-ending enforcement efforts to clean up after the bad ones. In other words, the federal government would see a better bang for its safety dollar.

Uncompensated work and time
The other neglected issue I would like to highlight is the uncompensated work demanded of truckdrivers as a part of their job. Even though most drivers are paid a flat fee for each shipment they haul, their pay has absolutely no correlation with the time and effort spent on each load. I am referring to the number of hours shippers and receivers force drivers to wait at the loading docks, and the loading, unloading, and dock work drivers are often required to perform. These activities can have a significant impact on a driver's ability to operate a truck safely.

As two studies sponsored by the Truckload Carriers Association revealed, drivers are required to wait between 33 and 44 hours per week waiting for shippers and receivers to let them load and unload. Once a driver is allowed to approach the dock, he or she is required, without additional compensation, to load or unload the vehicle, and sometimes break down pallets into smaller units for the receiver. Unbelievably, the driver's only option sometimes is to pay the workers on a receiver's own dock as much as $75 to $150 to unload the receiver's own shipment! Sometimes, if they agree to pay the fee they will be unloaded quickly, but if they don't agree to pay it, they are forced to wait longer.

This combination of waiting, loading, unloading, and dock work can have an enormous impact on the physical ability of a driver to safely perform his or her compensated work, driving a truck. Once released by a shipper or receiver, a driver is forced to get back on the highway as soon as possible to make maximum use of the time left to work under the federal hours-of-service regulations.

The amount of truck traffic on our highways is greatly increased by the millions of hours of unproductive time demanded of drivers and trucks each year. The number of trucks on the road would be fewer if trucks spent most of their time as a means of transportation rather than a stationary storage facility.

Why does this state of affairs exist? Neither the shipper nor the carrier pays any more when a trucker is detained for any amount of time: sometimes hours and sometimes even days! Neither pays any more when a driver is required to load or unload his own truck and spend hours performing dock work. With the demand for just-in-time delivery, trucks are treated not just as a means of transportation, but as storage space for their rolling inventory. Receivers tend to unload a truck when they need its contents, not when the truck arrives at their place of business.

Drivers do not complain to carriers because their carrier can retaliate by terminating them or giving them fewer loads. Carriers, even those whose equipment gets tied up in this uncompensated work, do not complain to shippers out of fear of losing a customer. As with most issues in the trucking industry, shippers have the greatest effect over driver behavior, but have no responsibility for their own actions. To address this long ignored issue, shippers and receivers must be brought into the safety enforcement equation.

At least two years ago Congress asked the DOT to report on the ways the shipping community could be brought into their enforcement jurisdiction. So far the DOT has issued no report. The Truckload Carriers Association has attempted to alleviate these problems by forming a best-practices agreement with shippers, but no industry changes have been apparent to OOIDA members, and we are not holding our breath. Any realistic solution will need teeth to work, not just good will between industry lobbyists.

OOIDA has many ideas for addressing these issues, including mandating the shipper load and the receiver unload each shipment. Another possibility is to require a driver's compensation be broken down into the basic components of driving, detention time, loading and unloading, and dock work. The amount of a driver's compensation need not be mandated, but the manner in which it is paid should be broken down by the time and work a driver is asked to devote to a shipment, not just the miles it was hauled.

More than any other parties, carrier and shipper/receiver demands upon a trucker affect his or her safe operation of a truck. More driver and roadside enforcement is not the solution to this problem. Driver penalties do not change carrier or shipper behavior. The driver is the party in the trucking industry with the least ability to change the behavior of the more powerful carriers and shippers (with whom they have no contractual relationship). No efforts have been made to address the impact these practices have on trucking safety, but significant safety improvements are within reach if they were.

Miscellaneous safety issues
While driver training and loading/unloading issues are the most neglected safety issues, there are several others on which OOIDA would like to briefly comment.

Truck only toll roads
Truckdrivers embrace the idea of having a road to themselves apart from automobiles. The available statistics on accidents involving trucks automobile drivers are found to be many times more responsible than truckdrivers for such accidents. Separating the two types of vehicles would reduce such accidents.

Several aspects of recently proposed truck-only roads trouble OOIDA members, however. Truckers resent the prospect of having to pay more tolls on top of the significant taxes they already pay. Truckers have paid billions in federal excise taxes, heavy-duty truck taxes, and fuel taxes to pay for the current highway system. They see highway dollars going to pay for bike trails, light rail systems, and other non-highway projects with little, if any, positive effect on our highway systems. Truckers would like to see the taxes they already pay support the maintenance of the roads they use. Additionally they do not think it is fair that they alone will be asked to finance a plan being sold as a benefit to all highway users.

The other fear of OOIDA members is these truck-only roads will used as an excuse to allow for larger and heavier trucks. We are adamantly opposed to this idea.

Truck size and weight
The trucking industry is far from united on truck size and weight issues. OOIDA members and many small business carriers are opposed to any liberalization of truck size and weight limits. National uniformity on truck size limits has brought important regulatory predictability to long distance truckdrivers.

Our members have operated on the road with longer combination trucks and do not trust their safety. With so few driver training requirements already, there is no system in place to verify drivers of those vehicles really know how to drive longer-combination vehicles. Nor is there much of an effort to ensure bigger trucks stay on specific roads they are allowed to operate on now.

Most importantly, though, OOIDA members do not expect to see any gain from the supposed efficiencies promoted by the advocates of longer and heavier vehicles. Many more efficiencies are to be gained, with less of a cost to safety, by reducing the time drivers and trucks are now forced to waste at the loading docks.

OOIDA also believes the push for bigger and heavier vehicles is the motive behind the recent statements by some motor carriers to promote a maximum truck speed.

Unified speed limits
OOIDA's position on speed limits is the states should set speed limits at whatever level they believe is safe. We have taken no positions as to what speed should be. Truck and automobile speed limits should be the same, however, not split. Whatever the speed limit, the safest speed for both cars and trucks is the prevailing speed on the road. At the prevailing speed, all cars and trucks are traveling together in a predictable fashion. Predictability of traffic patterns is a vitally important factor in a driver's ability to safely control a truck.

When you have trucks limited to a lower speed and automobiles allowed to go faster, the predictability of traffic is lost and safety is compromised. Automobiles trying to achieve a higher speed limit change lanes more frequently, weaving in and out of trucks and other automobiles. This is especially true of cars trying to enter the highway and get past trucks restricted to the right lanes.

Truckers who lose the ability to predict the movement of traffic around them have less ability to react to changing road conditions and bad individual drivers. In the interest of highway safety, OOIDA would encourage Congress to require states to enact unified speed limits on the federal highway system.

National security and trucking
OOIDA is working with the Department of Transportation to keep its 80,000 members aware of important information and special bulletins related to national security issues. Our members are fiercely patriotic and are the most underutilized resource in keeping our highways safe. They look forward to making a contribution to our country's national security efforts.

One area in which OOIDA members are concerned with is the numbers of illegal aliens they see driving trucks on the highways. As OOIDA detailed in correspondence to this committee's members this spring, there is a significant problem with some motor carriers and recruiters helping persons from other countries forge visa applications to come here and work for motor carriers. Those immigrants are often unqualified to drive a truck. Those carriers also help foreign drivers ignore time limits and other visa formalities to keep them trucking in our country. Several truck driver recruiters were convicted of this activity last year.

This is no less than an open invitation to terrorists to enter the country and the trucking industry. OOIDA sees no justification for our motor carriers to recruit truckers from other countries. In the last two years, over 220,000 trucks were repossessed in the United States. There used to be a driver, and sometimes two drivers, working behind the wheel of each of those trucks. They no longer have jobs, and we cannot understand how anyone can claim there is a driver shortage. In the interest of national security and trucking safety, there should be a moratorium on the recruitment of truckdrivers from other countries.

The Motor Carrier Fuel Cost Equity Act
The shocking number of trucks repossessed over the last two years correlates directly to high fuel prices. As this committee is aware, OOIDA, joined by the Truckload Carriers Association, is supporting passage of the Motor Carrier Fuel Cost Equity Act introduced by Representatives Nick Rahall and Roy Blunt. The safety of a trucking operation is related in many ways to its financial integrity, and we encourage this committee to move that legislation before we see the same level of devastation to small business truckers again in the future.

Rest areas
Just last week the Federal Highway Administration published its study of the need for more truck parking. As with government reports on any hotly disputed issue, there was something for just about everyone. While we agree there is not a need for more truck parking everywhere in the country, our members report a significant shortage in certain local areas. These areas roughly correlate with the areas described in the FHWA report. To solve these parking problems, the federal government must take the initiative.

Truck parking mostly serves out-of-state long distance drivers. State and local governments do not have much incentive to provide rest area services to non-constituents. In fact, local constituents usually fight the provision of new services to truckers, both local or out-of-state. OOIDA hopes Congress supports efforts to create more parking areas where they are needed and better inform truckdrivers where nearby parking is available.

Providing sufficient truck parking, along with solving the loading/unloading issues, are the top priorities to combat driver fatigue. OOIDA believes most truckdrivers know when they are tired and make the decision to pull over and get rest when they need it. The greatest fatigue problems for the vast majority of drivers are not in recognizing their own fatigue, but in being denied the opportunity and place to get rest.

Conclusion
There are many issues affecting safety in the trucking industry. Forming a comprehensive truck safety plan is an enormous task. OOIDA encourages Congress and DOT to take a broader view of truck safety issues. Driver enforcement and punishment are important components of truck safety. Significant improvements in truck safety will only be made, however, by addressing several long-neglected issues. Mandatory driver training and reducing uncompensated driver labor are two of the most neglected issues. Action on these issues would produce significant improvements in truck safety.