Driving highway safety
Peter Bradley, Editor in Chief -- Logistics Management, 6/1/2002
Joe Clapp, the former Roadway Express executive who now heads up the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, is on a mission to make the nation's roads safer.
Clapp has been on the stump of late, describing the state of regulatory initiatives in which the FMCSA is involved for audiences like the shipper members of NASSTRAC or the private-fleet managers who make up the National Private Truck Council. I've seen him twice in recent weeks, and he's finished each speech by telling a little bit about people who have died recently in accidents involving trucks. His point is that his agency's mission is not to make rules, but to save lives.
That's a good thing to keep in mind as debate develops over hours of service rules and other regulations coming out of Washington or the states. We can argue over what the most effective rules are, what science is legitimate and what's bogus. But the twin goals of safer highways and a reduction in fatalities and injuries must remain foremost in the minds of all those affected by the rules.
That includes logistics managers, whether or not they themselves manage a fleet. Logistics managers hire motor carriers and make sometimes difficult service demands of them. That's as it should be in a competitive marketplace—with one important exception. Never should they demand service levels that force the carriers to stretch the limits of the rules—speed limits, hours of service or others.
Managers who do so should expect to invite the carriers' wrath. The trucking industry is justifiably proud of its efforts to improve the safety performance of truckers over the last couple of decades. And truckers lament the indictment of the whole industry when an irresponsible trucker causes a gruesome accident.
I was reminded of that recently while making the long drive down I-95 from Boston to Washington, D.C. On one stretch of highway in Connecticut, I and other drivers were dogged by one such rogue carrier, carrying a load of steel on a flatbed. This character was dodging from lane to lane, tailgating automobiles in his way and driving well over the speed limit. He may have gotten to his destination safely, but even if he caused no physical injury, he undoubtedly harmed the reputation of the entire trucking industry among the hundreds or thousands of drivers he harassed that day.
Logistics managers can have a direct influence on highway safety because they have the economic power to refuse to hire carriers that cannot demonstrate excellent safety practices and excellent safety records. It may not always be easy when scrambling to find a carrier to take a load. Nevertheless, it makes not only great business sense, considering the cost of accidents, but also great moral and ethical sense. Though safety officials can and must do their part to find dangerous carriers and get them off the road, tens of thousands of logistics managers can perform an enormous public service by starving the poor players right out of the business.
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