LTL carriers welcome pending 33-foot trailers amid toughening safety standards

WASHINGTON—The trucking industry is welcoming a classic productivity tradeoff – allowing 33-foot twin “pup” trailers in exchange for toughening equipment and driver training standards.
  
Although the moves are not directly linked, the upshot of the pending introduction of 33-foot trailers will allow LTL carriers up to 18 percent greater productivity—a boon to large LTL carriers such as FedEx Freight, UPS Freight, Con-way and a host of regional and interregional LTL operations.
  
In return, starting with the 2017 model year, new Class 8 truck configurations will have to be outfitted with electronic stability controls (ESC) that backers and regulators say will sharply curtail truck rollovers. New buses will be outfitted similarly in 2018.
 
But first, productivity: the House of Representatives recently OK’d the 33-foot trailer language as part of the must-pass appropriations bill for the Departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and other agencies. All but three Democrats voted against it and all but 31 Republicans voted for it in the narrow 216-210 vote in favor on June 9. It still must be passed by the Senate in what could be another close vote.
  
Although it still faces a possible White House veto, HR 2577, the fiscal year 2016 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act is also known by its shorthand title—the so-called T-HUD bill. It would provide $55.3 billion in discretionary spending for transportation, a $1.5 billion increase above the current funding but $9.7 billion less than the Obama administration proposed.
  
If approved by the Senate, the legislation also would permit use of twin 33-foot trailers and provide the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration with $572 billion. American Trucking Associations lauded its passage. It would also require a thorough study of the so-called 34-hour restart provision, the measure that would require two mandatory rest breaks for drivers operating between 1-5 a.m, a move that currently is on hold.
  
“By including language requiring a more robust study of the hours-of-service restart restrictions originally imposed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in July 2013, and a modest increase in the length of some truck combinations, the House has taken an important step in improving the safety of our highways, first and foremost, but also the efficiency of our highway system and the industry that moves nearly 70% of the nation’s goods,” ATA President Bill Graves said in a statement.
 
The White House is opposed to the trucking provisions and has threatened to veto the bill over the discretionary funding proposal.
  
ATA claims use of twin 33-foot trailers would improve capacity and safety while not increasing truck weights. It would be the trucking industry’s first nationwide productivity improvement since the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1993 allowed twin 48-foot trailers in exchange for a nickel increase in the federal tax on diesel fuel. ATA also says the use of 33-foot pups would also cut down on the number of truck trips needed to move domestic freight, reduce emissions, and cut the industry’s exposure to crashes.
  
The restart restrictions require truckers who maximize their weekly work hours must take at least two nights’ rest when their 24-hour body clock demands sleep the most—from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. This rest requirement allows drivers to restart the clock on their workweek by taking at least 34 consecutive hours off-duty. The final rule allows drivers to use the restart provision only once during a seven-day period.
  
Last December, Congress suspended these two provisions of the current Hours-of-Service rules, pending completion of a commercial motor vehicle driver restart study commissioned by the FMCSA and conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. Data collection began in March. It is supposed to be finished by Sept. 30, but officials from FMCSA say that it likely will not be made public before the end of the year.
 
According to the THUD bill passed by the House, its objective regarding the restart provisions is to “establish that commercial motor vehicles who operated under the restart provisions in effect between July 1, 2013, and the day before the date of enactment…demonstrated statistically significant improvement in all outcomes related to safety, operator fatigue, driver health, longevity, and work schedules in comparison to commercial motor vehicle operators who operated under the restart provisions in effect on June 30, 2013.”

Critics of the 34-hour restart rule that requires drivers to take two consecutive overnight rest say that it pushes drivers into riskier daytime driving, with, the one-year suspension lifting the restriction on using the restart more than once every 168 hours or one week.
 
“The 34 hour restart [rule] is a drain on both the carrier community and the shipper one, ultimately, resulting in impacts to the end consumer,” said Jeff Brady, director of transportation for Harry & David, a multi-channel specialty retailer, in a previous interview. “Trucking impacts the entire economy and with the last several decades of no cohesive highway infrastructure plans; the increases in congestion, at critical times of the day none the less, is impacting capacity. Capacity in trucking, or lack thereof, creates higher costs to get capacity commitments from an ever shrinking carrier base.”
 
Just as it appears trucking will be getting a slight boost in productivity, the feds are pushing for tougher entry-level driver training rules. FMCSA is expected to publish by Oct. 15 new tougher proposal on driver training. Recently, a 26-member FMCSA advisory board voted 24-2 to recommend a requirement that in addition to classroom time, new truck drivers would be required to complete at least 30 hours of behind-the-wheel instruction.
 
The new proposal calls for a minimum of 10 hours of range driving instruction and at least 10 hours of on-road instruction. The final rule would require driver training schools to certify driver course completion and driving competency test results and forward them to FMCSA before the driver is allowed to take the test for the Commercial Driver’s License (CDL).
  
The Transportation Intermediaries Association, a group of most truck brokers, is calling for formulation of a National Motor Carrier Hiring Standard. The standard would require that all carriers hired would be properly registered, carry adequate insurance coverage, and would carry something other than an “unsatisfactory” safety rating.
  
In another truck safety matter, American Trucking Associations said it welcomed today’s announcement by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that it would soon require new commercial trucks to be equipped with electronic stability control systems.

“We’ve long known the positive role technology can play in making our vehicles and our roads safer,” ATA’s Graves said. “(The) announcement by NHTSA will reduce crashes on our highways and make our industry safer.”
  
NHTSA announced that it was, in 2017, going to be requiring electronic stability control systems on all large trucks, and estimated that such a mandate could prevent more than 1,700 crashes annually. 
  
NHTSA recently reported to Congress that truck rollover and passenger ejection were the greatest threats to truck driver safety.” According to ATA Executive Vice President Dave Osiecki, many fleets have already begun voluntarily utilizing this technology and this new requirement will only speed that process.
  
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx called electronic stability control “a remarkable safety success story” that is already saving lives in passenger cars and light trucks.
  
“Requiring E.S.C. on heavy trucks and large buses will bring that safety innovation to the largest vehicles on our highways, increasing safety for drivers and passengers of these vehicles and for all road users,” Foxx added in a statement.
 
Using computers and sensor to detect when either the front or rear of a vehicle is moving inconsistently with the position of the steering wheel, ESC can brake a single wheel to automatically “nudge” a vehicle back on course.
 
While preventing heavy trucks from going off a road, that would help minimize the number of truck rollovers—which is particularly dangerous when an 80,000-pound truck is operating in crowded highway conditions.
  
NHTSA estimated the new technology would cost about $585 for each truck ($269 for buses). The technology is estimated to prevent between 1,400 and 1,800 truck crashes a year, perhaps saving as many as 650 injuries and 50 deaths.