**STATEMENT OF JOAN CLAYBROOK**

**PRESIDENT, PUBLIC CITIZEN**

**ON BEHALF OF**

**PUBLIC CITIZEN,**

**CITIZENS FOR RELIABLE AND SAFE HIGHWAYS (CRASH),**

**PARENTS AGAINST TIRED TRUCKERS,**

**AND ADVOCATES FOR HIGHWAY AND AUTO SAFETY**

**BEFORE THE SURFACE TRANSPORTATION AND MERCHANT MARINE SUBCOMMITTEE**

**SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION**

# 

# U.S. SENATE

**WASHINGTON, DC 20510**

**JUNE 10, 2003**

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee
on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marines for the opportunity to
testify on the issue of improved motor carrier safety. My name is Joan
Claybrook and I am President of Public Citizen and Chair of CRASH
(Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways). I am here today representing
the truck safety views of Public Citizen as well as Advocates for
Highway and Auto Safety (Advocates) and the Truck Safety Coalition, a
partnership of CRASH and P.A.T.T. (Parents Against Tired Truckers).

Each year, almost 5,000 people are killed in truck-related crashes and
about 130,000 more are injured. These statistics have been essentially
steady for nearly a decade. The large number of truck-related deaths and
injuries also carries an enormous personal and financial price tag.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the costs of
large truck crashes in 1997 exceeded \$24 billion.

Congress addressed this serious public health problem in 1999 by
enacting legislation, the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999
(MCSIA), Pub. L.106-159 (Dec. 9, 1999), creating a new agency, the
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), with the clear,
specific mission to make safety its top priority.

Despite repeated promises by FMCSA to significantly reduce truck-related
deaths and injuries on our highways and chart an improved course to
enhance motor carrier safety, and despite increases in funding and
resources for the new government agency, the traveling public remains
the victim of an underachieving, and at times, indifferent agency. The
annual death toll from truck-related crashes is the equivalent of 26
major airplane crashes every year. FMCSA adopted a goal in 1999 to
reduce truck deaths and injuries by 50 percent over 10 years. That goal
will not be achieved.

More recently, as stated in the U.S. Department of Transportation
Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2004, the agency has adopted a new goal
of also reducing the rate of truck crash fatalities from the baseline of
2.8 deaths per 100 million truck miles traveled (MTMT) in 1996 to no
more than 1.65 deaths per 100 MTMT in 2008. While we regard this as an
admirable -- and extraordinarily difficult goal -- to be achieved in
only a few years given the most recent rate of 2.4 deaths per 100 MTMT,
there are serious questions about the intent of the Department and the
FMCSA is choosing this new safety goal. Our concern is the fact that,
under the right circumstances, given rapid growth in truck mileage
accrued on an annual basis over the next several years, the rate of
truck deaths using this exposure measure could continue to decline, even
if only slightly, while the number of actual fatalities could increase.
We believe that the Department and the FMCSA need to reach both fatality
reduction goals, as well as to make sure that they are compatible, but
certainly not to abandon the target of dramatically reduced numbers of
truck-crash related deaths in favor of only a better death rate as the
achievement of its safety policies. This approach could be used to mask
the fact that more people really died in a given year than in the prior
year even though the rate of deaths was slightly better. NHTSA measures
and publicizes both qualities.

No one in Congress, government, industry or the general public would
ever accept as a reasonable goal 26 air plane crashes a year that are
finally cut only in half after 10 years and no one would accept excuses
from the airlines that the skies are safer for passengers who fly
because, even though more people died each year, the rate of deaths per
air mile of travel decreased. The attached chart shows that FMCSA has
yet to reach any annual benchmarks that would indicate the agency has
made progress and is on the right course. There have been only marginal
decreases in truck deaths in the last three years, the fatality rate is
essentially static, and there are additional, worrisome increases in
truck crash injuries. I want to stress that it is especially disturbing
that the slight decline in overall deaths in truck-related crash
involvements has been offset, according to the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration's early Fatal Analysis Reporting System
assessment, by an increase in the fatalities of truck occupants in these
collisions from 704 deaths in 2001 to a preliminary figure of 712 deaths
in 2002, an increase of 1.2 percent.

Yet FMCSA delays or disregards congressional mandates for long-overdue
and vital safety rulemakings. Unsafe motor carrier companies and drivers
continue to violate safety rules and threaten the safety of the
traveling public yet are insulated from effective federal oversight by
FMCSA's failures to act. Attached to my testimony is a list of safety
actions mandated by Congress since 1988 that FMCSA has ignored, delayed
or deferred. Public Citizen filed suit against the agency last fall for
not implementing five rulemaking actions. The agency immediately settled
the suit, agreeing to act on all of them with final rules by June 2004.
However, this list contains over twenty other congressional directives
that have not been completed by the agency.

Two years ago, the FMCSA was prepared to give the green light to opening
the southern border to trucks and buses from Mexico without adequate
safety measures in place. It took the direct intervention of Congress to
mandate common sense actions by the agency such as safety inspections at
proper facilities with trained professionals. Meanwhile, some sectors of
the trucking industry already are pursuing an agenda to increase truck
size and weight, to repeal the congressionally-enacted freeze on longer
combination vehicles, and seek exemptions from federal safety rules
under the ruse of so-called "pilot programs." Moreover, the agency's
failure to take concerted action to improve truck safety is at odds with
public opinion. The American public is very supportive of measures to
improve truck safety both in their opinions and their pocketbooks. When
asked in a Lou Harris public opinion poll in 1996 about truck safety, 81
percent of the respondents said they would be willing to pay more for
goods if it meant an increase in truck safety.

Three and one-half years after bi-partisan enactment of the 1999 MCSIA,
and prior to taking up the reauthorization of the Transportation Equity
Act for the 21^st^ Century (TEA-21), it is time to review with a
critical eye the progress and problems related to motor carrier safety
to assess what improvements are needed to protect public safety.

**Increasing Truck Size and Weight Will Imperil Public Safety**

Safety groups have reviewed the *Regulation of Weights, Lengths, and
Widths of Commercial Motor Vehicles*, Special Report No. 267,
Transportation Research Board (TRB) (2002), the latest effort to
rationalize bigger, heavier trucks on American roads. Every TRB special
report on truck size and weight policy over the past 16 years has
supported changes to increase the weights, lengths, and widths of large
combination trucks \-- it appears that TRB has never seen a bigger truck
it didn't like.

I would like to point out here to the members of the Committee that no
explicit truck safety experts who are known to oppose increased truck
sizes and weights were part of the TRB eight-person committee membership
producing the Special Report. Also, of the eight outside reviewers, we
know that at least four are all supportive of larger, heavier trucks.
Although Advocates, CRASH, and other truck safety organizations have
expertise and knowledge about truck size and weight safety issues and
policy, none was invited to sit on the Committee or to perform an
outside review of the draft of the Special Report.

On the merits, the Special Report is seriously flawed in several major
respects. The TRB Special Report states that there is no confirming
information that the larger, heavier truck configurations that it
champions are actually safer, would inflict less damage on highways and
bridges, or would even ultimately result in fewer heavier and larger
trucks on U.S. roads. Although the TRB Special Report supports two
specific configurations as the larger, heavier commercial vehicles of
choice for widespread use \-- a 90,000 pounds or heavier tridem
axle-based six-axle semi-trailer combination truck and a 111,000 pounds
eight-axle tridem axle-based "B Train" doubles combination composed of
twin 33-feet long trailing units \-- there are no specific arguments
anywhere in the study detailing exactly why these configurations are
better than the others reviewed in the report. In fact, the Special
Report clearly cannot demonstrate any superior safety benefits of its
two favored combination truck configurations. Also, the TRB Special
Report effectively undermines any possible rationale for supporting
these combinations by pointing out that virtually nothing is known about
the relationship between specific design configurations, crash risk, and
truck handling and stability for these larger trucks.

With regard to the increased cost of operating heavier trucks, the
Special Report argues that the infrastructure and externality costs that
increase as a result of allowing larger and heavier trucks should be
fully recaptured through adjustments in user fee equity scales, but, at
the same time, the TRB committee indicates that recovery of only the
costs of administering a permit system and of infrastructure damage is
acceptable. The Special Report fails to acknowledge the reality that
user fee equity has escaped policymakers for over 40 years, that the
current federal user fee for heavy vehicles has been capped at \$550 per
vehicle for 20 years, that the heaviest class of registered trucks
dramatically underpays its fair share of user costs, and that the
trucking industry has consistently and successfully opposed increases in
user fees to offset the actual damage caused by large trucks.

The Special Report also engages the chronic issue of illegally
overweight trucks yet fails to acknowledge how pervasive and entrenched
these violations are, and the extent to which, under current state
enforcement regimes, the continuation of these violations by major
sectors of the trucking industry are a large part of the profitability
of these enterprises. Amazingly, the FMCSA has not complied with the law
and issued the annual report on certification of size and weight
compliance since 1988.[^1]

Finally, the TRB Special Report recommends a scheme for administering
truck size and weight issues that is deeply flawed and would be
dominated by interests supporting larger, heavier trucks regardless of
the costs or safety consequences. The TRB Special Report recommends
eliminating direct Congressional involvement in establishing nationally
uniform size and weight limits, and the establishment of a new
bureaucracy, the Commercial Traffic Effects Institute, to evaluate
requests by states and the trucking industry for a variety of larger and
heavier truck configurations. Funded by a mixture of highway trust fund
and trucking industry monies, the Institute, the states, and the
trucking industry would jointly develop standards implemented by the
states to improve the safety of vehicles operating under the permit
system.

The effect of the TRB committee's proposals would turn back the clock to
a pre-1956 era of control by the states of interstate commercial
transportation, and the elimination of a meaningful Congressional role
in establishing and guaranteeing the federal interest in national size
and weight limits. This is a recommendation for a fragmented
state-by-state regime of truck size and weight limits susceptible to
inordinate influence and manipulation by trucking industry interests and
lobbying efforts. It essentially privatizes responsibility for public
safety.

These brief observations do not exhaust the full extent of the defects
in this study. As an indication of the scientific weakness of the study,
the Special Report recommends that trucks found after protracted
operational experience to have shortcomings, including safety
deficiencies, be withdrawn from service. This recommendation, however,
is a further indication of the lack of credibility of the Special Report
since no known truck configuration placed into service has ever been
withdrawn from use, including some of the most unstable combinations,
such as triple-trailer combinations composed of three short trailing
units on single axles. Currently, 16 states allow triples and no state
that has allowed their operation has banned them.[^2]

Safety groups are also concerned about possible attempts to void the
Longer Combination Vehicle (LCV) freeze that was enacted in the
Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA). This
was a hard-won victory that stopped the spread of giant triple-trailer
rigs and other immense, extra-heavy vehicles throughout the U.S., trucks
that would surely have had catastrophic crashes resulting in loss of
life and massive congestion, especially in regions of the U.S. that have
denser traffic and older road designs. The LCV freeze also stopped the
accelerated destruction of our roads and bridges at a rate that no
federal funding provisions in authorizing legislation could have kept
pace with.

The ISTEA LCV freeze was a bold, courageous move by Congress to limit
the excesses of highway truck size. It saved lives and it helped to
preserve our highways and bridges. It was a good idea 11 years ago, and
it is a good idea today. At a time when there is little progress in
decreasing truck crash deaths and injuries, we urge Congress not to
increase truck size and weights, or to repeal or weaken the LCV freeze.

The public remains steadfast in its opposition to bigger, heavier, and
larger trucks as evidenced in Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety's
public opinion poll conducted by Lou Harris in 1996. By 88 percent to 7
percent, a majority of the American public is opposed to allowing bigger
and heavier trucks on our highways.

**Recommended Actions:**

> **Oppose any increase in federal truck size and weights on a national
> level and oppose legislation allowing any individual state
> exemptions.**
>
> **Oppose repeal of the congressionally mandated freeze on longer
> combination vehicles enacted by Congress in 1991.**

**Many Truck and Bus Safety Issues at the Southern U.S. Border Are Still
Unresolved**

The safety of vehicles entering the U.S. presents special difficulties
from the standpoint of both operating safety and security. Although some
progress may have been made on issues that Congress directed DOT to
address, other important safety concerns remain unresolved.

Several safety organizations called on FMCSA to require border-zone-only
safety audits as a condition for Mexico-domiciled carriers to operate in
the commercial zones. The agency rejected this recommendation in its
March 19, 2002, final rule. This means that operating authority for
Mexico-domiciled border-zone-only carriers will be awarded solely on the
basis of paper applications, including certifications that are not
independently corroborated, and on unverified documents submitted with
the applications, such as the previous 12-month accident registers and
the names of allegedly certified laboratories for testing drivers for
alcohol and drug use. Two years ago, Congress rejected this approach to
screening Mexico-domiciled carriers seeking to operate throughout the
U.S. For both safety and security reasons, border zone Mexican motor
carriers should also undergo a more rigorous evaluation.

In addition, although FMCSA asserts that it will evaluate written safety
oversight policies and practices used by Mexico-domiciled motor
carriers, the agency does not actually require that any safety
management controls used by a company to comply with U.S. Federal Motor
Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) and the Hazardous Materials
Regulations (HMRs) be in writing. Mexico-domiciled carriers should be
required to have written safety management criteria representing how
their companies will operate to comply with U.S. requirements. This is
particularly important if the agency continues to refuse to require a
threshold safety proficiency examination of motor carriers.

The Administration has repeatedly stated and testified before Congress
that all Mexican trucks and buses that enter the U.S. and operate on
American roads must meet U.S. safety standards. Unfortunately, most
Mexican trucks and buses were not built to U.S. standards. DOT, however,
intends to turn a blind eye to this problem for two more years.

Federal law requires that all vehicles, including those operated in the
U.S. by foreign nationals to conduct trade, must be certified by the
manufacturer as built in compliance with U.S. safety standards.
Certification of compliance with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety
Standards (FMVSS) applicable at the time of manufacture is not just a
mere technicality, but an important safety protection. A number of major
safety regulations have been adopted and implemented by the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) since the late 1980s such
as anti-lock brakes for trucks and buses, automatic brake (slack)
adjusters, a requirement for rear underride guards, and, among other
things, safer emergency exits for buses.

According to unverified information from Mexican vehicle manufacturers,
an unspecified portion of the trucks and buses built in Mexico since
1994 meet U.S. standards. However, even the vehicles built to U.S.
standards were not certified as such by the manufacturers. Thus, less
(possibly far less) than one-third of the Mexican trucks and buses
currently operating on Mexico's Federal roads were built to U.S.
standards, and DOT does not know how many or which trucks and buses
were, in fact, built to U.S. safety standards. Moreover, Mexico did not
have any vehicle safety standards until recently, or any requirement
that manufacturers certify compliance with any vehicle safety standards.
Thus, for Mexican-built trucks and buses, there are no labels or
certification verifying compliance with U.S. standards. Canada has its
own certification requirement, but this is to Canadian, not U.S., safety
standards. While Canada's standards for new vehicles are similar to U.S.
standards in many respects, they are not identical. Even those Canadian
standards that mimic U.S. standards may have been adopted years after
they were required in U.S. safety standards.

The FMCSA has proposed a two-year "grace period" for these vehicles. The
agency intends to grant blanket permission to vehicles that have
previously crossed the border to continue operating in the U.S. for
another two years, regardless of whether they were or could be certified
as having been built in compliance with U.S. safety standards. This
means that unsafe vehicles that previously entered the U.S. in violation
of U.S. law, or that begin to enter the U.S. prior to the issuance of
the final rule, will be able to do so for another two years. The FMCSA
is

prepared to adopt this final rule even though it has no authority to
rewrite the safety certification laws passed by Congress.

In addition, there is no system to verify that Mexico-domiciled carriers
entering the country are properly insured by a U.S.-licensed insurer in
order to protect against liability for personal injuries and the costs
of crash and environmental clean-up in the event of a hazmat spill.

Finally, DOT has no effective plan to assure that Mexican-domiciled
carriers adhere to U.S. hours-of-service (HOS) regulations when they
enter the U.S. Although Mexican drivers may have been behind the wheel
8, 10, or even more hours when arriving at the border, FMCSA has no
practical means of determining at the border whether these drivers have
violated Mexican labor regulation restrictions on working time. At the
very least, drivers arriving at the U.S. border who already meet or
exceed the HOS 10-hour duty limit should be placed out-of-service for
the required 8 hours off-duty time period. These sleep-deprived,
fatigued drivers are a threat both to their own safety as well as to
everyone that shares U.S. roads with them. This is another reason why
electronic on-board recorders should be required on all trucks and buses
operating in the U.S.

**Recommended Actions:**

#### To ensure improved motor carrier safety at the U.S.-Mexico border Section 350 of 

> **S. 2808 (Rept. No. 107-224), Fiscal Year 2002 Appropriations
> Legislation for the U.S. Department of Transportation, should be made
> a permanent provision in the FMCSA multi-year reauthorization
> legislation with other changes to improve safety.**
>
> **Require each truck transporting general freight or hazardous
> materials, and each bus or motor coach transporting passengers in the
> U.S. domiciled in other countries must undergo a full CVSA Level One
> inspection at U.S. borders every 90 days and every truck transporting
> hazardous materials shall undergo a full CVSA Level Six inspection
> every 90 days.**

**The FMCSA Final Rule to Increase both Consecutive and Weekly Driving
Hours for Truck Drivers Is A Major Threat to Highway Safety.**

According to studies by the DOT, the National Transportation Safety
Board and other research organizations, one of the leading causes of
truck crashes is truck driver fatigue. In 2000, the FMCSA proposed
amending the federal rule on truck and bus driver hours-of-service
(HOS). In that proposal the agency was willing to trade off necessary
improvements in the federal HOS regime against increasing driving time
and shortcutting the amount of rest and recovery a commercial truck or
bus driver needs after a tour of duty. Those proposed changes are unsafe
for both commercial drivers and the public.

However, safety groups strongly supported several of the basic concepts
and elements of the proposed HOS rule. FMCSA properly acknowledged the
crucial role of adequate driver rest and recovery of peak safety
performance and alertness as crucial in avoiding operator sleep
deprivation and reduced vigilance. When commercial drivers are exhausted
from excessive daily and weekly work hours and get inadequate rest, the
risk of crashes that result in deaths and injuries substantially and
predictably increases, a fact that the FMCSA acknowledged in the
proposed rule. Large truck and bus crashes are especially lethal highway
events because commercial vehicles are much more likely to involve
passenger cars and other light vehicles in which the chances of severe
injury or death to their occupants are dramatically increased. In fact,
98 percent of the people killed in two-vehicle crashes involving
passenger vehicles and trucks are the occupants of the passenger
vehicles and, as the General Accounting Office recently stressed in its
report on the Share the Road Safely program conducted by the FMCSA,
which I will discuss later in my testimony, when passenger vehicles and
big trucks collide, the occupants of the small vehicles have more than
15 times the risk of dying as compared with the truck occupants.

Commendably, FMCSA based its proposal on the adoption of a circadian,
that is, a 24-hour work/rest shift cycle which an enormous body of
research over many years has unerringly shown is necessary for ensuring
adequate opportunity to gain sufficient recovery from long work hours.
This is in contrast to the seriously fatiguing and dangerous effects of
the rules (being changed by FMCSA as new rule) that permit drivers to
drive and rest on an unnatural 18-hour cycle. The FMCSA for the most
part also proposed a longer daily off-duty rest period than required
under the current rule -- which demands only a minimum of eight hours
off-duty -- and the agency insisted that this off-duty period be free
from interruption by dispatchers and brokers. The agency also tried to
provide for additional rest breaks during the day, although its effort
is flawed in a number of ways, and it proposed that layover or "weekend"
off-duty rest time shall take place over two successive nights. FMCSA
also prohibited split rest time for solo drivers. Finally, the agency
proposed to mandate on-board automated recordation (electronic on-board
recorders or EOBRs) of driving duty time for two classes of commercial
operators, an action Public Citizen, Advocates for Highway and Auto
Safety, and other major safety organizations have urged and supported
for many years. These reforms are necessary, well-supported by research
findings, and are essential parts of any revision of the current
regulations.

The good, however, got thrown out in favor of the bad in the recent
final rule issued by the agency in late April of this year. A circadian,
daily work schedule is gone in favor of allowing drivers to alternate
driving and sleep on a 21-hour rotation. Drivers can operate their rigs
for an additional consecutive hour before resting, an addition of one
hour to the old rule's maximum of 10 hours. This was adopted despite
overwhelming evidence in the research and the rulemaking record that the
risk of a crash soars in these late hours of driving before a rest
break, especially from the end of the 10^th^ to the end of the 11^th^
hour of driving.

But perhaps an even more disturbing feature of the new rule is the FMCSA
"restart" provision that will dramatically increase the total hours that
a driver can operate his rig on either a 7- or an 8-day duty cycle.
Under the old rule, if a driver constantly alternated driving and rest
on a 10-hours-on, 8-hours-off schedule, that driver could exhaust the
available maximum permitted driving and duty hours per 7 or 8 days in as
little as 4.5 to 5 days. Although that noncircadian rotation was
exceptionally dangerous and exhausting, putting chronically
sleep-deprived drivers behind the wheel for several days in a row, at
least the old rule required "dead" time for the remainder of the 7 or 8
day tour of duty. Drivers had as much as 3 days of layover time to
recuperate before being forced to drive this kind of horrific work
schedule again. You might say that, in a sense, the old rule provided
for a kind of "weekend" for drivers.

Under the new rule, that layover that could have been taken each week is
gone. Truck drivers can now be forced to get back into their cabs and
start 11 consecutive hours immediately after just a 34-hour off-duty
period, an amount of off-duty time that research used by the agency
itself shows is completely inadequate to restore driver alertness and
safe performance after several days of long driving time.

This is the "restart" provision that radically alters the landscape of
commercial driver hours of service in America by creating what has been
called a "floating" work week, that is, a week with no fixed number of
work days and driving hours. Whereas these drivers used to be held to a
maximum of 60 hours of total driving time in 7 days, or 70 hours total
in 8 days, under the new rule, if milked for its maximum potential,
these same drivers can be compelled to drive up to 77 hours in 7days or
88 hours in 8 days, increases of up to 23 percent more time spent behind
the wheel than formerly permitted.

Other admirable aspects of the proposed rule were also jettisoned in the
agency's quest for more hours, more work, more productivity wrung out of
commercial drivers already operating under the old rules to the point of
exhaustion and fatigue-triggered crashes. Under the 2000 proposal, solo
drivers were no longer allowed to be contacted by carrier dispatchers,
or other officials in the supply chain such as shippers, brokers, and
freight consignees during their off-duty rest period. Drivers also had
their off-duty rest period protected under the 2000 proposal. Split rest
periods in sleeper berths, which the agency's own research review showed
to be a major source of reduced length and quality of sleep for
commercial drivers, were prohibited \-- drivers had to take their daily
off-duty sleep in a single, unbroken block if they used a sleeper berth.

Under the new rule issued in April, drivers again can be constantly
harassed by officials in the supply chain to stay awake on stand-by for
notification that a load is ready for them to pick up or that a delivery
time or destination has been changed. Drivers can be repeatedly awakened
to be told that their schedule has changed and that they have to start
driving sooner. And that same driver can now go back to the practice of
splitting off-duty rest time in sleeper berths into two small portions
with hours of driving time between the two attempts to get some sleep.

In its essence, Mr. Chairman, the FMCSA has issued a final rule that
works truck drivers much harder than ever, allows the trucking industry
to demand more work than ever from them, permits carriers to give them
little more than 24 hours to begin driving another 77 or 88 hours in a
tour of duty, allows trucking officials to wake them up over and over,
and forces them under many operating circumstances to split up their
rest time into pieces while being demanded to make deliveries sooner and
faster than ever before.

Yet I have not stressed the most amazing feature of this final rule --
it claims that it will benefit safety more than the old rule! Although
it is hard to believe even while reading it, the final rule demanding
far more hours from truck drivers and allowing them less rest than ever
before claims that these changes are cost beneficial and will actually
save lives on our highways. Even though these drivers will have far more
exposure on the road in a tour of duty than ever allowed before by the
federal government -- more hours accumulated in a shorter period of time
-- and less time to rest than possible under the old regulation, the
FMCSA actually goes through an arcane exercise in benefit-cost analysis
to show how safety will be improved by longer consecutive driving hours,
far more hours driven per week, while returning to the *status quo ante*
of split sleeper berth rest time with drivers suffering repeated
interruptions during their off-duty rest periods.

It is not too strong to characterize this claim of improved safety as
simply Orwellian. It is as if the government eliminated labor law
protection of coal miners and provided a mathematics of costs and
benefits that showed that miners working longer hours per day and per
week, with less rest time, and forced to begin work at the drop of a hat
when the management of the mines demands it, are safer and healthier
than ever before. I think many members of Congress would regard such a
claim as mind boggling and defying all logic. Yet this is exactly what
the FMCSA has had the temerity to argue in issuing the final rule
dramatically increasing driving hours for truck drivers.

The last major feature of the final rule increasing commercial driver
work hours is the elimination of the 2000 proposed rule to require
on-board recorders, or EOBRs, on long-haul trucks to clock the amount of
time drivers actually spend behind the wheel. As the University of
Michigan showed a few years ago, corroborated by the FMCSA's own
regulatory analysis, violation of the regulatory ceilings on hours
worked and driven, and of minimum rest time, is a chronic practice in
the trucking industry that has gone on for decades and that has
increased with the growth of Just In Time delivery demands that have
turned truck trailers into rolling warehouses. In fact, there are
trucking companies that stay in business because they run illegal hours
and do not get caught.

The FMCSA proposed in 2000 to put an end to this abusive practice of
violating even the generous limits of the old rule by requiring
tamperproof electronic recorders to validate driving time. This would
have aligned the U.S. with European Economic Commission policy which, as
of next year, will require a change from the old mechanical tachographs
that have been required for years to new tamperproof, electronic
recorders that will be more reliable and accurate to ensure that drivers
don't exceed maximum daily and weekly driving limits.

This proposal to control excessive driving hours with EOBRs is discarded
in the final HOS rule. The FMCSA, in a startling turnaround, states that
it in fact didn't get around to reviewing the merits of any of the
recorders that it proposed certifying as compliant with the

EOBR provision in the 2000 notice of proposed rulemaking. Accordingly,
the agency states that it needs to study the issue some more because it
didn't do what it was supposed to do. No specifics are provided on how
this research would be conducted, who would perform it, what its goals
would be, when it would be completed, and how precisely it would be
brought into play with respect to the contours of the final regulation
just issued. A large percentage of the industry, cutting across all
types of highway transportation including passengers, general freight
and hazardous materials regularly use various types of electronic
on-board recorders to monitor both vehicle functions and driver
hours-of-service compliance. In the meantime, the agency will fall back
to relying on the paper logbooks that have been maintained for decades,
logbooks that are widely and systematically falsified by trucking
officials and drivers, a hand-written record of duty time that is
regularly referred to as the "comic book" by drivers who know how to
mask violations and conceal or lose documentation, such as receipts for
tolls, lodging, food, and fuel, creating a paper trail that would show
regulatory violations.

So, next year the American people and truck drivers face on our highways
a new regulation forcing drivers to work and drive even longer hours
than ever before, allowed to have little rest and effectively no layover
before being required to drive again, and to continue to exceed even the
excessive limits on driving time allowed under the new rule without any
accurate means adopted by our government to show whether these drivers
are obeying the law.

This regulation is an affront to a modern democratic society's vision of
protecting the safety, health, and well being of our workers and a
direct threat to the safety of the millions of people who share the road
every hour of every day with large trucks. This new rule is a formula
for more truck crashes, more deaths, and more injuries instead of a
well-reasoned effort to enhance highway safety and increase safe
commercial trucking practices.

Let me stress here again in closing this portion of my testimony that
this new regulation directly contradicts the policies that are evolving
in the western world about commercial driving. The European Union (EU)
is set to advance highway safety and protect drivers by reducing the
current driving hours ceiling from 56 to 48 hours, with a general limit
of nine (9) hours of driving each day, and off-duty time averaging 11
consecutive hours per day. The research supporting such reductions in
working time and increasing rest time is overwhelming and the product of
decades of investigation. But our government has ignored this research,
disregarded the safety policies of several European nations, and moved
exactly in the contrary direction to mount an increased threat to the
health and safety of the American people.

Recommended Action:

> Direct the Secretary of Transportation to conduct rulemaking and issue
> a final regulation requiring on-board recorders no later than
> September 30, 2005.

# 

# The New Motor Carrier Entrant Program Needs to Be Strengthened and Better Focused

An example of FMCSA's regulatory inaction is Section 210 of the MCSIA,
which was intended to improve the agency's safety oversight in approving
the operating authority applications of new motor carrier entrants, both
foreign and domestic. The Secretary of Transportation was directed to
issue regulations requiring each owner and operator granted new
operating authority to undergo a safety review within the first 18
months after beginning motor carrier operations. The Secretary was also
directed in that same provision to initiate minimum requirements for
applicant motor carriers, including foreign motor carriers, to ensure
their knowledge of federal safety standards, and to consider requiring a
safety proficiency examination for any motor carrier applying for
interstate operating authority.

The FMCSA took no action until Congress reiterated the need for this
rulemaking in H.R. 2299, the Department of Transportation Appropriations
bill of FY 2002. Only then \-- and belatedly \-- did FMCSA respond by
issuing an interim final rule without prior notice and comment, rather
than issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking, which would have allowed
public comment on the merits prior to adoption. 67 FR 31978 (May 13,
2002).

Unfortunately, the agency has seen fit to allow domestic carriers to be
awarded operating authority without undergoing any initial safety
evaluation, just as it has decided to allow border-zone-only
Mexico-domiciled motor carriers to be registered without a prior safety
audit. A safety audit for U.S. carriers under the interim final rule
issued by the FMCSA will only be performed after-the-fact, up to 18
months after the U.S. business is given operating authority. The FMCSA
actually notes in the interim final rule that it might not even meet the
18-month statutory deadline for conducting safety audits, thereby
providing itself with a loophole for not meeting its statutory
obligation, in direct contradiction of the express legislative intent of
Section 210. I should emphasize that the safety evaluation will not be a
comprehensive compliance review that results in a safety rating. As a
result, the new entrant approval process put into effect by FMCSA [will
still allow domestic motor carriers to operate indefinitely without any
assigned safety rating!]{.underline}

The FMCSA should be directed to revise this policy to ensure that a new
entrant motor carrier is not allowed to begin operations without either
demonstration of its safety knowledge or its safety management
competence. The agency should revise its interim final rule to require
either a threshold safety proficiency examination of the applicant motor
carrier, in accordance with the Congressional direction in Section 210
of the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999, or to conduct a
safety management review of the new entrant, including an inspection of
its equipment and an evaluation of its safety management practices and
competence. Without this initial safety evaluation of new applicant
motor carriers, the agency essentially is allowing untested companies to
begin hauling freight, transporting hazardous materials, and carrying
passengers based only on a brief paper application that is accompanied
by a fee paid by the applicant.

Two years ago, Congress required both an initial and a subsequent
on-site safety evaluation of Mexico-domiciled motor carriers to ensure
that they have adopted adequate safety practices before they are allowed
to operate on U.S. roads. Safety groups believe that Congress should
also require a similar on-site safety evaluation of domestic carriers,
or that these applicants demonstrate successful performance on a safety
proficiency examination, as the basis for awarding conditional operating
authority. A grant of permanent operating authority should be made based
on an "exit" safety evaluation after the first 18 months of operation,
including a review on site of safety equipment and an evaluation of
safety management practices. However, it is not wise or responsible to
allow these carriers to be awarded permanent operating authority without
ever receiving a full safety compliance review and an assigned safety
rating.

I want to list here our recommendations for reforming the new entrant
program to make it a better fail-safe test of the capability of new
motor carriers to conduct operations and to avoid creating an even
bigger backlog of unrated carriers -- currently almost 450,000 are
unrated \-- and of the many thousands of carriers bearing older,
unrenewed ratings. We also think that the task of the agency immediately
being expected to rate upwards of 40,000 new entrant applicants each
year is an overwhelming task that needs to be spread out over several
years before it operates at full throttle. I also want to stress that a
strengthened new entrant program can eliminate many carriers whose
safety practices and knowledge of how to comply with the Federal Motor
Carrier Safety Regulations are inadequate. If we can weed out the bad
actors early in their operating histories, not only will safety improve,
but also unsafe carriers will be prevented from swelling the rolls of
the registered interstate companies carrying freight and passengers for
a few months only to go quickly out of business.

Recommended Actions:

> **Congress should direct FMCSA to establish a 5-year phase-in for
> evaluating new motor carrier entrants with a protocol for identifying
> high-risk carriers that would most strongly benefit from an initial
> safety evaluation.**
>
> **The FMCSA should be directed to conduct an "exit" safety evaluation
> of each new motor carrier after 18 months of operation.** **If a
> carrier fails this evaluation, a full safety compliance review should
> be triggered that results in an assigned safety rating.**

**Truck Crash Data Collection is Inadequate and Inaccurate Due to a Lack
of Uniformity.**

Section 225 of the MCSIA calls on the Secretary through the joint
efforts of the FMCSA and the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) to cooperate with the states to improve
collection and analysis of crash data involving commercial motor
vehicles. However, there has been no action to require a nationally
uniform crash data report form to be filled out by enforcement
authorities so that a detailed, accurate national data base of crash
information on trucks and buses can be relied upon by both agencies to
determine safety policies, including countermeasures and the accuracy of
data entries to SafeStat to detect high-risk motor carriers in relation
to their safety performance under the new entrant program, among other
uses.

> **Recommended Actions:**
>
> **Congress should direct the Secretary to conduct rulemaking in
> cooperation with NHTSA to adopt a nationally uniform crash data
> collection format that all states are required to use in order to
> increase the accuracy and reliability of data concerning crashes and
> other incidents involving commercial motor vehicles.**

**Congress should direct the Secretary to conduct rulemaking to consider
changes to**

**improve the SafeStat system itself, including, among other things, the
use of**

**exposure measures, such as vehicle-miles-traveled, in calculating the
safety scores of**

**carriers with regard to acute and critical violations.**

# FMCSA Pursues Experimental "Pilot Programs" At The Expense of Safety

Another example of how FMCSA defers Congressional directives and
violates legislated deadlines for action is its pursuit of so-called
"pilot programs." The agency has offered a series of pilot programs over
the last several years and continues to publish new initiatives even
while ignoring legislatively mandated pilot programs, such as the
Improved Flow of Driver History pilot study required by Section 4022 of
TEA-21. Moreover, the agency offers one pilot program after another
without having concluded rulemaking, as directed by Section 4007 of
TEA-21, to adopt the procedures for regulatory exemptions from the
FMCSRs. No final rule setting out these procedures has been issued and
the agency's most recent semi-annual regulatory agenda has again pushed
back the deadline for final action to March 2003. 67 FR 33487-33488 (May
13, 2002). But no action has been taken while action under the deadline
is now three months overdue.

The FMCSA has proposed a pilot program to lower the age for interstate
drivers of big trucks and motor coaches from the current minimum age of
21, to only 18-20 years old. This action was taken in response to a
petition from an interstate motor carrier interest group that has argued
for years that there are not enough commercial drivers to fill jobs
driving large trucks and, so, the only solution is to start getting
truck drivers even younger than 21. At one time, the minimum age for an
interstate commercial driver was 25 years old.

In comments opposing the 18-20 years old pilot program, major safety
organizations systematically set out the research results, some of them
produced by DOT itself, that consistently have shown for more than 30
years that teenage drivers in any vehicles have dramatically elevated
crash involvement and traffic violation rates. These organizations
detailed the research showing that current young truck drivers 21-25
years of age are badly over-represented in traffic violation convictions
and in crash involvement rates. Also, they pointed out that every
credible study for decades on the value of driver training has shown
that even intensive driver training of young drivers makes little
difference to their eventual crash involvement and violations rates.

The FMCSA Pilot Program for younger drivers comes at a time when States,
at the urging of DOT and safety groups, are enacting graduated driver
license systems in order to reduce the exposure of teenage drivers to
the risks of operating passenger motor vehicles when they are very
young. Putting teenage drivers behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound big
rig or a 55-passenger interstate motor coach is a regressive move and a
recipe for potential catastrophes.

The FMCSA has increasingly attempted to regulate through pilot programs,
exemptions, and waivers over the last several years instead of
fulfilling Congressionally mandated rulemaking requirements and meeting
legislated deadlines. The agency expends resources on these experimental
efforts instead of completing its enormous backlog of unmet regulatory
actions \-- a backlog that the DOT officials in 1999 fervently promised
would be dealt with expeditiously. Congress relied on those
representations in establishing an upgraded and separate federal motor
carrier safety agency.

> **Recommended Actions:**
>
> **Congress should eliminate the use of pilot programs, waivers and
> exemptions by FMCSA unless specifically directed by Congress**.

**Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety Oversight Is Dangerously
Inadequate.**

The events of September 11, 2001 have pointed to another area requiring
Congressional attention where safety and security are intertwined. This
is the highway transportation of hazardous materials (hazmat). Safety
groups are convinced that there are a number of aspects of hazmat
transportation that can be readily addressed to make significant
improvements in safety and security.

At present, motor carriers that want to transport hazmat need only
register with the Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA),
pay the required fee (currently \$300 per year), and begin to haul
hazardous materials throughout the U.S. There is no requirement for a
motor carrier, once it has secured general (non-hazmat) operating
authority from the FMCSA, to go back to that agency and notify it that
it has begun hauling hazmat. RSPA does not inform the FMCSA of the
carriers that register to haul hazmat, and the FMCSA does not ask RSPA
for hazmat registration information. This lack of coordination and
cooperation between the FMCSA and RSPA is ridiculous and creates
opportunities for abuses.

No motor carrier seeking to start hauling hazmat should be able to make
this kind of major shift in its transportation services without the
FMCSA knowing about it. A motor carrier should not only be required to
notify the FMCSA immediately that it is beginning to haul hazmat by
having to register with RSPA, but each carrier should have to apply to
the FMCSA for additional operating authority for hazmat carriage. This
application should include a safety audit of the motor carrier's
operations and a proficiency exam specifically for the purpose of
testing the carrier's knowledge of and capability to comply with the
federal hazmat regulations.

In addition to operating authority, there is insufficient evidence of
RSPA and FMCSA constantly coordinating hazmat regulation for motor
carriers. RSPA has proposed requiring written security plans and
expanded training for all motor carriers, both foreign and domestic,
that apply to haul hazmat and Centers for Disease Control infectious
disease selected agents (IDSA) in the U.S. This proposed requirement for
training employees in hazmat/IDSA safety knowledge and safety measures
would also affect all carriers entering the U.S. Aside from the fact
that RSPA does not contemplate directly supervising the implementation
of these requirements to ensure they are carried out in an effective
manner, the two agencies do not have a joint plan for the effective
implementation of this proposal with respect to Mexico-domiciled or, for
that matter, Canadian-domiciled motor carriers. Neither has FMCSA
announced how it intends to verify that the requirements are met by
foreign-domiciled motor carriers entering the U.S. If this regulation is
adopted by RSPA, it is crucial that the agencies determine how it will
be implemented for foreign-domiciled motor carriers and how the two
agencies will be able to determine that compliance by companies hauling
hazmat/IDSA has been achieved. We recommend that Congress inquire of the
two agencies how they contemplate implementing this RSPA rule and what
coordinated actions will be taken to achieve compliance especially by
foreign motor carriers.

Truck drivers, after obtaining a hazmat endorsement for the commercial
drivers' license (CDL) by merely passing a written exam, can legally
drive tractor semi-trailers carrying 80,000 pounds of placarded hazmat
throughout the U.S. This underscores the crucial need for a secure and
reliable identification of hazmat drivers to prevent dangerous and
unauthorized persons from transporting hazmat. The Truck and Bus
Regulatory Reform Act of 1988 directed the Secretary to issue
regulations by December 31, 1990, establishing minimum uniform standards
for a biometric identification system to ensure the accurate
identification of drivers. DOT took no regulatory action in response to
this mandate. As a result, in 1998 Congress directed that CDLs contain
some form of unique identifier after January 1, 2001, to minimize fraud
and illegal duplication. Once again, there has been no action on this
issue. As a result, Public Citizen, CRASH, and PATT sued FMCSA on this
and four other rules on which no action had been taken for unreasonable
delay. FMCSA settled the lawsuit agreeing to specific deadlines for
action on each of these rules. For hazmat minimum standards for drivers,
the agency agreed to issue the rule by March 30, 2004. Failure to meet
this deadline allows the court to hold the agency in contempt. In light
of changed circumstances concerning the safety transport of hazmat
transported across the U.S., Congress should direct the Secretary to
accelerate the development of a unique identifier, at least for
commercial drivers with hazmat endorsements. This biometric or other
unique security identification would dovetail with the background
criminal and driving record checks for hazmat licensure and endorsements
that soon will come into play as a result of Section 1012 of the USA
PATRIOT Act, Title X, Pub. L. 107-56 (Oct. 26, 2001).

The ability to determine the location of drivers and hazmat loads on
trucks is another crucial aspect for hazmat safety oversight. All hazmat
carriage, including transport by motor vehicle, should be governed by
Global Positioning System (GPS) technology that would permit real-time
tracking of hazmat loads. This should be a requirement for gaining
operating authority as a hazmat carrier. Safety inspectors should also
be able to access GPS data in order to confirm other sources of hours of
service compliance, as well as to determine whether hazmat vehicles have
taken prohibited routes or have evaded safety inspections or weigh
stations.

With regard to hazmat routes, the current routing regulations for
non-radioactive hazardous materials highway transport are too general
and inadequate. The federal requirements do not require states even to
have highway routing criteria for these hazmat shipments, and many
states continue to allow loads of hazmat to be transported on most roads
and through major metropolitan areas across the nation regardless of
population or traffic conditions. Even worse, the burdens imposed on the
states by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to justify
alternative, diversionary routes for public and environmental protection
have a chilling effect on the willingness of states and local public
authorities to tell hazmat carriers to use longer, safer routes.
Congress should require the states to adopt non-radioactive hazmat
routing criteria instead of leaving this action to state option.

Let me stress here at the end of this section of my testimony on hazmat
transportation that the tragedies of 9/11 and, earlier, of the Murrah
Federal Building bombing in 1995, as well as the repeated orange alerts
issued for possible terrorist attacks have not impressed its message on
the Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA). Recent final
regulations issued by RSPA indicate that the agency is not prepared to
regulate vigorously in the area of hazardous materials (hazmat)
transportation security.[^3] As reviewed below, the final rules have
little prescriptive content and, in general, they do not change current
regulations about the types and quantities of hazmat that may be
transported by motor carriers that, if made more stringent, could result
in tighter security control and improved public safety.

This is surprising in light of 9/11 and the increased concern about the
potential for hazmat incidents. In both rulemaking examples, the agency
backed down from reasonable proposals in reaction to industry
objections. In another instance RSPA's decision fails to achieve
government uniformity in how specific quantities of hazmat are regulated
because it rejected any willingness to use the different, more stringent
definitions of hazmat applied by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms. Here is an overview of both regulations' deficiencies:

-   The RSPA deleted most of the major requirements of a proposed rule
    that would arguably improve enforcement oversight of hazmat security
    after receiving negative comments from the trucking industry (see
    specific aspects below).

-   The RSPA will require offerors and carriers of hazmat to have
    security plans, but will not prescribe what the plans must contain,
    will not review and approve them before adoption, and will not keep
    any on file at the agency.

-   The RSPA will require employee hazmat training, but will not specify
    any training requirements.

-   The RSPA will not require hazmat offerors or carriers to verify the
    accuracy of information supplied by job applicants who will handle
    or transport hazmat.

-   The RSPA has rejected changing any of the current types or level of
    hazmat requiring placarding, in order to increase hazmat
    transportation security, based on the more stringent definitions of
    hazmat used by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

-   The RSPA makes no mention of the longstanding Congressional
    statutory mandate to institute a federal permitting system for
    specific types of hazmat explosives, toxic-by-inhalation agents, and
    highway route-controlled radioactive substances.

-   The RSPA has ruled that mixtures of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil,
    like that used to blow up the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma
    City in 1995, are not a sufficient security risk when transported in
    commerce to warrant detailed employee background checks for those
    workers handling or transporting such mixtures.

-   The RSPA has also ruled that it will not change the types or
    quantities of hazmat requiring placarding to place more stringent
    requirements on transporting toy caps, signal devices, flares, and
    distress signals (either combustible or explosive) in less than
    1,000 lbs. quantities; the agency judged that such hazmat does not
    present a significant security threat involving their use during
    transportation for a criminal or terrorist act.

> More detailed comments on the two regulations are attached in Appendix
> B.

[Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA), Final Rule;
Security Requirements for Offerors and Transporters of Hazardous
Materials, 68 FR 14510 *et seq.*, March 25, 2003]{.underline}

> The NPRM published May 2, 2002, proposed the following main features:

-   Requirement for motor carriers already registered with the agency to
    maintain a copy of that current registration certificate on board
    each motor vehicle transporting hazmat.

-   Requirement for shipping papers to show the name and address of both
    the consignor (origin) and of the consignee (receiver) and for the
    shipping papers to show the shipper's U.S. DOT Hazmat Registration
    number.

-   Requirement that shipper and carrier of certain highly hazardous
    materials develop and implement hazmat transportation security
    plans.

-   Requirement that hazmat shippers and carriers assure that their
    employee training includes a security component.

The agency received more than 270 comments "from hazardous materials
shippers, carriers, industry associations, and local government
agencies." There is no acknowledgement that RSPA received comments from
any commercial motor vehicle or highway safety organizations anywhere in
the final rule, although Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety filed
extensive comments pointing out the cardinal shortcomings of the
proposed rule. The highlights of the final rule are:

-   RSPA states that security measures cannot adversely affect the
    efficient transportation of hazmat or impose excessive economic
    burdens on the hazmat transportation industry.

-   The agency deleted a requirement that a copy of current hazmat
    registration be on board each vehicle. RSPA accepted the industry's
    position that the certificate is no proof of security clearance for
    the hazmat carrier because "in no case is any background
    investigation conducted before registering an applicant, or even
    investigation to ensure that the applicant is a bona fide company
    legitimately engaged in the offering for transport and/or
    transporting hazardous materials." RSPA does not mention any
    consideration for future rulemaking to propose such required
    background checks of hazmat carrier applicants.

-   RSPA deleted a requirement that shipping papers have current hazmat
    registration number because of industry opposition.

-   Although RSPA believed the proposal had merit it rejected in the
    final rule a requirement that shipping papers have name and address
    of both consignor and consignee.

-   Although RSPA adopted a requirement for security plans for both
    offerors of hazmat and carriers of hazmat there are no required
    elements for the plans in the final rule, shippers and carriers can
    use any risk model they like, and the agency will not review the
    plans for adequacy before the time of their adoption. RSPA also
    strengthens language in final rule as compared with the proposed
    rule to reduce the liability of a shipper or carrier if a terrorist
    action happens despite their compliance with the terms of the final
    rule.

-   RSPA weakened a requirement for employers who are shippers or
    carriers to confirm information provided by job applicants who would
    handle or transport hazmat. RSPA weakens the final rule by changing
    the employer's responsibility from "verify" to "confirm" that
    information supplied by job applicants is accurate and agrees with
    industry comments that "verify" is too stringent. Moreover, RPSA
    "do\[es\] not expect companies to confirm all of the information
    that a job applicant may provide as part of the application
    process." A question here is whether this meets the letter and
    spirit of the U.S. PATRIOT Act.

-   RSPA requires that employee hazmat training contain a security
    component but will not specify what to require.

[Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA), Interim Final
Rule: Enhancing Hazardous Materials Transportation Security. 68 FR 23832
*et seq.*, May 5, 2003]{.underline}

No prior NPRM. This interim final rule incorporates into the Hazardous
Materials Regulations (HMR) a requirement that shippers and transporters
of certain hazmat comply with federal security regulations that apply to
motor carrier and vessel transportation. The final rule also revises the
procedures for applying for an exemption from the HMR to require
applicants to certify compliance with applicable federal transportation
security laws and regulations. The final rule has several major
weaknesses:

-   It requires persons offering for transport or actually transporting
    hazmat to develop and implement security plans, but the rule relies
    on the existing regulations concerning the types and amounts of
    hazmat and Centers for Disease Control "select agents."

-   RSPA considered and rejected consideration of the application of the
    more stringent definitions of 'hazmat' used by the Bureau of
    Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. RSPA nonetheless concluded that its
    present threshold amounts for placarding of certain radioactive
    materials, explosives, and agents toxic by inhalation are sufficient
    to control any security risk of their improper use. This means that
    the agency required placarding and the use of a security plan to
    these smaller amounts of hazmat regulated by BATF.

-   The agency makes no mention of the hazmat motor carrier federal
    permitting requirements Congress adopted in 49 U.S.C. § 5109 for
    specific types of hazmat that have never been implemented despite a
    clear statutory command enacted 10 years ago.

-   RSPA concludes in the interim final rule that mixtures of ammonium
    nitrate and fuel oil, like that used to blow up the Murrah federal
    building in Oklahoma City in 1995, "do\[es\] not meet the definition
    of a Class 1 material under the HMR" and that they "generally
    do\[es\] not pose a sufficient security risk when transported in
    commerce to warrant detailed employee background checks."

-   RSPA also has decided throughout the interim final rule that it will
    not review or disturb the current threshold quantities of different
    hazmat requiring placarding, such as toy caps, signal devices,
    flares, and distress signals less than 454 kg (1,000 lbs.). As a
    result, the agency states that it has judged that "\[w\]hen shipped
    in amounts that do not require placarding, such shipments do not
    pose a security risk when transported in commerce sufficient to
    warrant detailed employee background check requirements at this
    time" and they "generally do not present a significant security
    threat involving their use during transportation for a criminal or
    terrorist act."

This is the quality of protection the U.S. people and their property are
provided in this weak regulation. Although RSPA openly states that it is
authorized under 49 U.S.C. § 5101 *et seq.* to designate any hazmat,
including explosives, as dangerous when transporting it in commerce
because it poses an unreasonable risk to health, safety, or security,
the agency has judged "that the most significant security risks are
associated with the transportation of explosives shipments in quantities
that require placarding under the HMR." The shippers and carriers must
formulate security plans to cover such transport, but the agency will
not change the types and quantities of explosives subject to placarding
that were adopted in a different -- pre 9/11/01 \-- era.

**Recommended Actions:**

**Congress should direct RSPA to review the need to expand the types of
materials subject to the hazmat regulations; evaluate the need to lower
the quantities permitted to be transported without placarding and the
other current safety requirements (emergency notification procedures,
etc.); require specific training and security plan criteria to be
applied by RSPA for motor carriers.**

**Congress should reaffirm its direction to the Secretary to implement
the federal safety permitting process in 49 U.S.C. 5109 for certain
types of especially dangerous hazmat while also requiring an agency
evaluation of whether the current types and quantities of hazmat listed
there should be changed.**

> **Congress should direct RSPA, after motor carriers of hazmat register
> with RSPA as currently required, to provide immediate notification of
> such registration to FMCSA. And, subsequent to registration with both
> agencies, a hazmat motor carrier shall undergo both a preliminary
> safety review to determine initial safety fitness, as well as
> subsequent compliance reviews with a satisfactory rating in order to
> continue transporting hazmat both interstate and intrastate.**
>
> **Require Level Six Inspections of all trucks of motor carriers
> domiciled in other countries that are transporting placardable hazmat
> into the U.S. every 90 days**.
>
> **Require all motor carriers transporting hazmat to be equipped with
> tracking systems, electronic on-board hours of service recorders,
> truck/tractor/trailer security interdiction technology, and crash data
> event recorders.**
>
> **In order to improve security and safety, the Secretary is directed
> to issue regulations to implement 49 U.S.C. § 5109 by specifying the
> types and amounts of hazardous materials (hazmat) that can be
> transported only with a federal permit:**

**National System of Uniform Hazmat Motor Carrier Transportation
Permits.**

> **Direct FMCSA to Assign Unique, Including Biometric Identifiers to
> All CDL Holders with Hazmat Endorsements.**

### 

### Direct FMCSA to Establish Regulations Requiring the States to Adopt Specific Routing Controls for Motor Carrier Transport of Hazmat.

## **Defects in the Current Commercial Driver License (CDL) Program Permit Abuses** 

The time has come for the U.S. DOT to place more rigorous requirements
on the ability to obtain and renew a CDL. It is at present far too easy
to obtain a CDL in the U.S. No training or prior certification of any
kind is needed to apply for and obtain a license to operate a truck or
bus in interstate commerce. It is even easier in most states to obtain a
license to operate a truck or bus solely intrastate. In fact, in some
states, a chauffeur's license or, in some instances, even an ordinary
passenger vehicle operator's license, is sufficient to operate a smaller
commercial motor vehicle.

Interstate CDLs are issued by states according to very minimal federal
rules, which have both a written and an on-road component. In most
cases, passing a state test to obtain a CDL requires no specialized
instruction. Many applicants are self-taught, have prepped with the aid
of mail-order courses, or have been given only a few lessons by a truck
or bus driver they know. No certification of any kind, such as the
demonstration of having passed a federally approved training course,
must be presented to take a multiple choice paper examination for the
basic interstate CDL. The driving part of the test is often brief and
perfunctory, and is often conducted in the parking lot of the inspection
area. Many commercial drivers admit that they learned how to operate a
truck only through their employment experience. This results in
inexperienced drivers when they first take to the road carrying freight
throughout the U.S.

Special endorsements, such as the additional authorization to haul
placardable quantities of hazardous materials, are, again, simply
written "knowledge" tests. The applicant does not need to demonstrate
any driving skills, but only answer a set of written questions about
hazardous materials transport. There is no limit on the number of times
that a test can be taken by an applicant, so many drivers simply take
the test until they pass it. According to news reports, the average
failure rate for the hazardous materials endorsement in one state,
Oregon, is only slightly higher than the failure rate for applicants
taking the very simple test for a passenger vehicle driver's license (38
percent versus 35 percent).

Another key shortcoming of the federal CDL rules is the lack of a
requirement for a commercial license for drivers operating trucks that
are less than 26,001 pounds gross vehicle weight. There are millions of
single-unit trucks weighing between 10,001 and 26,000 pounds operating
in interstate commerce with drivers who have no CDLs, who are not
subject to mandatory drug and alcohol testing, and for whom the states
often have patchy, unreliable driver records of traffic and other
violations and convictions. This class of trucks comprise large
single-unit delivery trucks, such as beverage trucks, large single-unit
trucks used for interstate (primarily regional) movement of certain
combustibles, small tankers used for propane delivery, single-unit
regional moving vans, and many other single-unit trucks transporting a
wide variety of cargo. Single-unit trucks are responsible for nearly a
third of all truck-related fatalities and pose a significant safety
problem. Overall, more than 40 percent of severe to fatal injuries each
year in truck-related crashes are the result of single-unit truck
collisions, according to FMCSA.

Congress should extend the CDL requirement to vehicles weighing between
10,001 and 26,000 pounds. By this action, Congress would include drivers
in this weight class in an existing mandate for new data collection
covering CDL-holders pursuant to Congressional direction in both the
1998 Transportation Equity Act for the Twenty-First Century (TEA-21) and
the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999 (MCSIA). This
information could be crucial in our efforts to improve both safety and
security oversight of drivers operating commercial motor vehicles.

Recommended Actions:

> Congress should direct FMCSA to issue a final regulation requiring
> drivers to secure CDLs to operate commercial motor vehicles between
> 10,001 and 26,000 pounds gross vehicle weight.

**FMCSA Should be Directed to Implement the Recommendations of the U.S.
DOT Office of Inspector General for Improving Federal and State
Administration of the CDL.**

Little more than a year ago, the U.S. Department of Transportation's
Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released its detailed audit on the
federal and state administration of the Commercial Driver License (CDL),
*Improving the Testing and Licensing of Commercial* Drivers,
MH-2002-093, May 8, 2002. In general, the OIG found that federal
standards and state control over the issuance and follow-up oversight of
the CDL were not sufficient to defend against the threat posed by
individuals who seek to fraudulently obtain CDLs. The current federal
standards do not adequately address how the states should verify the
eligibility of CDL applicants, and the states themselves do not fully
implement the existing federal standards to adequately monitor
third-party testers. The OIG found with regard to the last mentioned
issue of third-party testers that 23 states did not require these
examiners to annually take the driving skills test administered by the
third-party testers.

The OIG also found that, although the FMCSA has increased the quality of
its oversight reviews of state CDL programs, the agency nevertheless
needs to broaden its reviews, improve the basis on which the states
annually certify that their programs comply with federal standards, and
ensure that problems identified in state programs are corrected. The OIG
also stressed that the agency needs to use the sanctions available to it
when states fail to correct significant problems.

The OIG noted in its audit report that that successful implementation of
many of its corrective actions is contingent upon the completion of
several rulemaking actions. However, to date, we are not aware of any
rulemaking actions that have been proposed or completed to address the
multiple abuses in the current CDL program to improve state oversight of
their licensing efforts to prevent fraud.

**Recommended Actions:**

Congress should direct FMCSA to issue a final regulation that implements
the findings and recommendations of the U.S. DOT Office of Inspector
General's Report to enhance safety and security. The final rule should
include specific countermeasures that prevent fraudulent, inaccurate, or
inadequate information from being used by the states to issue or renew
CDLs; that ensure the competence and qualifications of licensing
examiners, including third-party examiners; that improve the federal
oversight and review process for determining the adequacy of state CDL
programs; and that apply appropriate federal sanctions to any state that
seriously or repeatedly violates federal requirements for conducting its
CDL program.

Unacceptable Loopholes Still Exist for Commercial Drivers with Unsafe
Personal Driving Records to Obtain and Retain a CDL.

Section 201 of Title II of the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of
1999 (H.R. 3419), the enabling legislation for the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration (FMCSA), provides for several new or amended types
of CDL-holder disqualifications for a variety of offenses committed
while operating either a commercial motor vehicle or a non-commercial
motor vehicles (non-CMV). However, the language needs to be amended
because of several undesirable outcomes that occurred when the agency
finally implemented the provision several years after the congressional
deadline.

The FMCSA proposed implementing regulations for Section 201 (g) on May
4, 2001 (66 FR 22499 *et seq.*) and July 27, 2001 (66 FR 39248 *et
seq.*). In those proposed rules, the agency adopted several
disqualification periods for various offenses committed by operating a
non-CMV.[^4] However, subsequent to the issuance of a final rule on July
31, 2002 (67 FR 49742 *et seq.*), the FMCSA issued an amended final rule
in response to a petition from several parties. 68 FR 4394 *et seq.*
(January 29, 2003). In that revision to the July 31, 2002, final rule,
the FMCSA acknowledged that it had adopted disqualification periods for
non-CMV offenses committed by CDL holders without regard for whether
those offenses resulted in CDL suspension or revocation. Petitioners had
alleged that the agency had exceeded its statutory authority by adopting
provisions triggering CDL-holder disqualification without also
specifying that such disqualification shall result only if the
violations also result in CDL suspension or revocation.

The consequence of this FMCSA January 2003 revision is far-reaching.
Convictions for serious offenses by CDL holders in non-CMVs that would
have systematically resulted in disqualification periods for CDL holders
will now trigger disqualification only if the convictions result in
suspension or revocation. This means that what had been adopted as a
federally uniform system of removing offending CDL holders from the
highways has effectively become a highly uneven system of
disqualification that depends on individual state practice. If, for
example, a CDL holder is convicted for one, two, or even three
disqualifying offenses, but the state that issued the CDL does not
require suspension especially after the first or second convictions,
this CDL holder can continue to drive in interstate commerce.

In the final rule of July 31, 2002, the FMCSA acknowledged that
convictions for the same serious offenses that would trigger
disqualification for CDL holders that occurred prior to the issuance of
a CDL would not adversely impact a CDL applicant in seeking commercial
licensure: "\[O\]nly non-CMV convictions for offenses committed after a
person obtains a CDL can be counted against his or her driving record."
67 FR 49745.

This is an anomalous result that needs correction in authorization
legislation. If

Congress intended that CDL holders be held accountable for convictions
for serious offenses committed with a non-CMV, then it is equally
important that convicted repeat offenders not be allowed to gain a CDL
despite a string of prior serious violations. Section 201 of the Motor
Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999 should be amended so that an
individual with 3 convictions involving a non-CMV for the same offenses
that trigger disqualification after gaining a CDL shall be barred from
being granted a CDL for at least 3 years after the third conviction for
a serious traffic violation. If the non-CMV holder has been convicted
for any serious offense for use of alcohol or controlled substances, or
for an at-fault crash resulting in a fatality, the non-CMV holder is
barred for life from being issued a CDL.

> **Recommended Action:**

**Section 201(g)(1) should be amended to ensure that CDL holders will
have their licenses suspended or revoked for all serious traffic
violations and not just those violations that have resulted in
suspension or revocation of a personal driver license.**

**Congress should direct FMCSA to issue a rule establishing the
requirement that applicants are eligible to be awarded a CDL only if
they have a convictions-free driving record for the previous three years
for serious violations committed with any vehicle less than 26,000
pounds gross vehicle weight rating.**

The Federal Medical Certification Required of Commercial Drivers Needs
to Be Strengthened and Merged with the Commercial Driver License

Although the FMCSA began the process almost 10 years ago of merging the
commercial driver license (CDL) and the certificate issued to a
commercial driver every two years showing that the driver meets the
medical standards for operating trucks and buses in interstate commerce,
that initiative stopped in the middle 1990s and no further action has
been taken on this important issue.

A number of abuses have been shown by the FMCSA and even representatives
in the trucking industry to be chronic problems in the current federal
regime with the medical certification and the CDL issued as separate
documents. Among other issues, drivers are sometimes tempted to drive
with an expired certification because they failed their medical exams
but their CDLs are still not up for renewal. Any action taken by the
FMCSA to merge the two documents must ensure that drivers cannot get
away with driving illegally with an expired medical certification.

I want to take this opportunity to voice our strong support for the
Administration's proposal in Section 4005 of the "Safe, Accountable,
Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2003" calling for
enactment of a medical review board and a national registry of certified
medical examiners. Both of these ideas have considerable merit and, in
fact, are long- overdue policy actions by the Department of
Transportation. However, I believe that the current provision, as
drafted, needs to be amended to specify that a central duty of the
appointees to the medical board is the review of appeals of physical
qualification denials issued by the prospective medical examiners. The
expertise of these health care providers should be applied to resolving
challenges to any denials of medical certifications for commercial
drivers.

It also is important for a medical review board in the FMCSA to be the
result of selection criteria evaluated through public rulemaking by the
agency. Further, the conduct of business by the board should always be
in the sunshine to the extent permitted by privacy law and regulation.
For example, Congress needs to specifically ensure that the meetings of
the board will be open to public attendance, that all work products of
the board including draft documents will be available for public review,
and that the meetings of the board and any subcommittees or task forces
are recorded for which a transcript is made available for public use.

In addition, we recommend that term limits be placed on medical review
board service. Appointments to the board should not exceed a term of
three/four years, and a current member should not be able to succeed
herself -- membership should be on a constantly rotating basis in order
to guarantee that fresh talent and perspectives are consistently
injected into the board advice and recommendations.

We also strongly support the other part of Section 4005 in the
Administration's bill establishing a national registry of appropriately
trained medical examiners that lists the certified preferred providers
for conducting the physical qualification medical examinations for
commercial motor vehicle drivers. This kind of national list of trained
health care providers certified to conduct the physical examinations
will finally put an end to the multiple abuses under the current system
that sometimes result in unqualified drivers nevertheless being given a
pass to continue to operate trucks and buses in interstate commerce. For
example, a famous insider joke among commercial drivers concerns "doctor
shopping" -- which, under the current FMCSA regulation also includes an
advanced practice nurse, a physician's assistant, and a chiropractor. If
you can't find a health care provider to pass you the first go-around,
you have a good chance if you keep trying.

The ease with which some drivers can find a health care provider to
certify them has multiple causes. First, many practitioners are not
aware that the medical standards for commercial drivers in several major
health areas are higher and more stringent than for passenger vehicle
licensure. As a result, some drivers can pass a physical linked to
operation of a passenger vehicle, but would fail a medical examination
using the higher standards for interstate commercial vehicle operation.
It's not that most of these practitioners are not competent but rather
that they don't know the regulations -- and many drivers are happy that
they don't.

Unfortunately, there are also health care providers who override the
criteria of the regulations and nevertheless certify a driver even
though technically that driver failed some part of the exam. There also
are providers who do not conduct a thorough physical, failing to test in
required health areas, so that certification is provided on the basis of
an incomplete exam.

These abuses can be substantially curtailed, if not eliminated, if the
FMCSA is instructed to think along the lines of the well-trained, highly
skilled cadre of flight surgeons currently used the Federal Aviation
Administration that is specifically dedicated to performing the
physicals for commercial pilots. We recommend that the FMCSA conduct
rulemaking to garner a wide range of views on what the training and
certification standards should be to govern these medical examiners. A
national registry, for one thing, should be based on some demonstration
of knowledge and proficiency in conducting physical examinations, and
for an applicant to demonstrate a detailed understanding of the
different medical standards in the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety
Regulations used to qualify commercial drivers. We also recommend that
anyone listed on the national registry be periodically re-certified by
passing another proficiency examination as well as undergoing refresher
training.

**Recommended Action:**

> **Direct FMCSA to include the driver fitness certification in the CDL
> issuance and renewal process, ensure that renewal periods coincide for
> both CDLs and medical certifications in each state, and establish a
> preferred registry of health care providers who pass a rigorous
> certification examination demonstrating their knowledge and competence
> to conduct comprehensive physical examinations of drivers seeking
> medical certification, including their understanding of the Federal
> Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.**

# The "Share the Road Safely" Program Needs Major Reforms or It Should be Terminated

The FMCSA's predecessor agency, the Office of Motor Carriers in the
Federal Highway Administration, began an effort in tandem with the
trucking industry in the early 1990s called the "No Zone" that
emphasized a truck driver's "blind spots" on the road and the need for
passenger vehicle drivers to avoid driving in these "no zones."
Unfortunately, the no zone was used immediately by the trucking industry
as a propaganda weapon to try to offset the horrific crash figures
associated with big truck crashes: although large trucks are only 4
percent of registered vehicles on the road, they are involved in 12
percent of fatal crashes, and 23 percent of the passenger vehicle
occupants who die each year in multi-vehicle crashes were involved in
crashes with large trucks, according to the Insurance Institute for
Highway Safety. The truck crash figures maintained by the Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety also emphasize that when large trucks
collide with small passenger vehicles in fatal crashes, 98 percent of
the people who die are in the small vehicles.

Using bogus research claims, the trucking industry and even the FMCSA
has kept up a steady drumbeat of claims that most fatal crashes
involving large trucks and small passenger vehicles are primarily the
fault of or are somehow caused by the drivers of the cars, pickup
trucks, vans, and sport utility vehicles. But in a General Accounting
Office (GAO) report released at the end of May 2003, the GAO states that
subsequent research by the FMCSA showed that, at most, only 35 percent
of fatal passenger vehicle -- large truck collisions are attributable to
passenger vehicles traveling in the No Zone.[^5]

The new version of the "No Zone" program, dubbed the "Share the Road
Safely" program since the year 2000, already had been heavily criticized
by the GAO in a previous evaluation.[^6] The current GAO evaluation is
similar to its previous evaluation and testimony in that both reviews
stress the failure of the Share the Road Safely program to have
quantified measures of effectiveness to determine the extent of the
success of the effort to educate drivers how to operate their vehicles
in the vicinity of large trucks.

The May 2003 GAO report also criticizes the earlier FMCSA evaluations of
the No-Zone/Share the Road program because these reviews were unable to
determine any program effectiveness. The reasons that these evaluations
could not really show any benefits were:

-   The evaluations relied on self-reporting by motorists, a process
    well-recognized to be inherently biased.

-   The FMCSA had no baseline of driver knowledge and behavior with
    respect to the No-Zone/Share the Road effort to use to compare
    before/after effects of the program.

-   The FMCSA had no ability to determine whether there were any changes
    in driving behavior or frequency of passenger vehicle-large truck
    crashes due to the influence of the program's initiatives or because
    of other, different influences.

> The GAO report also stresses that the numerous highway safety
> officials and researchers contacted for the current evaluation of the
> Share the Road Safely program all agreed that public education efforts
> alone are unlikely to produce substantial changes in driver behavior
> and attitudes unless they are coupled with other safety initiatives
> such as local law enforcement programs to increase traffic law
> compliance. The report also points out that the FMCSA agreed that the
> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has the expertise to
> develop and evaluate information programs aimed at improving driver
> safety consciousness and driving behavior.
>
> I would like to add here that the Administration bill called "SAFETEA"
> currently has two provisions for refunding the Share the Road Safely
> program. Section 4018 of the Administration bill openly sanctions the
> program as an expanded effort, but provides no dedicated funds.
>
> The other provision, Section 4002, is where the money will come from.
> This long provision deals with motor carrier safety grants, primarily
> the reauthorization of the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program
> (MCSAP), but expands the authorized use of funds to grant the
> Secretary broad discretion annually to use large percentages of these
> funds for any research or educational purpose, including funding
> private parties to conduct "activities and projects national in scope"
> to increase "public education or awareness." This includes, of course,
> using federal funds originally dedicated to furthering the states'
> motor carrier safety oversight and enforcement programs to fund
> special interest groups and trade associations to conduct part of the
> Share the Road Safely program. I should also mention that part of the
> MCSAP funding authorized in Section 4002 of the Administration's bill
> directs the states to emphasize the enforcement of passenger vehicle
> traffic violations instead of using these precious dollars to improve
> numerous aspects of motor carrier operations.
>
> So one of the purposes of a diluted MCSAP authorization provision is
> to siphon off limited federal funds in uncontrolled amounts \-- funds
> originally intended to further the states' capabilities to increase
> motor carrier safety \-- to further an initiative that the GAO has
> indicated as amounting to 10 years of effort and 6.8 million spent
> federal dollars with no measurable safety product to show for the
> money. And we should not forget to mention here that the GAO points
> out in its May 2003 report that most of the funds over this past
> decade were used to hire contractors, with some contracts costing up
> to \$300,000 a shot. Unfortunately, however, the agency, as the GAO
> also points out, has no accounting of where the contracted payments
> went before the year 2000 (1992 -- 1999). Perhaps Congress should
> require an investigation of where this money went and to whom.
>
> As a result of these abuses of the public trust and the findings of
> the GAO in its recent report showing a decade of bankrupt agency and
> industry attempts at "educating" the public and thus classifying light
> vehicle drivers as the prime offenders in truck-car crashes, we have
> formed our own recommendations for reauthorizing the program that are
> directly supported by the results of the May 2003 GAO report and its
> own recommendations.
>
> **Recommended Actions:**
>
> **The Share the Road Safely program should be transferred to NHTSA to
> take advantage of that agency's expertise in creating, implementing,
> and evaluating educational programs, especially those addressing the
> need of changing driver behavior and attitudes.**
>
> **MCSAP funds should not be used for the Share the Road program,
> allowed by the Administration in its reauthorization bill, until the
> program has demonstrated concrete success in meeting the measurable
> goals set forth by the GAO.**

**FMCSA Reauthorization**

The reauthorization request by FMCSA for FY 2004 is \$447 million,
growing to \$499 million in 2009. This is about a 20 percent increase
over current funding for FMCSA programs. While we strongly believe that
more federal funds need to be spent on truck safety, we are not sure
that this agency knows how to spend it effectively without strong
direction, specified goals and sustained goading from Congress. One only
need to review the legislation passed in 1999 creating this agency,
particularly the findings and purposes section, to realize the
shortcomings of this agency. Unfortunately, the American public is
paying the price, with their lives and hard earned taxpayer dollars.

Thank you for allowing me to testify. I am pleased to answer any
questions you and other members of the Subcommittee may have.

[^1]: ^1^ The evidence of chronic overweight violations, including
    violations by large trucks of the lower posted weight limits on many
    thousands of U.S. bridges, is well-known. However, official federal
    government acknowledgement and documentation of these overweight
    violations ceased with the last report on state compliance with its
    federal and state weight limits in March 1991. *Overweight Vehicles
    -- Penalties and Permits: An inventory of State Practices for Fiscal
    Year 1989*, FHWA-MC-91-003. Following issuance of this report,
    former Secretary Rodney Slater suspended preparation and
    transmission of these reports. Although annual reports to Congress
    are required on state certifications of compliance with federal and
    state motor vehicle weight limits, no reports have been sent to
    Congress for 12 years. See Section 123, Surface Transportation
    Assistance Act of 1978, P.L. 95-599 (Nov. 6, 1978).

[^2]: ^2^ The 16 states are: Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South
    Dakota, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma,
    Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, and Alaska.

[^3]: Security Requirements for Offerors and Transporters of Hazardous
    Materials, 68 FR 14510 *et seq.*, March 25, 2003; Enhancing
    Hazardous Materials Transportation Security, 68 FR 23832 *et seq.*,
    May 5, 2003.

[^4]: A non-CMV, for the purposes of the CDL provisions in 49 CFR Pt.
    383, includes all passenger vehicles up to 10,000 pounds gross
    vehicle weight rating and all medium commercial vehicles from 10,001
    to 26,000 pounds gross vehicle weight (not as rated, but actual
    operating weight).

[^5]: *Truck Safety: Share the Road Safely Program Needs Better
    Evaluation of Its Initiatives*, U.S. General Accounting Office,
    GAO-03-680, May 2003.

[^6]: *Testimony of Phyllis Scheinberg, Director, Subcommittee on Ground
    Transportation, House Committee on Transportation and
    Infrastructure, U.S. Congress, March 17, 1999*, GAO-T-RCED-99-122.