53% Twenty-five percent of all deaths in large truck crashes occur on interstate highways. Only about 9 percent occur on local roads. tion in 1992, 26 percent of trucks were found to have mechanical defects serious enough to require putting them out of service. • Tractor-trailers require more distance than cars to stop. In tests, a • After tractor-trailer brakes have been used repeatedly and become hot, • Antilock brakes, which keep wheels from locking up during braking, are required on new tractor-trailers in Europe's common market countries. Tractors have to have antilocks on all wheels. Trailers must have them on at least 2 wheels on opposite sides. Very few tractor-trailers in the United States have antilocks. • Federal regulations applying to interstate truck drivers restrict work shifts to 15 hours including a maximum 10 hours driving followed by a minimum 8 hours off duty. No more than 70 hours may be worked in 8 days. Drivers must maintain written logs, but 1,278,611 inspections conducted in 1989 found violations of hours-of-service and logbook regulations sufficient to put 91,218 drivers out of service. • Drivers who have been behind the wheel on interstate highways for longer than 8 hours are almost twice as likely as drivers who are rested to be involved in crashes. During a 1,200-mile route from Washington to Minnesota, researchers estimated that more than half of the tractor-trailer drivers violated hours-of-service regulations. 10 • Six percent of all fatally injured tractor-trailer drivers in 1992 had very high blood alcohol concentrations (0.10 percent or more). • According to an 8-state study, 1/3 of fatally injured truck drivers tested positive for 1 or more drugs of potential abuse — 13 percent for marijuana, 13 percent for alcohol, 9 percent for cocaine, 8 percent for nonprescription stimulants, and 7 percent for prescription stimulants." • Among 317 tractor-trailer drivers surveyed randomly along an interstate in 1986, 29 percent had used drugs with potential for abuse. Marijuana was detected in 15 percent. Its active ingredient was found in 3 percent, indicating the drivers were either frequent users or had Large trucks accounted for 3 percent of registered vehicles and 7 percent of miles traveled in 1990. They were involved in 11 percent of all 1990 fatal crashes. used marijuana recently. Nonprescription stimulants were found • Tractor-trailers are the likeliest vehicles to have radar detectors. 13 THE INFORMATION IN THIS FACT SHEET IS BASED LARGELY ON ANALYSIS 'National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 1993. Summary of medium and *Federal Highway Administration. 1992. Highway statistics 1991. Washington, DC: Federal Highway Administration. 'Preusser, D.F. and Stein, H.S. 1987. Comparison of passenger vehicle and truck *Stein, H.S. and Jones, LS. 1988. Crash involvement of large trucks by configura- "Federal Highway Administration. 1992. Roadcheck '92: wrap up fact sheet. "National Technical Systems. 1986. Truck/car comparative stopping distance demonstration program. Arlington, VA: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. *Federal Highway Administration. 1991. Motor carrier safety assistance program: accomplishments and effectiveness. Washington, DC: Federal Highway Admin istration. Jones, L.S. and Stein, H.S. 1987. Effect of driver hours of service on tractortrailer crash involvement. Arlington, VA: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. 19Hertz, R.P. 1991. Hours of service violations among tractor-trailer drivers. Accident Analysis and Prevention 23:29-36. "National Transportation Safety Board. 1990. Fatigue, alcohol, other drugs, "Lund, A.K.; Preusser, D.F.; Blomberg, R.D.; and Williams, A.F. 1988. Drug TESTIMONY OF JOHN LOEB PRESIDENT JAY DEE/TOMFOR TRANSPORTATION AND PRESIDENT-ELECT AND CHAIRMAN, GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON SURFACE TRANSPORTATION "OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE FEDERAL MOTOR CARRIER ACT" JUNE 14, 1994 Good morning, Chairman Rahall and Members of this distinguished Subcommittee. My name is John Loeb and I am the President of Jay Dee/Tomfor Transportation in Roosevelt, New York. Today, we operate 925 school buses serving 85 school districts in the New York Metropolitan area. I offer testimony today on behalf of the National School Transportation Association or NSTA. I am privileged to serve as Chairman of the NSTA Governmental Relations Committee, as a member of the Board of Directors and as President-elect. With more than 350 member firms engaged in pupil transportation in all 50 states and Canada, NSTA is the national trade association for contractor owned and operated school buses which now number some 110,000, a very significant portion of the nation's yellow school bus fleet. Our member contractors are predominately small businesses operating fleets of twenty-five or fewer school buses, though there are also some much larger companies which operate many thousands of school buses in multiple states. Our members offer the full range of pupil transportation services to school districts including the provision of vehicles, maintenance, driver hiring and training, sophisticated routing services, fueling and storage. I am proud that NSTA is a leading national advocate for school bus safety and has worked closely with our member firms and school 1 districts to pursue advances in the design, performance and operation of school buses which have yielded the best safety record of any mode of surface transportation. NSTA also works with districts to better educate school children, parents, and citizens on the importance of school bus safety and the measures by which it can be enhanced. Our paramount interest, and one never to be compromised, is the safety of the 23 million school children transported to and from school and school-related activities every day of the academic year. It is in the spirit of this commitment that I come before you today. This Committee has long been at the forefront in working to establish the highest possible standard of safety to be achieved in our industry. And in its wisdom, the Congress has sought to bring uniformity to the application of this standard most recently in two landmark transportation safety initiatives - the commercial drivers license program, and drug and alcohol testing for transportation workers. Those bold new programs have made a significant contribution to safety, and established a new baseline for application of federal safety requirements. These Acts established as a matter of law a more comprehensive definition of covered bus operations. State and local governments, and by extension the school districts as well, were not provided any so-called "governmental entity" exemption from these sweeping new requirements. Private for-hire motor carriers and public |