Numbers Don’t Lie

The annual bloodletting — The Roadcheck Blitz — always creates its share of additional angst for drivers in the summer.

Pulling into an open scale during the 72-hour blitz is like walking through a shooting gallery. Fortunately, the event is well publicized, and all but those still living in caves should be well aware of it. If at no other time of the year, we all have enough advance notice to prepare for the heightened scrutiny. It’s like studying for an exam.

At 20.3 and 21.7 percent respectively, the Canadian and American vehicle out-of-service numbers aren’t surprising. Could it be better? Sure, if drivers would only inspect their equipment properly.

In my experience, a thorough pre-trip would reveal most if not all of the defects a roadside inspector might find. Are the pre-trip inspections not being done, or not being done thoroughly enough? Are the fleets suggesting drivers hold off on having the repairs done ’til they get back to the terminal to save a little dough? Did the defect occur sometime between the pre-trip and the rubber-glove inspection? Could be any or all of the above.

Brakes, not surprisingly, remained the worst culprit. Steve Keppler, director of policy and programs at Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) headquarters, told me the brake-adjustment numbers were down overall but remained more prevalent than actual defects — though the number of brake system defects was higher this year than last.

When the HOS rules were announced, one of two things would
happen: Industry would collapse, or nothing would change, said Park

Keppler says that 78 percent of the North American fleet now sports automatic slack adjusters, but misunderstanding about manual adjustment of these devices remains a real problem. A vast number of the auto-slack adjustment issues could be solved overnight if drivers were taught the proper procedures for getting a properly functioning auto-slack to do what it was designed to do.

On the driver front, U.S. drivers fared worse than Canadians by nearly two percentage points. Keppler told me HOS violations accounted for 57.1 percent of the OOS orders, with 12.4 percent of those violations being clear and cited cases of falsification.

When the new U.S. HOS rules were announced, I predicted one of two things would happen: the industry would collapse, or nothing would change. If the rules were strictly adhered to, the industry should have collapsed. The changes wrought upon delivery schedules and the way drivers have traditionally managed HOS were that dramatic. But since nothing (or very little) seems to have happened, I have to conclude that drivers are still doing things the old way — and the recent CVSA results seem to bear that out.

Bill Graves, President & CEO of the American Trucking Associations (ATA), is on record as saying, “Given the recent changes and uncertainty over the status of the hours of service rules, we acknowledge that driver adherence to these new rules is a challenge.”

I think there’s more to it than that. Several of the fleet safety and compliance people I talk with on a regular basis say they see lots of HOS violations, and for all they do to prevent them, they keep happening. A few have said they’re nervous about their next U.S. DOT audit because those violations are going to show up pretty quickly. Mostly it’s not a matter of drivers misunderstanding the rules but thinking they can get away with doing things the old way.

It’s easy to slide one past the DOT at roadside, but a lot tougher to pass an audit where the inspectors have the receipts and time markers to help them sort things out. Keppler confirmed that U.S. inspectors did a more thorough job this year of checking the receipts drivers had in their possession. Ergo, the higher number of falsification charges being laid.

Doug Howie, the training and development officer for CVSA’s Region V (Canada), wasn’t able to break the Canadian HOS violation numbers down any farther for me, but the slight 0.7-percent increase doesn’t suggest anything nefarious. But wait ’til next year when our new HOS rules are in place. Even if we get a soft-enforcement period, it could be over before Roadcheck 2007 begins.

Howie told me he believes Roadcheck is highly regarded by fleets, and serves as a good barometer of how the industry is doing from a compliance perspective.

I don’t think all that many drivers see Roadcheck the same way. They’re the ones stuck between the compliance requirements and the operational demands and realities. If there ever comes a time when it’s easier — indeed, more profitable — for drivers to comply, only then will we see a shift in their perspective. All too often, it’s to the driver’s advantage to bend the rules. We need to turn that around so there’s more advantage in complying than not.