The American Trucking Associations’ annual Management Conference and Exhibition at the Orange County Convention Center kicked off in late-October and there were a lot of announcements and new technologies to evaluate.

Let’s take a closer look at everything you need to know regarding the world of trucking and truck driver safety and safety technology.

Truck Driver Wellness

A truck driver wellness app was announced. Called Rolling Strong, the app was created by a company that creates and manages wellness programs for trucking and transportation companies. They also cover owner-operators who are looking for more assistance on operating with health and safety in mind.

The app assists truck drivers in making health decisions while they are on the road. Up to now, there have been few innovative options regarding the topic of health and wellness for truckers, but all that is starting to change.

The Rolling Strong app is designed to help truckers make better health decisions and encourage them to adopt a healthy lifestyle. It also has built-in mechanisms designed to be compatible with a fleet’s current safety management program and is available in both iOS and Android formats.

Personal Safety Systems

Truck drivers will also benefit from an announced personal safety system. A company who provides cargo safety systems has branched out to include truck drivers. Normally, the company provides around-the-clock response for safety, security or medial issues through the simple use of a button push and a key fob entered into the dash.

The technology is designed to help fleets take a more proactive approach to truck driver safety and protection. Both known and unknown safety issues come up almost every day, so having a service on the back end to help manage these situations could be incredibly beneficial.

Finally, technologies like these go a long way towards increasing truck driver recruiting and retention efforts. Professional truck drivers are more engaged when they know their fleets are investing in technologies that help them increase safety and security levels.

Truck Driver Exploitation Bill

There have also been moves in Washington where truck driver safety is concerned. House Democrats have introduced two federal bills aimed at preventing port trucking companies from exploiting their workforce.

While the problem isn’t widespread, there have been instances where lease-to-own contracts basically force truck drivers to work non-stop for what amounts to almost minimum wage.

Called the Port Drivers’ Bill of Rights Act of 2017, the potential law lays down a basic framework for ports who employ truck drivers in daily operations. Whether it be fair pay, labor standards, or otherwise, the bill provides protection from what it calls “exploitative truck lease or rental arrangements.”

According to Grace Napolitano, a Democrat from California, “For truck drivers to be treated fairly and paid fairly, [the proposed law] is a no-brainer. We thought [the companies] would do it without legislation, but that hasn’t happened. So we had to put it in writing.”

Under the proposed bill, federal regulators would be required to create and deploy task forces that would investigate port companies, look closely at employment and lease contracts and potentially weed out port companies that are taking advantage of their truck drivers.

All of this stems from a report produced by USA Today, which showed that dozens of trucking companies operating in Southern California avoided having to pay for their new trucks by forcing their truck drivers on company-sponsored lease programs that were heavily tilted in the fleet’s favor.

Whether or not the bill makes it through a Republican Congress and on to the president’s desk is another story. While time will tell, the fact that people are talking about it raises this issue’s profile, which is only good for truck drivers affected by it.

Have you heard of the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC)?

Chartered by Congress in 2006, the MCSAC has been given a mandate to provide information, advise and recommendations to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regarding safety programs and regulatory initiatives for heavy duty commercial motor vehicles and commercial buses.

Who Are They?

The MCSAC is primarily comprised of trucking safety, advocacy, enforcement, labor and industry stakeholders. Members are chosen through an FMCSA application process. Each member is selected from a pool who meet two requirements:

1. They are not employees of the FMCSA.
2. They are specially qualified to serve on the committee based on education, training or experience.

Upon MCSAC’s creation, then-FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro stated that it was intended to “help FMCSA raise the bar for carriers to enter the industry, maintain high safety standards to remain in the industry, and remove high risk carriers and drivers from our roadways.”

Around the same time, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood remarked in regards to MCSAC that “at DOT, safety is our highest priority. Working with partners who provide us with greater knowledge, experience and ideas will only help us make our nation’s highways even safer.”

Fortunately for the 20-person committee, on September 29 their mandate was renewed for two years. Yet they are operating within an anti-regulatory environment, so what could their mandate possibly be?

How Their Mandate is Changing

According to President Trump’s Executive Order 13771, agencies are required to relieve businesses of burdensome regulations. As such, the FMCSA gave a presentation to the committee regarding which federal highway safety rules might be eliminated.

FMCSA spokesman Duane DeBruyne stated as such when he was recently quoted saying the presentation was intended to “introduce a new FMCSA assignment to the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee members, agency staff prepared a short PowerPoint presentation outlining some possible ‘regulatory relief’ candidates that could be suggested or included in response to the Presidential Executive Order. MCSAC, which is comprised of a broad representation of all of FMCSA’s stakeholders, is now tasked to come up with their own independently derived recommendations.”

During the presentation, the FMCSA pinpointed 12 rules governing commercial motor vehicle use that they recommended be scaled back or eliminated. Making MCSAC’s job even harder, each of the rules slated for the chopping block are intended to improve trucking safety. How does one pick which safety initiative is better or worse than another?

One way is to first look at rules that are so old they may now be outdated or others that may no longer be enforced for whatever reason. One example of this are the Motor Carrier Routing Regulations found under Part 325 of the FMCSRs.

These rules are nothing more than the remnants of the now-shut down Commerce Commission. Some ask whether they even serve a purpose anymore. In their presentation, the FMCSA stated that eliminating the rules could simplify regulatory burdens while having little to no economic impact.

The agency also singled out rules and reporting requirements governing everything from medical records to road test results and state cooperation agreements. In conclusion, the FMCSA recommended a three-step process for the MCSAC to consider as part of the regulatory reform process:

1. Contact additional industry stakeholders and conduct more outreach and solicit opinion.
2. Seek public comment on the Federal Register through a DOT notice.
3. Move forward with FMCSA rule making and planning.

Of course, DeBruyne did stress that the MCSAC should act independently in order to come up with the best recommendations while remaining in line with the executive order. In short, they are urged to recommend the elimination of the 12 rules, but are not bound to do so.