Trucking Wrecks A Poison to the Industry

Graves highlighted the June 2014 accident on the New Jersey Turnpike to stress the importance of safety among carriers during his keynote speech to open the group’s 2015 Safety, Security and Human Resources National Conference in Little Rock this week. He said the association’s advocacy goals are undermined by the publicity generated by such accidents.

“In the town we work in, safety is kind of what colors the impression that members of Congress have in our industry,” Graves said. “When we go over to Capitol Hill, oftentimes whatever is going on that involves safety is going to be the thing we get asked about first and foremost.”

Graves said safety questions occurred for “weeks” after Wal-Mart truck driver Kevin Roper slammed into a limousine van carrying Morgan and others on June 7, 2014. Comedian James McNair was killed, while Morgan and others suffered injuries. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that fatigue was the cause of the accident, after an investigation found Roper had been awake for about 28 hours and had worked almost 14 hours at the time of the crash.

The accident ignited a national debate on truck safety. According to U.S. Department of Transportation data, truck-related crashes kill nearly 4,000 people a year. Graves described Wal-Mart as a company with a “great safety record [that] who runs a great culture of safety” but said the driver made “poor decisions.”

The retailer reached an undisclosed settlement with Morgan and the others in August.

“I talked at great length to some of the fine folks at Wal-Mart, and I know they were as disappointed and were having as much trouble as we do explaining to people how did something like that happen?” Graves said. “You have an entire system in place from the day you screen people, and you recruit them, and you train them, and you put them in the best equipment and they understand what the rules are. You employ the technologies; it’s that whole system. And, yet, there’s that moment when you’re just not there. You can’t have that hands-on moment to say to that driver you’re making a poor choice, and it ends up creating the kind of incident that that created.”

Graves also pointed to the fallout from a 2010 truck-related accident involving the wife and daughter of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who was then the Senate majority leader, as another example.

“It is very difficult for us to go over to Capitol Hill and want to talk about anything, whether it’s reform the tax policy, whether it’s how do we fund highways, try to suggest some sort of modification to a safety initiative,” Graves said. “We’re always focused on what’s the last tragedy that has affected the industry, which is why figuring out ways to be safe are so very, very important to us.”

Graves applauded the efforts of the those attending the three-day conference in making that a reality throughout the transportation industry. He said safety and security are essential elements in “defining who we are and what we do and the degree and extent to which we’re successful at it.”

Graves — who added risk mitigation must be a collaborative effort — believes creating a culture of safety is in the DNA of every great trucking company.

The Arkansas Trucking Association, which represents the state’s trucking companies, continues to ramp up its efforts to promote safety. The organization has hired a full-time safety director, David O’Neal, and created a road team consisting of its safest drivers.

Shannon Newton, president of the state association, said it’s important to understand accidents are going to happen. But it doesn’t alter the fact that safety is the most important element of an industry that employs one out of every 11 people in the state.

“If we don’t deliver the load safely then we’ve failed,” Newton said. “That’s a pretty high bar, however, that is the bar with which we’re measured against. But when you go into a legislator’s office or an elected official’s office and you want to talk about policy as it relates to the trucking industry, you have to understand that events like that shape the conversation. It doesn’t matter that there were thousands of other Wal-Mart truckloads that were delivered safely that day.”

Dave Osiecki, the American Trucking Associations’ executive vice president and chief of national advocacy, said improving public perception is vital to the association’s efforts.

“If we’re in the business of shaping public policy, we have to make sure that our image, our public image, which shapes public perception, which also drives public policy in Washington, D.C., and in the statehouses, is as good as it can be,” Osiecki said.

Osiecki believes the association is making progress with outreach programs like Trucking Moves America Forward and in advocacy efforts on safety-related issues. The association has backed legislation allowing hair testing to be used an alternative form of drug testing for carriers, and it has also supported reforms for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability program.

The national association also is pressing for speed-limiters on heavy-duty trucks and more study of the suspended hours-of-service rules, as it believes certain provisions have a negative effect on safety, he said.

Graves also said passing a long-term highway funding bill — which is being debated by Congress and could include several trucking-related items — is also a factor in road safety.

“We want to be recognized as the leader in transportation advocacy representing the safest, most responsible, financially successful motor carriers,” Graves said. “For us to make that vision a reality, we’re going to have to be safe and secure. To make that vision a reality tomorrow, we’re going to have to be safer and more secure. The next day we’re going to have to be a little more safe, a little more secure.”