trucking legislation

Due to the hit state revenue sources are facing from the COVID-19 pandemic, rural transportation is likely to have an overall funding deficit, according to The Road Information Program’s recent report.

The report, titled “Rural Connections: Challenges and Opportunities in America’s Heartland,” was released last month by TRIP, a nonprofit that focuses on transportation issue research and advocates for safety-centric policies for road travel.

The report explains a current $211 billion funding backlog for the country for necessary rural transportation system improvements and repairs.

Because road travel has declined so steeply in the wake of mandated shelter-in-place orders, state transportation sources of revenue have dwindled–namely tolls and fuel taxes. TRIP tweeted that transportation revenues were estimated to decrease by 30% ($50 billion) over the next 18 months because of low vehicle travel numbers.

According to TRIP’s executive director, Dave Kearby, the country’s fiscal wellbeing lies in the hands of rural transportation. “The health of the nation’s economy and the safety and quality of life in America’s small communities and rural areas ride on our rural transportation system” said Kearby. “The nation’s rural roads and bridges already faced a significant funding shortfall, and that will only be exacerbated by the looming reduction in state transportation revenues as a result of decreased vehicle travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In addition to state budgets becoming depleted, sales taxes have also fallen as stay-at-home ordinances continue, and income tax revenue will not be expected until summer or fall due to the federal government’s extension of the income tax deadline. States have also had to reduce services, raise taxes, and furlough workers.

These struggles are particularly challenging for rural regions. Rural areas were largely excluded from policy debates regarding all three federal relief packages, besides some funding discussions on rural health care. When the CARES Act allocated $150 billion to the states and $30 billion to localities, many localities had to go without the aid they needed. Of that $30 billion, funds are only dispersed to cities with populations of 500,000 people or more. Because of this, rural communities have been at an overall disadvantage in resource access, and have been ignored when applying for emergency funding.

The TRIP report, after analyzing infrastructure data from each state, showed that roads and bridges in rural areas continue to have many deficiencies. As of 2018, 13% of major rural roads received a classification of being in poor condition, 21% were rated as being mediocre, and another 16% were classified as just “fair.”

The following year, the report saw 8% of bridges rated as either poor or structurally deficient in rural communities, with bridges having to indicate weight restrictions or limited access for large vehicles, including emergency service vehicles, school buses, agriculture equipment, and commercial trucks. An additional 47% of rural bridges were classified as being in fair condition, which meant that they had developed minor deterioration on the substructure, superstructure, or deck.

In addition, traffic crashes and crash fatalities were reported to be disproportionately high on rural roads, with a rate of more than twice that of other roadways. Non-interstate rural roads had an overall traffic fatality rate of two deaths per 100 million vehicles miles traveled in 2018–the same rating was .88 deaths for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled on all other roads.

Rural routes made up only 22% of all vehicle miles traveled that year, although crashes on these roads contributed to 40% of America’s traffic fatalities.

According to the report, these accidents may be caused by narrow lanes and shoulders, sharp turns, and other difficult driving conditions that often occur on rural roads. Still, farmers, energy producers, and manufacturers rely on rural transportation networks for entrance and exit points within the supply chain.

“Unfortunately, due primarily to a lack of investment over several decades, America’s infrastructure is in a dire state of rapid deterioration, and recent events show even more the importance of guaranteeing [that] food arrives where it needs to be,” said American Farm Bureau Federation president, Zippy Duvall.

These routes offer staggering challenges, then, with 66 cities having no direct–or safe–access to the Interstate Highway System.

“You cannot stock grocery stores, resupply medical facilities, and rebuild our economy on the backs of broken roads and aging bridges,” said Stephen Sandherr, Associated General Contractors of America CEO.

Because of this, America’s annual $28 billion investment by all government levels in rural road and bridge projects should be boosted by another 28%, according to TRIP. TRIP also advocates for property federal surface transportation program funding, as the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act expires this fall.

According to American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear, the trucking industry as a whole is playing a key role in boosting the nation’s economy during this challenging time, and will be working with a White House commission to find necessary steps to take for the country to heal from this pandemic’s effects.

“On the transportation grouping, trucking is well-represented,” Spear said. “It’s got a number of carrier CEOS…that have a lot of presence around the country, and understand the economy from that perspective–not just as a [nation], but [at] a regional, state, and local level.”

Earlier this spring, Trump announced a list of many industry leaders that would help restart the economy as the pandemic begins to ease. These trucking companies include UPS Inc., FedEx Corp., J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc., and YRC Worldwide. These are some of the largest for-hire carriers in the country.

“They’re going to give us some ideas,” Trump said. He also mentioned, by name, that FedEX CEO Fred Smith and UPS CEO David Abney would be part of his administration’s Great American Economic Revival Initiative.

“I am honored to serve our president and the nation in this capacity, representing the trucking industry and joining four ATA member company CEOs, to bridge this crisis to a safe, speedy, and full recovery,” Spear said. “Just as they have during the mitigation and response efforts, truckers will be at the forefront as we revive our economy’s engine and get our country moving again. No industry will be more vital, and we embrace the opportunity to play a leading role in this national effort.”

Currently, economists are explaining that the United States has officially reached a recession with unemployment claims hitting 22 million within a span of three-weeks. Bob Costello, Chief Economist at ATA, is also saying that gross domestic product has the potential drop by 20% in the second quarter of the year–on an annual basis.

Returning the U.S. economy to normal will have to take place in stages, Spear said.

“It’s really an opportunity to help shape what this is going to look and feel like,” he explained. “Not just now, as we come out of the crisis, but how long that bridge needs to be from here to the recovery and how we do it safely.”

The process has already begun, but getting the economy back to a healthy place will take time, he explained further in a late April interview.

“It’s already stated. It started last week with the initial guidance that came out. There was a lot of talk last week on our first call with the president about testing, a lot of talk about staggering it. So, low-risk states and regions first and ending with the highest-risk states and regions last, and logistics is going to be a very important part of that, because we are essentially the glue that pastes all those groups together.”

Spear also said the regrowth could take a few months, but that the help from the trucking industry will help things move more smoothly.

“These are all people that will come to these calls not just identifying problems, but proposing concrete solutions and also putting a lot of resources towards getting these solutions done,” he said.

Other companies named by Trump to participate in the economy-building task force include JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Apple Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp., United Airlines Inc., and many others. Trump’s inclusion of trucking industry CEOs is appreciated by Spear, who said while he is grateful ATA members will be working to help the nation’s economy heal, there are still many challenges regarding fleets’ and drivers’ abilities to perform right now, and his team is working to find solutions.

“We’ve worked at the state level with the governors, especially in high-risk states, to shape policies that are not adverse to interstate commerce,” Spear said. “We need public rest stops open. We need the parking, the ability to rest, [the ability to] use the restroom, [to continue] working with our private truck stops to ensure their position, and [to continue] making available food. There are going to be bumps and bruises along the way. This is not easy. As roadblocks get thrown up in front of us, it’s our job to knock them down.”

Changes may be coming soon for regulations regarding truck drivers with a history of seizures.

Currently, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s medical advisory board is working on implementing updates to its requirements for these drivers, and announced last month that it would be meeting at the end of April (in a virtual session) to discuss the potential of granting special exemptions for seizure-prone truckers.

The agency also planned to review its revision of the certified medical examiner’s handbook, a resource for physicians conducting exams on truckers and bus drivers, which has been in a stage of rewriting for years. The handbook is considered outdated, but is still widely used by physicians for procedure guidance.

According to Brian Morris, a medical review board member and director of surveillance for OccMed Consulting and Injury Care, today’s regulations disqualify a driver with a history of seizures automatically, and require a driver with this diagnosis to submit a complicated waiver to the FMCSA for the possibility of exemption.

“Tagging that diagnosis on somebody can be a career-ender, even if you’re doing a great job with your medications and not having seizures,” Morris explained. “It’s a throwback to years ago when the treatment for seizures was not that great. It was a good rule at the time, but times have changed, and there’s a whole segment of people out there that drive passenger cars and have been seizure-free for years.”

Morris said opening doors to the industry for these drivers is now a priority. “To be granted a seizure waiver is next to impossible. So, there’s a move afoot to find a way to clear those individuals to drive. We’re trying to figure out a way that we could have the regular medical examiners out there in the community clear individuals with seizures. If we can get proper documentation from a treating doctor that an individual is seizure-free on medication, I think the board would go along with it.”

At the recent medical review board meeting, the agency agreed that it would begin to review recurrence-related literature for truckers who have had at least one seizure, according to FMCSA’s medical programs decision chief, Christine Hydock. This fall, the agency will also bring in outside research on the issue of seizure-related disqualifications, as seeking an exemption can currently take months for approval.

Hydock said only around 300 drivers have been granted exemptions for their seizures.

“While the research is being conducted, the exemption program stays in place,” Hydock said. “Once it is finalized, we’ll make the determination whether or not the information supports moving forward, and how we would update the standard.”

Seizure exemption regulations currently require analysis of a trucker’s medical history, medications, and driving history from the past three years. FMCSA’s associate administrator for policy, Larry Minor, said the agency will continue its studies on the issue so that it can determine the possibility of going “forward with a rulemaking at some point in the future so we can update the seizure standard and get out of the seizure exemption program.”

Following future research, FMCSA also wants to review state driving criteria around seizure disorders for intrastate U.S. commercial vehicle drivers, review commercial vehicle regulatory and medical advisory criteria in relation to seizures in other countries, and conduct interviews with board-certified neurologists regarding overall medical information on seizures.

Additionally, the agency is contemplating whether it should eliminate the exemption requirement just as it did for the diabetes requirements in February of 2019.

In regards to the medical handbook revisions, Minor said changes will be released for public review. In the past, handbook revisions have been difficult, as board members often fail to present information as formal guidance when offering help to examiners.

“This is a constant struggle for the medical review board and medical examiners,” said manager of safety and occupational health policy for American Trucking Associations, Abigail Potter. “Federal regulations require a lot of medical examiners in that they have a lot of authority to interpret medical conditions on a very individual basis.”

One critic of a revised handbook is Natalie Hartenbaum, a doctor and occupational fitness expert who attends all medical board meetings.

“I think we’ve kind of lost our way because many of the [examiner] training programs teach only what was in the medical examiner handbook–that’s fortunately only taught as ‘this is the requirement,’” Hartenbaum said. “We got here because the clear delineation between this is regulation, this is official guidance, this is literature, this is current best practice all merged together. It really has not been pushed apart to make examiners really understand that. I really worry about the safety of the general public on the highways.”

As of now, the FMCSA plans to send the medical review board a report by September 2021 for consideration of these policy updates.