Support is snowballing for a separate motor carrier safety administration, as the Federal Highway Administration continues to take body blows for its failure to adequately enforce safety regulations and for its sluggishness in issuing a final rule on hours-of-service regulations.
At a Senate hearing Sept. 29, Joan Claybrook, president of consumer watchdog group Public Citizen and a longtime advocate of moving motor carrier safety enforcement to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, softened that stance considerably.
"We originally supported a move to NHTSA, but we don’t necessarily oppose a separate agency for enforcement, so long as data collection and rulemaking functions are transferred to NHTSA," Claybrook told the Senate Commerce Committee’s Surface Transportation Subcommittee.
Claybrook’s position shift is significant because Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) has made commercial vehicle safety legislation – and the creation of a new motor carrier agency under the Department of Transportation – one of his committee’s top priorities. His bill, the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999, would do just that.
For the full story, see the Oct. 4 print edition of Transport Topics. .
