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April 7, 1999 10:59 AM, EDT

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Werner Enterprises this week angrily denounced allegations by Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways that the company’s paperless log system had loopholes drivers could use to violate hours-of-service regulations. The company said the system has helped Werner become and remain one of the safest trucking companies in the industry.

In recent letters to federal officials, CRASH alleged that Werner’s electronic logging system was inaccurate below certain distances and speeds and had been programmed to allow for violations of the hours of service (3-29, p. 8).

Werner rejected those assertions and said they demonstrated a continuing pattern of irresponsible actions on the part of CRASH, a nonprofit organization that was originally founded by the railroad industry to thwart increases in truck size and weight.

“CRASH has for many years shown itself to be absolutely biased and critical of every aspect of the trucking industry,” Clarence L. Werner, the chairman of Werner, said in a letter to Transport Topics. “Once again, it is obvious that CRASH is pursuing its separate agenda of attempting to discredit the Department of Transportation and is willing to sacrifice a program undertaken in the name of highway safety to accomplish its agenda.

“If CRASH were actually interested in the issues of highway safety as a paramount objective, it would not only have taken the time to gather the facts and understand the system, but would be supportive of the paperless logs system,” Werner wrote.

Werner Enterprises is the sole motor carrier volunteer in a Federal Highway Administration pilot project that allows carriers to replace traditional paper logbooks with satellite positioning technology to track drivers’ movements and record their hours.

Werner said the company that provides tracking uses three different satellite-based positioning systems — GPS, LORAN and its own system — to locate and identify a tractor. Technological limitations in the systems could generate incorrect results at low speeds or short distances, but the company and federal officials were well aware of that fact and had never tried to conceal it, Werner said. To correct those inaccuracies, the company programmed its paperless logs system with certain default assumptions, he said.

“The important point to remember in this instance is that these are default assumptions only,” wrote Werner. “The drivers have been instructed and trained in how to make entries that will correct these assumptions for the true facts.

“Even with the assumptions, the Werner Paperless Logs System is much more accurate and provides more safety benefits than a paper logging system or any other system now available,” he added.

The California Highway Patrol, which Michael Scippa, executive director of CRASH, mentioned in raising concerns about Werner’s system, denied that it has any problems with the company’s software. Scippa had cited what he said was an information bulletin by the CHP pointing out the system’s technical limits in certain situations.

In an interview, a CHP spokesman told Transport Topics that “our information does point out where there could be inaccuracies, but that was not what we were after.

“It appears to us that it’s a pretty accurate system,” said Lt. Jay Gosselin of the CHP’s commercial vehicle enforcement section. “I don’t see the problems that CRASH was voicing concerns about and we don’t want to be portrayed as having concerns, because we don’t.”

For the full story, see the April 5 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.