We’re bringing all of you a series of letters from our troops who wanted to say thanks for the care packages sent by OOIDA.

This is one of the latest communications we have received from soldiers who benefited from your donations.

I would like to thank you for the time and effort that you all put into making the care packages for our unit. The soldiers really enjoyed the items.

Having people back in the states that take the time to send soldiers things while they are here is outstanding and lets the soldiers know that people care.

Thank you for all you have done,

First Sgt. Thomas N. Sprague
HHC 287th SB

Over the months since the Truckers for Troops Telethon, we have received waves of thanks for those who gave to the effort, providing much needed and much appreciated care packages to our troops.

We decided we should bring those thanks to all of you – the truckers who donated so generously. Here’s one of our latest.

This regards a giant “scroll” – a 300-foot-long piece of 3-foot-wide paper with signatures and messages from thousands of truckers and others. The effort was spearheaded by OOIDA member Dan Toops.

To the great Americans who signed Daniel Toops’ banner for EagleRama:

At the Mid-America Trucking show in Louisville, KY, this past March, you signed a banner with inspirational messages to our deployed troops. Nikki Johnson from OOIDA – the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association – sent the banner to Operation Iraqi Freedom, and I wanted to let you know that the banner is now on display in the Division Headquarters building of the 34th Infantry Division in Basra, Iraq.

We appreciate your well wishes and inspirational messages. It truly makes a difference in our day, even though we’ve never met.

Thank you for your patriotism, good citizenship, and heartfelt wishes.

Kind regards,

Henry M. Bass

LTC, LG

287th Sustainment Brigade, Liaison Officer in Basra APO AE 09374

I’ve spent a good part of my life in Missouri. And when you live somewhere so long, you begin to get a feel for how things work there.

For instance, Missouri (despite what some folks might claim) is a low-tax state. We don’t like ’em. If we have a chance, we get rid of them. Only good tax is a dead tax.

Here’s another one – if you see a rural intersection with a yellow or red flashing light, out in the middle of nowhere, with little traffic, it used to be common wisdom that the light’s presence indicated three fatal accidents at that location.

I always wondered if the story was an urban legend. Everyone I know who’s a native says it’s true.

Assuming the story is true, then by putting the light there, we’ve indicated that we think it will solve the problem. And that’s not good.

Now, I love my home state. I choose to live here. There is only one other I would choose to live in, and it’s next door. Not to put down anyplace else, but this is where I’m comfortable.

However, when you do the math of “flashing light cost” vs. “three lives lost,” it looks bad. We’re really spelling out pretty specifically what we think a human life is worth. And it looks like the answer is “not much.”

Trucking is experiencing a little of that sad math right now.

The solution is Jason’s Law. It would dedicate what in federal budget terms is a drop in the bucket and use it to increase available, safe and secure truck parking.

It’s inspired by the death of Jason Rivenburg, who was parking in the only place he could find, and was killed during his rest period.

It’s good that we’re taking the effort to solve this problem. I know that truckers will come out in droves to support this bill. And I applaud them. It’s long overdue.

But isn’t it sad that it took Jason’s death to make this happen? By introducing the law, we’ve indicated that we think it will solve at least part of the problem. So why didn’t we do it before we lost a good man?

I intend to fight for this law. I intend to do more than my part. I will not rest until we see something real done to protect truckers in this situation.

But we – our nation, our government – need to do the math on these problems before it reaches this point. There aren’t enough good people in the world for my taste; losing another because of a problem we know how to solve is just inexcusable.

Virginia’s proposal to close rest areas across the state has generated a lot of heat – and unlike most cases like this, a little light as well.

Truckers and others have been able to get the message across that these rest areas are a necessary service, an important one, and a service that really does make a difference with safety.

However, the debate has brought up a different issue.

That is, do we have an alternate way of finding the money to run these rest areas?

More and more truckers are saying we should privatize rest areas, set them up more like service plazas that we see on some toll roads, let private businesses lease space, provide facilities, and pay the state for whatever costs the state incurs.

We’re getting a lot of these calls, and I think it’s interesting that truckers are going this direction.

I have to tell you, I have used the type of rest area that these truckers talking about. A lot of toll roads have service plazas; I run into them on the Kansas Turnpike. And while I don’t like paying tolls, I’m pretty sure I’m in favor of how those service plazas are operated.

However, federal law prevents the states from doing this on interstate highways with federally funded rest areas. That leaves out most of the current ones.

It’s interesting that the feds LOVE the idea of tolling and privatizing highways, but never seem to try it with rest areas.

Part of the reason is that Natso, which represents the truck stop operators, is dead set against it. They view it as a government-sponsored competition for their members.

I also have concerns about letting the privatization bug in the door. I can see folks at the DOT saying, hey, if privatizing rest areas is OK, what’s the difference if we do it with the whole highway.

But it is an interesting idea – and one that really deserves some exploration and discussion.

Some truckers have expressed concerns about OOIDA’s stand on longer, heavier trucks.

While OOIDA has long supported the current system of permitting larger loads – along with other rules they follow – the Association has opposed expanding sizes and weights on all trucks that run on our highways.

Unfortunately, sometimes we use shorthand for things when we state the Association’s position. In part, that’s because people outside the industry don’t understand the specifics. And that creates concerns with members and other truckers who haul the larger loads.

So let me try to clarify.

OOIDA doesn’t necessarily think bigger is unsafe.

The Association understands that our members and other experienced truckers who drive these trucks now are safe. That’s not the point.

The fact is, these rigs are typically driven by well-trained truckers with long safety records and lots of experience. In fact, with longer combination vehicles, extra training is required by federal law.

All that, and add in that now the bigger trucks make up a small, measured percentage of the trucks on the road.

That’s a far different picture than making every single truck on the road that size. Then, you have far less experienced truckers behind the wheel of those rigs.

You also could have companies that simply don’t have the attention to safety the current companies in that field have.

That being said, I think it’s fair to say the Association has some concerns about some of the firms running doubles and triples now. Some of them are very good; some are not.

But that’s not really the topic we’re trying to address.

The current push for larger, heavier trucks is about universally expanding all trucks to the longer, heavier size. That’s just not a good idea.

Plus, there’s another problem here that I haven’t discussed, but it’s also one that concerns OOIDA.

This push isn’t about being green, or saving fuel, or any of the other given reasons that ATA and some shipping interests state all the time.

They want fewer truckers hauling more freight. They want to save money.

Believe me, when you’re hauling the extra freight, they won’t be paying you more – not once it’s the standard, instead of something extra.

I suspect that the truckers involved now get a little premium over a normal-sized load. If you haul the larger loads and you’re not, you should be.

If this becomes the way of things, I think you can pretty much count on that coming to an end.

That’s just a little bit of why we oppose this plan. And I hope it helps clear up where the Association stands.

EOBRs are like a miracle drug, a cure-all, a perfect solution to whatever ails you.

At least, if you talk to the folks pushing them (or making them), that’s what they’ll tell you.

They’ve been touted as the solution to hours of service, to truck safety, to fatigue, to trucker health, and on and on.

And now, some folks are thinking that they could solve the problem of detention time.

We heard more than a few comments that direction recently after Joe Rajkovacz spoke about detention time on our program.

Detention time is not an idle topic, or one we don’t take seriously. The amount of unpaid time truckers spend at the loading dock is a regular hot button issue with truckers, and one that nearly all have experienced.

But we want a real solution. And we’re not sure that EBORs, paperless logs, or any of those types of systems can solve detention time problems.

Here’s the problem with paperless logs. They can tell where you are, and if the trucking is moving.

Beyond that, they depend on you to tell them if you’re loading and unloading, if you’re in the sleeper, if you’re on or off duty, or if you’re doing something else.

They all depend on the truckers’ input, they all allow log corrections, they all have features like this that allow the exact same problems that exist with the paper logs.

And unfortunately, until they can tell the difference, electronic or paperless logbooks, or EOBRs, or whatever you call them can’t solve these problems.

I wish there were a device that could make this go away. But I’m afraid that we just haven’t made it there technologically yet.

So how do we solve it?

There’s a basic rule in capitalism: The best way to avoid a behavior is to make it cost someone money.

Make the shipper, the received, the broker or the carrier pay a fee for making you sit, and watch how fast they get you moving again.

I don’t know of an EBOR can make these folks behave. But money talks, no matter what language you speak.

NAFTA. It’s enough to get your blood boiling.

And despite what supporters of the agreement say, most Americans pretty much have concluded that Ross Perot’s “giant sucking sound” is a good description of what happened.

It’s especially a big deal for truckers, because of constant efforts to start cross-border trucking with Mexico.

It’s all very serious stuff, something that could really start some ulcers, or at least mild indigestion.

However, at least one trucker saw some humor in the whole mess.

I got the call from OOIDA member Scott Grenerth, a pretty fun guy. Scott has a suggestion: Let the Mexico-based carriers and Mexico-based truckers come ahead. Let’s just set some different requirements as far as equipment.

Let’s give a call to the Amish up in Pennsylvania, buy some horses and wagons, and make those available to all those folks who want to cross the border headed north.

Scott suggests that the horse would get tired long before the driver ran out of hours, so hours of service compliance wouldn’t be a problem.

It would also guarantee fewer emissions (although solid waste could be a bit of a problem).

That doesn’t mean, however, that Scott’s plan is flawless.

For instance, who’s to stop them from using lame horses, instead of the fine animals used by the Amish?

I don’t care what vehicle is coming in here from Mexico – man, I want it inspected.

On the upside, at least in a horse-drawn vehicle, you don’t have to entirely rely on the driver to get things right.

A good horse has enough brains to avoid an accident all on his own.

E-mail indicates that some Minnesota officials are trying to hide checklist from truckers, media – and state lawmakers

Few things have generated quite the level of controversy in the trucking industry as the Fatigued Driving Evaluation Checklist.

The checklist is a project promoted by an officer of the Minnesota State Patrol, a list of apparently arbitrary questions that officers say determine whether a trucker is fatigued.

After our initial reports on the topic, truckers and state lawmakers began to inquire about the list. And many were not pleased.

Now, a memo has been sent from the e-mail account of an officer in the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division of the Minnesota State Patrol. In the memo, other enforcement officers are told to keep quiet about the checklist, even when they’re using it, even to the trucker they’re using it on.

OOIDA obtained a copy of the e-mail from an anonymous, but reliable source. It was sent from the e-mail account of Lt. Steve Lubbert.

The memo reads as follows:

“Due to much publicity, both on a local and national level, several inquiries are being made about our fatigue report by the State Legislature, news media, etc.

“We as an organization do not want to damage what we have worked so hard to accomplish. Please use your interviewing skills to determine if the driver is fatigued.

“I ask that you do not tell the drivers that you need to fill out a checklist (worksheet), that you are taking a survey or any other statements that you use to reference the report.

“The report is for you to use to document what you observed; statements made by the driver; notes for you to reference to about the event; and as a guide to gather the various indicators from different areas on the report.”

The e-mail went on to say that enforcement officials with questions contact Lt. Thooft or Lt. Lubbert, listed as the author of the e-mail, if they had any questions about the report or the way they are using it.

Lt. Doug Thooft is listed on the State Patrol Web site as the contact person for commercial vehicle enforcement at Station 4710, the part of the State Patrol that covers the far southeastern portion of the state.

Lt. Lubbert’s e-mail also included a new version of the report. The report appears the same, with a listing of question topics divided into six categories, and with a box next to each question topic for a checkmark.

However, the title has been changed. Instead of “Fatigued Driver Evaluation Checklist,” it now says “Fatigued Driver Evaluation Report.”

A few questions have been removed – for example, the presence of reading materials such as newspapers, magazines and books, or whether the berth qualified as a sleeper.

Several new categories have been added, such as financial worries and presence of an out-of-service violation. The financial worries were not originally on the Minnesota checklist, but were on the Indiana version.

The memo raises several concerns. In the document, an official with a state agency is asking his officers to conceal from members of the public the rules that his agency will enforce on them.

That’s something that Doug Morris says should not happen.

Morris now works on the OOIDA staff, dealing with security matters. But before that, he was a commander with the Maryland State Police, spending several years in the traffic safety division, and then spending 10 to 12 years in commercial vehicle enforcement, including a stint as commander of the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division.

Morris states with some pride that Maryland is one of the premiere law-enforcement agencies when it comes to commercial vehicle enforcement.

He says an enforcement agency should never hide the rules from the public who’s called up to obey them.

“Absolutely not,” Morris said. “It should be transparent in every way and form. And it shouldn’t be used for either ridicule or to bolster the system. … This other thing, it’s just bizarre.”

Joe Rajkovacz now serves as a regulatory affairs specialist with OOIDA. However, he is also a former law-enforcement officer. He says hiding the checklist and its contents from the public doesn’t make sense in terms of the mission of law enforcement.

“The law-enforcement community is here to protect and serve the public,” he said. “They take constitutional oaths to protect and uphold the constitution.

“If they’re actually targeting enforcement toward a particular behavior, it would seem to me that the logical thing to do is to communicate that this is what you’re doing,” Rajkovacz added. “You would want to have people know what’s going on and what behaviors they should avoid in order to not run afoul of the law. It’s as simple as that.

“If people know that something is going to be enforced, they have a real disincentive to engage in that sort of behavior,” he said. “The problem here is, as we’ve said, this is so subjective that … we’ve seen folks that have literally just woken up from being off duty 10 hours, and they’ve been put back out of service for 10 hours.”

Another concern is whether a state agency should attempt – in part, because of inquiries by the state Legislature – to in essence hide their processes from members of that Legislature.

At least one member of that body has inquired. Minnesota state Rep. Andy Welti, a member of the House Transportation Finance and Policy Committee and the Transportation and Transit Policy and Oversight Committee, indicated to Land Line Now that he is working to schedule a meeting with the directors of the Minnesota State Patrol to discuss the list.

He’s also informed the chairs of the two transportation committees he sits on about the list, and the interview process it’s part of.

In an e-mail to an OOIDA member, Rep. Welti said, “It is my goal to get the agency to modify the checklist. If they do not agree, I may introduce legislation to force them to change the checklist.”

Doug Morris says acting to hide something from the Legislature is entirely inappropriate.

“It’s bizarre,” he said. “I mean, if this happened at the agency I came from, I would have been transferred pretty quick. I would be at the quartermaster counting paperclips.

“The state Legislature usually holds the purse strings; I’m sure their superintendent or the chief of the police is probably questioning this document as we speak.”

However, the big question some have in the wake of the memo is, why would Minnesota enforcement officials try to stop officers from discussing the interview process and the checklist that goes with it?

We tried to get in touch with the officer listed as the author of the e-mail, Lt. Lubbert, and with Capt. Ken Urquhart, who heads the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division, to ask them about the e-mail. However, we were unable to get through to them by the deadline for this story, despite several attempts.

Rajkovacz offered his own explanation as to why the agency – or one of its officials – might send out a memo of this type.

“I think that the pressure that we have brought to bear has caused them to do a little soul searching,” he said.

“Could it be guilt? That knowing that what you’re doing isn’t right?” Rajkovacz added. “That’s why you would do something like this. That’s why you would want to go and hide in the darkness instead of in broad daylight.”

And in fact, that very scenario – pressure causing action by the state – has played out elsewhere.

Indiana created its own version of the Fatigued Driving Evaluation Checklist, and had used its version of the list differently.

While Minnesota focused on putting drivers out of service, Indiana had encouraged its enforcement officers to cite truckers under local ordinances, often resulting in fines of $150 or more.

Now, the state has told its officers to stop using the checklist. Maj. Thomas Melville of the Indiana State Police discussed the decision recently with Land Line Now’s Reed Black.

Black: Again, just to reiterate what you said, what happened: Why did you quit using the checklist?

Melville: Well, the state of Indiana and Minnesota took quite a beating over the past two or three months over some of the terminology that was on the checklist. So Indiana chose to just disregard using the checklist. We are still doing fatigued driving enforcement, and we will continue to do that. But we just chose not to use the checklist.

BLACK: And when you say ‘took a beating,’ what do you mean? By the media, by politicians, by your own department?

MELVILLE: We took a beating from the independent operators. And some companies called us and talked about it. Once we explained how we did it, they did not have a particular issue to the checklist. But the independent truck drivers did. So, we thought it was in the best interest just to disregard the checklist and continue enforcement.

BLACK: And so your enforcement now consists of what I presume it always did, if a trucker appears to be fatigued, then you try to ascertain whether that is the case using means other than the checklist.

MELVILLE: That’s correct. Yes. I mean, some of the things we still check are things that were on the checklist, it’s just that we don’t provide the checklist for folks anymore. They will have to document individually the things that they determine are factors in the fatigue, whether it be, you know, explaining what the driver did on his off time and the fact that he did not get any sleep, or got just a few hours sleep; his driving behavior, the violations that the officer might see on the vehicle going down the road – just a combination of things.

While Indiana has dropped the use of their list, Minnesota has apparently responded to pressure a different way. In addition to asking officers not to discuss the list, enforcement officers have also changed it.

Instead of a “checklist,” the list is now called a “report.” Several items were dropped from the list; others were added.

However, Tom Weakley, director of operations at the OOIDA Foundation, says the changes don’t change the problems he has with the process.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “Certainly they’ve looked at some things, I guess, and made some modifications.”

However, Weakley stressed that he doesn’t “know what the rest of the checklist is even based on.”

“Unfortunately, the letter … indicated that what they want them to do basically is not tell them about the checklist, not to show them the form, not to have that with them, he said. “Rather than examining the whole concept of what they’re doing, they’re just looking at this as if this is their problem, this checklist.

“That’s not the problem,” Weakley said. “That was never the problem.

“The problem is, it’s based completely on subjective thought, or subjective opinion, it’s not based on any objective … type of measurement,” he added. “To me, it’s just another one of those, ‘let’s try to get around the criticism,’ without actually changing the process, which needs to be changed.”

OOIDA’s Joe Rajkovacz agrees.

“What they’ve done is wordsmith,” he said. “It’s laughable. OK, instead of checklist, we call it report. You say ‘tomato,’ I say ‘to-mah-toe.’ This is what we’re talking about … simply trying to pick very innocuous words to try and minimize what’s really going on.

“But the fact of the matter is the officers use this report, this checklist to follow their interview process,” Rajkovacz added. “They have an interview process, and this is what’s teeing it up. This is what they’re asking.

“Based on your responses, or lack of – I mean, if you haven’t showered, he’s going to check you off anyhow – you’re screwed.”

Rajkovacz went on to say that the list doesn’t even address the problem it’s trying to – violations of the federal regulation involved.

Doug Morris says that ultimately, if officers are going to question a trucker with the intent that the interview will lead to a ticket, citation or other law-enforcement action, officers need to do what federal courts long demanded.

“Well, if it’s going to lead to any type of enforcement action, they should read them their Miranda rights,” he said. “I mean, looking at this checklist, they’ve already pre-determined that these guys are fatigued. It’s not a ‘driver evaluation report,’ it’s a ‘fatigued driver evaluation report.’ So once they start questioning you, they’re trying to find you as a fatigued driver. And cite you or put you out of service for that.”

OOIDA officials continue to object to the use of a checklist as a measure of fatigue, or its use to put truckers out of service.

The Association has long contended that if objective measures of fatigue are present – such as weaving in and out of traffic, erratic driving or other actions in traffic that can be observed and quantified – then the trucker should stop and get the necessary rest to drive safely.

However, OOIDA officials do not think that kind of objective measure translates into the checklist.

Shortly after our initial coverage of the fatigued driving evaluation checklist, Joe Rajkovacz announced on Sirius-XM that OOIDA intended to take court action to stop use of the checklist.

He says the changes made by Minnesota have not satisfied the Association’s concerns, and OOIDA will move forward as planned.

--by Mark H. Reddig, host, Land Line Now

EDITOR’S NOTE: If you have been put out of service in Minnesota using the checklist, or put out of service after a series of questions or a survey there, we encourage you to call OOIDA. Dial 1-800-444-5791, and ask for the compliance department. Again, that’s 1-800-444-5791.

I was talking with my co-workers the other day about the media coverage of the swine flu and, being the media nerds we are, it naturally turned into a debate over whether or not said coverage was perhaps a tad bit overblown.

I came down squarely on the side of yes. The media have been running around screaming “oh my God, oh my God, we’re all gonna die!” ever since the first Mexican came down with the sniffles a couple of weeks ago. And where are we today? Well, the majority of us are still alive and swine flu free. Which is not to slight those who have died. For them I am truly sorry.

But we’re talking 30 deaths total at the time of this writing. To put that in perspective, the regular flu has killed thousands of people since the beginning of the year. And yet, everybody seems okay with that.

One of my co-workers pointed out that the reason everybody is so worked up about the swine flu is that it is because it is a new strain that just mutated out of nowhere, jumped on to humans and scared the pork out of us. When it started, we had no idea how deadly it would be, how fast it would spread, or how long it would take to develop a vaccine.

Valid points all, and it is the media’s job to get that information out there so that people can be informed and take the necessary precautions. Trouble is, the media blew it so far out of proportion that a lot of people went overboard, going to the doctor when they didn’t really need to and taxing our resources to the point where if the outbreak had infected millions of people, I’m not sure we could have handled it.

And that’s still a very real possibility. As the weather heats up, instances of swine flu will go down, but that doesn’t mean it's gone all together. There is always the possibility that it could lie dormant for a while, then come back even stronger in a second wave in the fall. Or it could mutate into another strain altogether.

But the thing is, even if that happens, it’s important to remain calm, even if the talking heads on TV are telling you not to.

Consider this: In the swine flu outbreak of 1976, Congress insisted we vaccinate everyone. In the end, one person died from the flu. Twenty five people died from the vaccine.

When the danger is real, we absolutely should be concerned. The trick lies in figuring out just how real that danger is. And given how much the media had us all so hyped up over the first strain of swine flu, I wonder how many of us will listen the next time the Chicken Littles on CNN start reporting that the sky is falling.

For some time now, I’ve said on the air that research and studies support the idea of uniform speeds.

I speak with a certain amount of confidence on that. For one thing, the leading highway engineers who design our roads say it all the time. And I’ve had the privilege to meet some very intelligent folks in transportation research, and they say it as well.

However, I’ve never actually talked about the specific studies involved on the air, or in print. And recently a trucker very rightly called me out on it.

I asked Tom Weakley, director of operations at the OOIDA Foundation, for some of the ones he’s seen over the years. And it’s quite a list.

So here goes:

Maybe the earliest study we’ve looked at goes all the way back to 1963. It’s by a researcher named David Solomon.

His study was quoted by Julie Cirillo, who used to be the chief safety officer of FMCSA, when she testified to Ohio lawmakers in 2003 during a hearing on a bill to end that state’s split speed limit.

In her testimony, Cirillo said: “In his classic research, Solomon reported that deviation from the mean speed of traffic in BOTH the negative and positive direction contributed significantly to the occurrence of accidents.

“In fact Solomon showed that vehicles traveling 10-15 miles per hour slower than the mean speed of traffic were much more likely to be involved in accidents than vehicles traveling slightly above the mean speed.

Cirillo also cited a follow-up study to Solomon’s work, which used data from 20 State Highway Departments, including Ohio.

It confirmed his findings, as did a study done for The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, by Indiana University.

NHTSA addressed the issue again in a 1991 response to the Truck and Safety and Regulatory Reform Act of 1988.

NHTSA concluded then that “the incremental benefits of mandatory speed limitation in terms of either crash reduction or lives saved are questionable. It is not certain whether the marginal reduction of speed for these vehicles would actually reduce their crash risk (or resulting fatality risk) significantly, since other, non-speed-related errors may still occur and cause similar crashes and injuries.”

NHTSA isn’t the only government agency to address the topic. AASHTO, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, pointed that when larger vehicles run slower than the rest of traffic, it’s more dangerous. Here’s what they said:

“Crashes are more likely when LCVs travel under the prevailing speed. For example, when a truck travels 16 kilometers per hour under the prevailing speed, the likelihood for a crash increases by 3.7 times.

“If 20 miles per hour under the prevailing speed, the chance of a crash goes up by a factor of 15.5.”

The Federal Highway Administration, in “Trends in National Fatalities,” also tackled the topic.

Officials of that agency wrote in that report: “From 1975 to 1987, the national speed limit was 55 miles per hour. The fatality rate for trucks was an average of 4.7 for 100 million miles traveled. In 2005 the fatality rate per 100 million miles traveled was 2.16 and has declined further in 2008.”

Independent academic researchers have also looked into the topic. For example, Dr. Steven Johnson of the Mack-Blackwell Center at the University of Arkansas. In research from 2006, he wrote this:

“The frequency of interactions with other vehicles traveling 10 miles per hour below the posted speed limit is 227 percent higher than moving at traffic speed.”

Another independent researcher, X.G. Liu, did some work on the topic in 1998 for the Transport Association of Canada.

He said this: “For every 1 kilometer per hour increase in speed, speed differential decreased by 0.8 kilometer per hour. And for every 1 kilometer per hour increase in speed differential, the casualties increased by 270.”

Social scientist C.A. Lave, who frequently researches in the area of transportation, said in 1985 that “Speed, by itself, was not found to have a significant effect on fatality rates. It is not absolute speed, but the speed variance that increases fatality rates.”

And there’s more.

The Hauer study from 1971, that said the increased risk of crash involvement was a result of potential conflicts created when a faster vehicle passes a slower vehicle.

The Hall and Dickinson study from 1974, that concluded speed differentials between automobiles and trucks contributed to accidents, primarily rear-end and lane-changing accidents.

The Garber and Gariraju study of 1990 that concluded the implementation of differential speed limits, in addition to lane restrictions of trucks, increased the interactions between automobiles and trucks and therefore the potential for accidents.

There’s also the Fildes and Lee research of 1993, The Coffman, Stuster and Warren research from 1998, and the Carroll study of 2004.

And believe or not, that’s just a sampling. There are even more of these studies, all of which indicate that split speeds are more dangerous, and uniform speeds are more safe.

The call for uniform speeds isn’t something that OOIDA is contending without support. Our research folks have done some real examination of this topic.

The conclusion they reached was that the Association should support uniform speeds because all the science out there says they’re safer. And that’s the stance the Association will continue to take.

After all, we want all of you to get home to your family at the end of that run. Anything that makes that more likely, we’re all for.

Got an opinion on toll roads? Sure you do. Truckers who live in Connecticut or Texas will want to jot down this info on a couple of hearings coming up this week. If your schedule allows, you will want to be there and have a say.

Connecticut is holding a public hearing of the state Transportation Strategy Board to discuss whether or not the state should bring back highway tolls to raise money for road improvements.

The hearing will take place Tuesday, May 5, at 6 p.m. at the Waterbury branch of the University of Connecticut. Possible tolls for Interstates 95, 84 and other roads near state lines are on the agenda.

There will be two other toll hearings in Connecticut this month, on May 13 in Groton, and May 14 in Norwalk. Click here for more information.

Meanwhile, in Texas, the North Texas Tollway Authority is holding a hearing on Tuesday, May 5, to discuss the Trinity River toll road. The hearing itself begins at 7 p.m. at the Dallas Convention Center on South Griffin Street.

However, there will be a three-hour open house prior to the meeting at 4 p.m. Officials will be present at the open house to answer questions about the controversial project. Click here for more information.

--by Reed Black, news anchor, Land Line Now

Here’s a statistic we quote often: In 75 percent of truck-car collisions, the truck is not at fault.

It’s why we think so many enforcement efforts are mistargeted. Why keep pounding away at 25 percent of the problem, while doing nothing about 75 percent of the problem.

Most folks in trucking have good ideas about how to solve the 75 percent.

One is that we need to teach drivers, before they receive their first license, how to share the road with trucks.

I agree with that idea, and I always have. Of course, first, we might actually want to train the drivers. But most states don’t offer driver’s education as a regular school class … if they offer it at all.

Others say truckers need to step forward, that we need a program to help match truckers with schools to provide this educational necessity, since schools seem unable or unwilling.

But the fact is, we don’t need a program.

Truckers already have a lot of opportunities to do this. I’ve heard of truckers who work with their local schools, showing up for a driver’s ed class to explain to students how they should interact with truckers, and what the dangers are.

I know folks who bring their trucks to a school where they’re a Trucker Buddy, and show kids how hard it is to see other vehicles.

OOIDA member Sue Lynch put kids in her Trucker Buddy class into the driver’s seat, and then went outside the truck, standing at various points around the truck, and then asking the student inside, “Can you see me?”

I’ve also talked with truckers who did a similar demonstration, and invited the parents to do the same thing.

I should probably point out now that I recently joined the Trucker Buddy board. But I did that because I’ve seen the difference that program makes, and I really think it can help the trucking industry by improving our image with the next generation.

But this doesn’t have to be something done with a Trucker Buddy class. Another trucker I spoke with ages ago did roughly the same thing for his kids’ class. You know your kids’ teachers, you know the other parents; offer to do a demonstration sometime.

There’s lots of opportunities. Let the folks outside the industry see what truckers are like.

Once they see how interested in safety you are, and how four-wheelers can create such enormous problems around trucks, you might be surprised at how many eyes have opened.

We’ve reported several times lately, and many times over the past year, on the issue of sleep apnea in trucking.

What we’re hearing more and more often is truckers being required to undergo expensive sleep tests, and to not only use equipment, but also report the use of that equipment, despite the lack of any law or regulation passed by the government allowing officials to do that.

It’s a clear-cut case of law-enforcement officials making law – something they have no right to do, something that the Constitution says only Congress can do.

We found out recently that it’s happened again. A trucker told us he was forced to undergo a sleep test – something not required by law or regulation.

However, after that, he was told he had to take the sleep test every single year in order to keep his CDL.

This behavior on the part of enforcement officials is so far out of bounds, that it’s unconscionable. And this trucker isn’t alone.

I’m going to say this over and over – there is no regulation, no law, no anything allowing them to do this. They are making this up.

What’s more – and this is something Tom Weakley at the OOIDA Foundation has said again and again – there is no research, no study, no evidence whatsoever linking apnea with safe driving practices.

Add to that this point: We don’t require heart patients to be electronically monitored to make sure they take their medication. We don’t require this of a host of other illnesses that very much can affect driving.

And I’ll go one step further. I have apnea, and I’ve researched my condition. Nothing, no medical need, no regulation, no law, no anything would require you to have a sleep test every year.

If you’ve been tested and diagnosed, then you have it. The only reason to have a sleep test is if they think you don’t have it anymore, and they want to take you off the CPAP. And I think we both know the likelihood of that happening.

Here’s the real story. Some people on the CDL Medical Review Board would like to see apnea testing required for a huge swath of the trucking population.

But this is a proposal, and only a proposal. It has not been made a law, it has not been made a regulation, it has not been in a proposed rulemaking, it hasn’t been in a notice of proposed rulemaking, it hasn’t even been in an advance notice of proposed rulemaking.

What’s more, the folks pushing this have a clear conflict of interest.

Some are partners in sleep labs that profit from the testing. Some are directly linked to the CPAP industry, which profits from selling the equipment.

Meanwhile, the one doctor who’s actually treated more truckers than any other, Dr. John McElligott of PDMD, says this proposal is poppycock.

What does it tell you that the folks pushing this rely on studies about four-wheeler, but folks with experience treating truckers think it’s a non-starter?

What is being done to truckers is a bald-faced abuse of power.

OOIDA is continuing to work on this issue, and officials from the association have been at numerous meetings, conferences, events and so on where this is being discussed, each time making the facts of the matter clear to the folks who ultimately will make the decision.

That effort will continue as long as this medical quackery is being pushed.