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    Trucking is the most dangerous occupation in the United States.  One in every seven Americans killed on the job dies behind the wheel of a truck.   According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Traffic Safety Overview, three thousand motorists are killed by trucks each year.  A sober motorist is more than twice as likely to be killed by a heavy truck as by a drunk driver.

   According to a recent study by the Federal Railroad Administration, intermodal trains are up to five times more fuel efficient than trucks.  A former Chairman of Senate Commerce Committee, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, was convicted of receiving gifts from an oil company after it allowed police officers to impersonate motor carrier safety professionals at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.  Thanks to the Administration's ban on modern intermodal vehicles, the nation’s largest oil company announced record earnings of 14 billion that same month.

    The number of truck drivers killed in daytime crashes with other vehicles doubled between 2002 and 2007 after unqualified administrators increased driving hours to help long haul trucking companies compete with intermodalism.  Despite being convicted by a jury, the charges against Stevens were mysteriously dropped three weeks after I filed a complaint implicating him in the deaths of a dozen truckers in Texas.  Because they died in daytime crashes with other vehicles, they had a greater than 50-50 probability of being victims of wrongful deaths.  The FBI station chief who received my complaint resigned a month later and was replaced by a new chief who refused to investigate the crime.  

    The International Brotherhood of Teamsters filed suit together with a number of safety advocates, claiming that the increases in driving hours violated their union contracts.  Unionized trucking companies began going out of business when non-union competitors began overworking low wage trainees.   Wall Street bankers who bankrolled these kiddy car companies became fabulously rich while experienced professionals lost thousands in wages and benefits.   I filed a brief in the case alleging that according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Bush Administration's union busting scheme killed three thousand Americans—dramatically increasing health care costs.

    President Obama pledged during the election that he would not appoint lobbyists to head government agencies.  In violation of his campaign promise, he appointed the head of the Maryland Trucking Association to be the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator—a person who as head of Maryland's driver's license office regularly issued licenses to unqualified truck drivers having as little as two weeks of training.  The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator is required by law to possess “professional experience in motor carrier safety.”  President Obama violated the law because the President of the Maryland Trucking Association had never driven a truck for a living, much less accumulated the hundreds of thousand of miles without a crash and numerous safety awards normally needed to qualify for employment advising other truckers on matters concerning their personal safety.  It takes just as long for a trucker to become a safety professional as a doctor takes to attend college and graduate from medical school.  

    The Department of Justice asked the court for time to allow the Commerce Committee to confirm the unqualified nominee.  I filed an opposition demanding they settle the case on the grounds that a one month delay could cost the lives of forty people including several small children.  The Teamsters and safety groups agreed to settle on the understanding that the lobbyist's nomination would be withdrawn and President Obama would appoint a qualified person.  But, less than 24 hours later, the lobbyist was confirmed by "unanimous consent" even though one Senator on the Committee publicly opposed the nomination.  When I called the Committee to ask when this vote took place, none of the staffers I spoke to were aware that the confirmation had occurred.  It had been done without their knowledge.

    It is not yet known what motivated Chairman Rockefeller to confirm the lobbyist in violation of parliamentary procedure.  He is thought to possess a vast family fortune benefiting from lower wages for truckers.  Presidential Candidate John McCain, the former Chairman of the Commerce Committee not convicted of receiving gifts, had a conflict of interest in confirming Administrators whose hours of service rules were favorable to his family business—a type of trucking company called a beer distributorship.  His additional profit gleaned from lower wages and working drivers longer hours was likely many times the value of the gifts received by Senator Stevens.  

    The previous Administrator, a former police officer who also had never driven a truck for a living, was appointed by President Bush because he graduated from a particular evangelical Christian college three weeks after four students and an employee of the college were killed in a truck crash.  The crash received national television coverage because one of the victims was buried in the wrong grave while another was cared for by the dead girl's parents.   I filed suit alleging that, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data, the Bush Administration's punitive decision to ban modern safety devices on trucks killed three hundred truckers.  

    Unfortunately, President Bush also appointed his staff secretary to sit on the DC Court of Appeals despite the lack of any experience as a judge.  While there is a one in twenty chance that this particular crony was randomly assigned to hear my case, there is a 95% probability that the panel assignments were not random, so it was necessary to appeal to the Supreme Court.  Although I quickly offered to settle when this happened, Ray LaHood, President Obama's new Secretary of Transportation refused.  In the last days of the Bush Administration, LaHood allegedly hand delivered a letter to the White House requesting clemency for former Illinois governor George Ryan who was convicted of issuing Commercial Driver’s licenses to unqualified truck drivers in exchange for campaign donations.  President Obama, a former Senator from Illinois, may have been blackmailed into appointing LaHood because of his close connections with Ryan.  

    Thanks to the increased driving hours, the nation's largest truckload carrier, J.B. Hunt, earned a record profit of $60.3 million in the third quarter of 2008; Landstar reported record revenue of $733 million; while Conway, Celadon, Marten, Knight, Werner, Old Dominion, Covenant, and UTS saw revenues increase 10 to 24 percent.  Because almost all of the revenue increases resulted from fuel surcharges when Diesel fuel exceeded $4 per gallon, it is unlikely that any of the non-union companies that replaced their skilled professionals with low wage trainees would have remained in business for long if their former employees had been allowed to compete against them with safer, more fuel efficient intermodal vehicles.  

    When truckers decided to replace their obsolete 18 wheelers with modern vehicles, the Bush Administration decided to replace truckers with inexperienced trainees.  But, trainees do not remain inexperienced for long.  Sooner or later, they realize their lives are in danger.  Rather than tolerate unsafe working conditions, most quit their jobs within a year.  To remedy the driver shortage they created, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration lowered training standards—allowing a small handful of campaign contributors to become extremely wealthy.  First year truck drivers now crash three times as often as experienced drivers.  A 1999 University of Michigan study conducted before the creation of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration showed that driver error was responsible for only 26% of truck crashes.  Today's truck drivers have a 46% greater rate of driver error.  Crossing over a lane line or departing from the roadway was recorded for almost one third of the trucks in the Large Truck Crash Causation Study.  Loss of control was coded for thirty percent.  Unskilled truck drivers were coded as driving too fast for conditions at a rate almost fifty percent higher than motorists even though they were recorded as being fatigued only half as often.  The D.C. Court of Appeals ruled back in 2005 that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's new training standard, shortening the customary one year on the road to as little as one week of classroom training, was arbitrary and capricious.  

    The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration currently funds an army of state enforcement officers under the auspices of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance that daily inspects and weighs trucks, ticketing truckers who dare to equip their trucks with modern safety features if they weigh too much.  Truck size and weight restrictions were first imposed in 1956 to protect the long haul trucking industry from competition with intermodal technology introduced that year by Sea-Land.  Intermodal containers (and the vehicles to carry them) weigh more than ordinary truck trailers because they must support the weight of as many as a dozen other containers when stacked on a ship.  Truck trailers only need to be strong enough to bear the weight of snow in winter.  

    Banning heavy duty safety devices was an unanticipated side effect of truck size and weight restrictions.  Brake problems were recorded in almost 30 percent of the trucks in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Large Truck Crash Causation Study.  Almost 27 percent of the trucks studied were were the sole motor vehicle in the crash (such as when a truck swerves off the road to avoid hitting a car) and 10 percent more were unable to maneuver or stop quickly enough to avoid becoming involved in the first collision in the crash (p.11).  An additional 10 percent of the crashes were directly caused by loss of brakes, tire or wheel failure, or cargo shift (p.13).  This means that 47% of the crashes studied could potentially have been prevented by decriminalizing heavy duty safety features. 

        Because railroads are unable to deliver freight the last five miles to the customer's door, 70% of the nation's freight must be carried on long haul trucks.   Intermodal vehicles would allow the rail industry to provide door to door rail service to every home and business in America without the need for a loading dock.  Only large corporations have access to rail transportation today.  If intermodal vehicles were allowed to deliver freight a mere five miles, rail transportation would increase dramatically and track electrification would become economical—reducing noise and pollution.  Like most nations, the US has a surplus of night time generating capacity that could be used to power trains.  A trucker with an intermodal vehicle that traveled less than five miles could use plug in power and never buy Diesel fuel again.  This is why oil industry executives are willing to risk prison by bribing government officials—and why a United States Senator was convicted of receiving gifts from an oil company.

    If they were legal, intermodal vehicles would eliminate our nation's need for foreign oil.  Not only would trucks use less Diesel fuel, but motorists would feel safe again driving fuel efficient smaller cars.  Unqualified truck drivers frighten motorists, so to protect themselves, they buy larger cars than they otherwise would—exacerbating the problems of air pollution and dependence on foreign oil.   High fuel prices triggered the 2008 recession by " popping the housing bubble " in outlying suburbs that were no longer economical to commute to.   

    A riddle is often told in third world countries:  “how much does a loaf of bread cost in America?”  The answer is:  “ten thousand dollars!—one dollar for the bread and ten thousand for the car you need to drive to the store or you don't eat!”  The same riddle can be told about trucks:  ‘how much does it cost to hire a trucker?’  Answer:  ‘ten thousand for the loading dock, twenty thousand for the fork lift, and a hundred thousand for the warehouse...’  The 53 foot long trailers used by most long haul trucking companies are almost useless to small businessmen.  The main benefit of intermodal vehicles is actually not safety or efficiency, but their ability to deliver smaller 20 foot long containers absolutely anywhere without a loading dock.  Road, sea, and rail can be combined into an integrated transportation system that will eliminate the need for long haul trucks.  That means that truckers can go home from work every night without having to drive long distances and organic farmers will be able to sell milk and produce directly to consumers over the internet and have it delivered to people's homes at half supermarket prices.  Unemployed people could start home industries to prevent their homes from being foreclosed and people will no longer need to own cars to buy things.    

    Half of all trips are shopping trips.  With fewer cars and trucks on the road, there will be fewer car crashes, less highway congestion, less oil consumed, less pollution, cars will last longer, insurance rates and cost of living will be lower, and war in the Middle East will be unnecessary.  Small businessmen will be able to compete on a level playing field with big corporations, so ultra wealthy campaign contributors will be a thing of the past.  Needless to say, the trucking, oil, auto, food, insurance, chemical, and retail industries are all against it.

     How much does our obsolete long haul trucking industry cost taxpayers?  In the last highway bill, the following money was allocated for highway funding:

“It is my understanding that Mr. Trescott is interested in the position of FMCSA Administrator.  Upon reviewing his resume, I believe you will agree with my analysis that Mr. Trescott has unique qualifications.”—  Presidential Candidate Ron Paul, United States House of Representatives, Washington DC.

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