Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) President and CEO Todd Spencer recently forwarded correspondence to President-elect Joe Biden, outlining policy priorities supporting small-business truckers and highway safety.
The letter details varied strategies the organization hopes the new administration will embrace, in addition to several proposals owner-operators and professional drivers oppose.
“President-elect Biden and his team at the Department of Transportation have an opportunity to advance policies that not only support small-business truckers but promote highway safety,” Spencer said. “We’ve outlined several ways the new Administration can achieve these two critical goals, including expanding truck parking capacity, reducing excessive detention time, ensuring the safe and transparent development of automated vehicles, and many others.”
OOIDA has issued recommendations regarding the new Administration’s effort to improve carrier safety performance measurements, highlighting the need to assess crash risk and crash causation more accurately.
OOIDA is also advocating enhanced driver training standards and exploration of how driver compensation affects safety.
“Too many new drivers enter the industry without the basic skills to safely operate a CMV,” Spencer said. “And too many folks in our industry are pushing policies that make careers in trucking less appealing and less sustainable, which we know is contributing to today’s precariously high driver turnover rates.”
The OOIDA is discouraging the Biden administration from pursuing new mandates and regulations, maintaining there are more regulations presently, as well as more enforcement and compliance – highway safety is not improving.