ments, drivers that idle their trucks during the recession aren’t “going to be able to go out and jump in the cab of a truck,” Hill said. “There is going to be a real capacity problem.”

As Hill prepares to depart, he believes new technology is available that could help FMCSA meet his goal of reducing fatal truck accidents. A mix of roll stability control, lane departure warning systems and forward warning collision systems could reduce large truck crashes by as much as 35 percent, he said.

“But it’s not going to be easy because it’s an economically pressed time and people are looking to stay in business,” Hill said. “They are not looking to expand how they outfit their trucks. They are trying to figure out how to stay in business.”

One gleaning of how the Obama administration plans to overhaul the agency may be seen in a Nov. 24 transition team meeting, which included a new face at the table: the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, which represents

Crossborder Trucking in the Crosshairs

There may be no mañana for the Department of Transportation’s crossborder trucking demonstration project, but DOT’s truck safety chief hasn’t given up hope.

It will be difficult for the Obama administration to “unwind” the program, outgoing Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator John H. Hill told reporters Jan. 8.

The program has been attacked by Democratic and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, by labor unions and by highway safety advocates. It’s drawn relatively few participants — far fewer than the 1,000 trucks and hundreds of companies envisioned by DOT when it launched the program in September 2007.

And although DOT recently moved to extend the program, few outside the agency’s headquarters expect it to last long under the Obama administration. As a senator, the president-elect voted to kill the program.

Hill was less optimistic when asked about the program’s odds after Obama’s Jan. 20 inauguration. “If I were a betting man,” he said, “I’d say it’s pretty grim.”

 

state, provincial and federal trucking law enforcement agencies.

“That was the first time we have ever been asked by an incoming administration what we thought the three or four of the five top issues were,” said Richard Henderson, the CVSA’s director of government affairs. He told transition officials the FMCSA should play a lesser

role in enforcement, a job he said should “largely be left to the states.”

“In short, FMCSA should do more work in terms of determining what safety standards and regulations should be and leave it to the states to enforce it,” Henderson said. “Until now, FMCSA was trying to do both.”

BY ARI NATTER