Underride Accidents

Dr. Green explains the problems associated with underride crashes.  The photographs of the semi-trailer post-crash in most cases will show the reflective tape more prominent than what the driver saw.  Among many other things, the angle of the trailer across the road may diminish the reflectivity of the tape and alter the size of the side marker lamps which the driver sees.  As discussed previously perception-reaction time is an important factor.  FMCSR require trailers manufactured on or after December 1, 1993 shall be equipped with retroreflective sheeting meeting FMVSS No. 108.  The only way to ensure that this standard has be met is through testing by an expert in this field.  As a motor carrier, you must be aware of the “shortcuts” that experts on the plaintiff’s side will use (overtly or lack of training) when testifying as to lamps and conspicuity systems.

Marc Green

Side underrides occur when the driver collides with the side of a trailer that is blocking the roadway during a turn or while backing up. The driver’s car chassis often goes beneath the trailer and the car’s roof is sheared away. Unlike the trailer rear, the side has no guard to prevent the car underriding the larger trailer.

Here, I explain how to perform a more realistic examination of the factors that contribute to an underride accident. The avoidance task requires the driver to first sense the trailer’s contrast, the difference in brightness between the trailer and its background. Next, the driver must notice and identify the contrast as being a trailer blocking the roadway. The driver then assesses the situation and gains an awareness that a collision is imminent if he takes no action. Next, he selects a response and finally, if time permits, he responds.¹

Driver ability to successfully perform these steps depends on the constraints imposed by the physical, situational factors and by innate human limitations and predispositions. The following discussion describes how these two sets of factors operate when a driver faces a potential underride collision. I also discuss how scene photographs can mislead jurors.

Situational Variables

Tractor Headlamp Illumination

In many cases, the tractor-trailer is stopped with its headlamps pointing in the oncoming driver’s direction. The headlamp beams shine in the driver’s eyes and cause loss of contrast sensitivity. This occurs through two distinct visual mechanisms:

Light Adaptation. Viewers see contrast best when the eye is adapted to the prevailing ambient light conditions. A driver traveling a dark roadway would be adapted to a relatively low light level. His adaptation level, however, undergoes changes as he approaches the bright trailer headlamps. This bright light causes the driver to light adapt his fovea, where contrast vision is best. When the driver looks back down the road he is then mis-adapted for the dark area directly ahead. His ability to see the trailer is reduced.

Glare. A glare source is defined as a light that is significantly brighter than the prevailing light adaptation level. Glare effects fall into two main categories. “Discomfort glare” is the unpleasant visual sensation caused by a bright light. As the driver approaches the glaring headlamps and their brightness becomes very high, he may experience visual discomfort that causes him to look way from the light source. A glare source originating from the tractor in the left oncoming traffic lane may cause a driver to look somewhat rightward rather than directly straight down the roadway. Objects in the road ahead are then seen in peripheral vision, which has lower contrast sensitivity.

The second type of glare is called “veiling,” because light from the glare source enters the eye and scatters around the ocular media. The viewer is effectively looking through a veil to see the world, and loses contrast sensitivity.

The amount of glare depends on several factors. Glare increases as the amount of light entering the eye grows. The closer the driver gets to the tractor, the more light entering the eye. Further, glare increases as the angle between the light source and the sightline decreases. Glare is likely severe on a narrow two-lane road, where the tractor’s left headlamp may lie as little as 6 feet or less to the driver’s left. Lastly, as people become older, the eye clouds, causing more internal scatter and more veiling. I discuss this more fully below.

Several other factors affect glare. One is height of the headlamps. Tractors create large glare effects because they have their headlamps mounted relatively high, putting them close to eye height for a normal car driver. The higher mounted headlamps project farther so they affect the driver at a greater distance down the road.²

Glare also increases when the viewer looks through scratched/dirty surfaces such as windshields and even eyeglasses. These surfaces scatter light more and increase veiling. Further, the scratches become visible and mask the roadway scene ahead. Rain also lowers visibility distances by a half or more.

Trailer Angle

The trailer’s angle across the roadway is also an important variable. Visibility and conspicuity of the retroreflective tape, side marker lamps and the trailer itself decline as the angle departs much from 90^o, when the trailer is perpendicular to the roadway.

Retroreflective Tape. The effectiveness of a given retroreflective tape strip depends on several factors, including “entrance angle,” the angle between the headlamp beam and the retroreflective tape surface, and “observation angle,” the angle between the headlamp beam origin, the retroreflective surface and the driver’s eye (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Entrance and observation angles.

If the trailer angles across the roadway, then the increased entrance angle reduces the percentage of incident light that is reflected back in the beam direction and to the driver’s eyes. Diamond retroreflective material³ is frequently used for tractor trailer markings. It is clear from the table that tape effectiveness falls significant when entrance angle is higher.

Moreover, the effectiveness also falls with increased “observation angle,” the angle formed by the eye, headlamps and retroreflective surface. Drivers sitting higher above their headlamp beams, such as those in a large truck, have higher observation angles.

The lowered reflectance and brightness of angled retroreflective tape also affect distance perception. Even if the driver sees the retroreflective tape, he must interpret its meaning and judge its distance. When objects are very small and approach the resolution limit of the eye, viewers confuse, size, distance and brightness, and they judge the apparent distance based on their brightness. Dirt and tape wear will further lower brightness and increase apparent distance.

Side Markers Lamps. People see objects by sensing the images that they project on the eye. This image size depends on the object’s orientation. Look at your hand in front of your face. Now turn the hand at an angle and notice that the profile it presents to the eye shrinks. The same effect shrinks the effective size of side marker lamps on angled trailers. For example, if the trailer angle is 45^o, then a 3 inch lamp effectively shrinks in size to 2.1 inches wide. At 60^o, it is effectively 1.5 inches wide. Moreover, if the lamp output is directional, then it will aim away from the driver’s eye.

The side marker lamps, like the reflective tape, have a very small size that causes difficulty in judging distance. As they shrink, they act increasingly as “point sources,” whose distance is difficult to judge. They are also easily confused with other point sources such as reflectors on mailboxes, etc.

Trailer Type. The effect of angle depends partially on the type of trailer, tanker, box or flatbed. When light hits a trailer, the direction of scatter depends on the surface smoothness. At one extreme, a perfectly rough matte surface, called a “Lambertian surface,” scatters light equally in all directions. In this case, the angle does not affect the amount of light reflected from the headlamp beam back to the driver. At the other extreme is a perfectly smooth “specular” mirror surface, which reflects light only in one direction according to the rule, “angle of reflectance equals angle of incidence.” Real surfaces generally fall somewhere between Lambertian and specular. A smooth metal tanker, however, will do a good job of approximating a specular surface. Suppose that a trailer is sitting at a 45^o angle in the roadway as shown in Figure 2. The headlamp beams strikes the trailer at a 45^o angle. Most light then reflects at a 45^o angle, which is a 90^o angle to the driver’s eye. The driver will see only a black hole where the trailer is located.

Figure 2 Reflection created by a purely specular tanker trailer.

Since the shiny metal was not perfectly specular, some amount of light might have reflected back in the beam direction toward the driver. However, the reflectance problem was compounded by the tanker’s rounded side. Light hitting the upper curved part would also reflect upward while light hitting the lower part would reflect downward, so both miss the driver’s eye. At most, a driver might see a vague, thin line of light, where the curved surface was perpendicular to the ground. This is likely a very unusual sight that would be difficult to identify.

A white box truck is less specular, so more of the light scatters in directions back toward the driver. The amount depends on smoothness of the finish, and cleanliness of the surface – dirty trailers are more matte, which is good, but reflect back less light overall, which is bad. Lastly, dark colors reflect less light than white. It is irresponsible to paint a trailer any color other than white. Painting trailers with a large colored corporate logo is also a bad idea.

Finally, flatbed trailers are most difficult to see because they reflect no light back to the driver. This expectation has been confirmed in studies on retroreflective tape effectiveness. The ability of retroreflective tape to reduce accidents is greatest for flatbed trucks because the trailer itself presents no information to the oncoming driver⁴. If the flatbed is carrying a load, the cargo may reflect some light.

These are all general principles, but trailer visibility can be determined scientifically with more precision. The technique requires a re-creation with an exemplar tractor-trailer and light measurements using a “luminance photometer,” a specialized device that measures the amount of light reaching a viewer’s eye. Very briefly, the investigator reads the amount of light coming from the background and from the trailer. Next he calculates the contrast, the difference between the trailer and the background. Lastly, he compares the trailer contrast to data showing the amount of contrast that a viewer would require. If the required contrast exceeds the available contrast, then the trailer is not visible. Procedural details are described in Green et al., (2008).

Even if the trailer is visible, however, this does not mean that the viewer is likely to see it. Seeing depends on many factors, including expectation, identification and situational assessment. Drivers do not expect to see objects blocking the road; if seen, the distance and meaning are uncertain. For example, the top of a box trailer might easily be interpreted as the horizon in dim light. I discuss this more fully below.

Driver Variables

Age

Glare Susceptibility. Older drivers are less likely to avoid an underride collision. I have already mentioned their higher glare susceptibility. The International Commission on Illumination method for calculating glare shows that veiling doubles by about age 62 and trebles by about age 74. Older viewers are also slower to recover from glare and to readapt to dim light.

Reaction Time. There is a common myth that age does not affect driver reaction time. It is true that many studies find no slowing of driver perception-reaction time with age⁵. However, these studies are performed in very simple situations where there is little uncertainty or complexity. Many other studies⁶ show that as uncertainty and complexity grow, performance falls for all viewers but it falls faster for the elderly. An older driver confronted with the vague outline of an uncertain shape at an uncertain distance is likely to respond more slowly than a younger driver. The effect will be especially great when confronted with an “avoidance-avoidance” conflict. (See below.)

Other Visual Losses. A full discussion of visual losses with age would require many textbooks, so I’ll just add a few more. First, older viewers have poorer contrast sensitivity, especially in the low illumination conditions of nighttime driving. Second, they have poorer ability to notice objects in the visual periphery. Third, they are poorer at judging motion. All of these can affect their ability to sense, identify and avoid trailers blocking the roadway.

Reaction Time

Many who analyze underride accidents (mis)apply the “standard” 1.5 seconds reaction time. However, reaction times can rise dramatically when a trailer is blocking the entire roadway. First, the 1.5 seconds is not universally applicable. It is derived from studies performed in daylight conditions, not low visibility nighttime viewing. Further, drivers may face an “avoidance-avoidance conflict.”

A person deciding upon response alternatives weighs the possible outcomes of the various responses. Some outcomes are good” and produce a tendency to approach. Other outcomes are “bad” and produce avoidance. If choosing between a good and a bad (approach-avoidance) outcome, the decision is easy and reaction time is fast. If choosing between two good outcomes (approach-approach), then there is some conflict and reaction time is slower. The worst situation, however, is the avoidance-avoidance conflict when both alternatives are bad. The reaction time becomes very long because the viewer vacillates.

A driver who finds himself in imminent collision with a trailer blocking the entire roadway may be in an avoidance-avoidance conflict. The only choices are braking and steering. When very close, there is not enough braking time, so steering is the only alternative. However, the trailer was blocking the entire road. Steering leftward takes him across the road toward the tractor and its glaring headlamps. Steering rightward is possible, but the trailer extends off the roadway blocking the path. There is no escape. The problem is compounded by stress-produced, “perceptional narrowing,” which many authors incorrectly equate with tunnel vision. In fact it is much more. Easterbrook⁷ , who popularized the term, meant that under stress viewers reduce the amount of information, both in the world and in memory, used in decision making and further minimize the set of alternative responses considered.

In sum, reaction time may be very long for the obvious reason that the viewer really doesn’t want to choose an available response because none avoids the problem. All of his escape routes are blocked, so he has no favorable alternative to choose. It is no wonder that drivers in underride collisions frequently make no attempt at avoidance.

Driver Cognition

There is much more to seeing than mere visibility. In order to be consciously perceived, an object must engage attention and then be identified. Highly visible objects are more conspicuous, so the factors that reduce object visibility also reduce likelihood of the object drawing attention. However, even visible objects may not engage attention for many reasons. One factor that determines attention is expectation. Objects blocking the roadway are relatively rare effects, so drivers are less prone to notice them. Moreover, driving is not a series of discrete encounters with various road objects. Rather, it is a continuous task that smoothly proceeds through time. Drivers generally expect the future to unfold in the same way as the recent past. Imagine a driver who has been traveling on a relatively deserted dark road at night. He has encountered few if any conditions that require much attention or change in his steering or braking. He has little reason to expect a sudden road blockage. He would not be looking for it or expect it when it occurs.

Further, the tractor headlamps may mislead the driver. The driver must interpret the meaning of the oncoming tractor headlamps as he approaches. How far is it? Is it just the horizon? What does it mean? The visual ability to perceive “looming,” the movement of objects directly toward the eye is limited until the object is very close. In the absence of looming cues, the oncoming driver will be unlikely to interpret the headlamps as belonging to a vehicle that is moving toward him at a normal rate of speed rather than to a stopped vehicle that is backing across or turning out of a side road or driveway.

Arousal

Many accidents occur when drivers are in a low state of arousal, which lowers performance. The low arousal stems from two main sources. One is circadian rhythms, the normal 24 hour arousal cycle that all people experience. For people on a normal sleep-wake cycle, they will have a major arousal starting around midnight until 4 or 6 in the morning. Fatigue may also lower arousal during this period, but even a well-rested person should be expected to suffer declines in attention, object identification, situational awareness and perception-reaction time. The second source of lowered arousal is “vigilance decrement.” People who have been performing a monitoring task, such as drivers on the roadway, typically exhibit a loss in vigilance in as little as 30 minutes, especially if the task is monotonous. A person driving a dark road with little to see is a prime candidate for such a decrement.

Documentation By Nighttime Photographs

Scene investigators often make extensive photographic documentation of the collision. These should not be used in any attempt to portray visibility conditions at the time of the accident. They are not only useless, but they are highly misleading. The trailer and especially the retroreflective tape will generally appear far more visible and conspicuous in the photograph than they would have been to the driver. As a result, they should not be shown to jurors.

The reasons that nighttime photographs are misleading lie in both the photographs themselves and in the responses that they elicit from viewers. I have discussed this issue in detail elsewhere⁸, so the following is just a brief overview.

First, some or all of the pictures may be taken with added light sources, such as a flash or the headlamps or flashers of other vehicles which arrived after the collision.

Second, cameras and photographs create distorted images, especially of night scenes. Camera light meters set exposure on the assumption scenes are evenly illuminated and that average scene reflectance is 18%. The camera sees a mostly dark field and sets exposure to accommodate this low light level. Bright areas, such as side marker lamps and reflective tape, are then drastically overexposed and have unrealistically high contrast. As a result, lights appear far more visible than they would have been to an actual viewer.

Lastly, perception is a function of the viewer as much as the image. I have already described how the expert had many advantages in seeing the trailer. The jurors have the same advantages and perhaps more. The jurors’ sensory systems are different than those of the driver. I have already explained how factors such as mis-adaptation and veiling glare would have lowered driver contrast sensitivity. Jurors also get to inspect the photographs at their leisure with no time constraints. Moreover, the jurors knew what was there, what was going to happen, and what the outcome would be.

Conclusion

The task faced by a driver approaching a trailer blocking a dark road is formidable. He must sense, and notice the trailer. He must correctly identify it and assess its distance. He may have to perform these tasks while facing the glare of tractor headlamps and be impaired by the effects of aging, bad weather or low arousal. He must then select a response by attempting to resolve an avoidance-avoidance conflict while under stress and perceptual narrowing.

It is relatively easy to point out the physical variables that cause these difficulties. Headlamps change the eye’s adaptation state and create scattered glare in the driver’s eye. Trailer angle reduces the effectiveness of the retroreflective tape, shrinks the size of the side maker lamps and reduces the amount of headlamp luminous intensity reflected back to the driver. Some viewer variables are also obvious. Aging increases glare susceptibility and lowers contrast sensitivity. Contrary to common lore, aging can also dramatically increase perception-reaction time in uncertain situations, such as identifying the trailer and resolving the avoidance-avoidance conflict.

Endnotes

¹ See Green, M. et al. 2008. Forensic Vision: With Applications To Highway Safety. Lawyers & Judges Publishing: Tucson.

² Headlamp aim is a key factor in creating glare. Headlamps misaimed upward or leftward cause more glare. However, it is usually impossible to go back and to determine the actual headlamp aim at the time of the collision.

³ 3M Product Bulletin 4000, 2005.

⁴ Morgan, C. (2001) NHTSA Report Number DOT HS 809 222.

⁵ “How Long Does it Take to Stop? Methodological Analysis of Driver Perception Brake Times,” Transportation Human Factors, Vol. 2, pp. 195-216, 2000.

⁶ E. g., Simon, J., and A. Pouraghabagher 1978. The Effect of Aging on the Stages of Processing in a Choice Reaction Time Task. Journal of Gerontology, 33. 553-561.

⁷ Easterbrook, J. A. 1959. The effect of emotion on cue utilization and the organization of behavior. Psychological Review 66, 183-201.

⁸ Supra note 1.

Why Perception-Response Time (PRT) Is Not Like Gravity

Why Perception-Response Time (PRT) Is Not Like Gravity

Marc Green

It is sometimes easier to explain a concept by saying what it is not, e.g., seeing is not a homunculus in the head looking at a screen. Similarly, it is useful to show that PRT is not by nature like gravity, especially since the previous chapter unintentionally reinforced the errant impression that PRT is exactly like gravity.

For present purposes, gravity has three important properties.

• First, it is a variable, but it can reasonably be treated as a constant. Its assumed value is always 32.2 ft/sec², even though, strictly speaking, its exact value depends on several factors. In most applications (on earth), the error is too small to matter. Since it is a virtual constant, it may be applied in a cookbook manner with no need to understand the origin, history, effects of various circumstances or underlying scientific basis.
• Second, a value for gravity is always necessary when performing braking and similar accident reconstruction calculations. It is not possible to simply say that the value is too uncertain to determine, to use qualitative terms such as more or less acceleration or to deem it irrelevant.
• A third difference is that gravity has no variability. It is a simple, single number. Humans have an innate urge to reduce cognitive complexity, i.e., find a simple answer to a complex problem. It would be nice if collisions could be analyzed with a single number. There is a certain amount of time to avoid collision and either the driver’s PRT is longer or shorter than this time. If it is shorter, he avoids collision. If it is longer, he does not. What could be simpler?

It is perhaps natural that accident reconstructionists and engineers, people trained in the physical sciences, should treat PRT like a cookbook physical constant. They need gravity to compute braking as well as to perform many other physical analyses. They also want a simple number that they can use without any deep understanding. Psychology and behavior is not their business and they don’t want to be diverted into the extensive time and effort required to obtain a real understanding of the phenomenon.

To them, it must seem a small step to cross over into human factors and to analyze avoidability where they will need a PRT value just as they needed a gravity value to perform the purely physical analysis.

It is not surprising then that they view PRT as a human factors analog to gravity – a fixed number where variability, context and scientific basis can be ignored. If AASHTO says that PRT is 2.5 seconds, then there is no need to bother reading the Green Book in order to learn the method that AASHTO used to determine the value, the assumptions they made or what they intended it to represent.

There is no need to read the original studies upon which AASHTO relied in reaching their conclusions. In fact, learning about such issues is critical to anyone attempting to apply this value to the real-world. I explain this in depth later when I discuss how the AASHTO derived their values and the problems with their choice of base data.

Unfortunately, PRT is not like gravity at all, and crossing from physics to human factors, i.e., experimental psychology, is a huge step. Psychology is far more complex¹ than physics, and PRT is a far more complicated concept than gravity.

It is not reasonable to treat PRT as a constant, or even a small set of constants, that apply universally across all situations. Mean/median PRT varies wildly due to circumstances and PRT distributions often have very large variability and large skew. The number of factors affecting PRT is far greater and more difficult to quantify than the factors that determine gravity. In sum, to assign a value for gravity, it is not necessary to be a physicist or to have read the underlying physics research. To assign a PRT value to a real situation, or even know whether it is feasible to assign a number, it is absolutely necessary to know a great amount of the underlying research in both PRT and in behavioral psychology in general.

Sometimes, the key question is not the speed of PRT but whether PRT is even a relevant issue. Such an assertion may seem unintuitive since a driver response is required for avoidance. This is again thinking in terms of the gravity analogy. In reality, there are several reasons for ignoring PRT in many cases.

1. The relationship between PRT and accident causation is weak.

One study (Muttart, 2005) found no relationship between PRT and accident involvement while another (Mihal & Barret, 1976) found that individual differences in PRT had no relationship to accident rate. A third (Ayres, & Kubose, 2012) concluded that for a given TTC, PRT often failed to distinguish between those who crashed and those who did not. Further, Malaterre, Ferrandez, Fleury & Lechner (1988) concluded that under extreme emergency, instinctive reflexes take over so that all drivers “become equal”. In fact, most accidents involve drivers who have good driving records and who have not had a previous major crash (Campbell, 1959). The most likely explanation for such results is that situational factors, speed, time, distance, light and contrast, and not PRT, primarily determine whether an accident will occur. Whether a driver can avoid a collision is often due to plain old luck, i.e., it “is “rather like taking a bet” (Prynne & Martin, 1995) and “therefore a matter of chance combination of circumstances” (Baker, 1960). In sum, there is little evidence that accidents occur because there are “bad apples” who respond abnormally slowly.

Many will find this conclusion difficult to accept because it runs contrary to a strong human cognitive bias, “fundamental attribution error” (Ross, 1997). When a person judges the cause of an event, he can assign it to either dispositional factors inside the person or to situational factors outside the person’s control. People are heavily biased toward blaming individual disposition even though most people act the same way in the same situation. Fundamental attribution error is very powerful and highly resistant even to strong evidence that environmental constraints were the primary cause. It is also one of the prime promoters of hindsight bias.

2. Long PRT is often a side effect, not the cause, of avoidance failure.

That is, the cause is the factors that resulted in a PRT that was too long, and not the PRT itself. Think about it this way. Assume the fastest possible driver PRT is 1.5 seconds. The driver responds in 2.5 seconds on a dark road at night to a pedestrian. If there were research studies that would contain PRT data for a pedestrian in his specific clothing, on his specific location on the roadway, with the specific street lighting etc. then that might be used directly. Unfortunately there are no such data and likely never will be. At this point, there are only a few ways to proceed. One is to make up a number, which in my experience is all too common. (“Well, the standard PRT is 1.5 seconds in daylight, so I added another second for nighttime”). Another is to use an illuminance criterion, such as the 3.2 lux twilight value. This is another cognitive complexity reducer since it is simple and requires no understanding. The chapter on contrast detection has already explained why this method is unreliable.

So what is the alternative? Perhaps the best strategy is to shift away from PRT to the factors that determine PRT. After all, response is just the final event in a chain of human information processing, i.e., sensing, identification, situational awareness and response selection. It is an effect of these factors and only a manifestation of them.

To see this, consider how PRT might be determined. Under absolutely ideal conditions, humans can reliably respond to an unexpected road event in roughly 1.0-1.5 second, depending on whom you ask. This sets the absolute limit on what a driver can achieve. If the available time is less than this, then avoidance is simply impossible. If it is longer, then inevitable uncertainties arise. The real world is never ideal so the question is always, how much more is the PRT going to be. There are many factors that may inflate the PRT: visibility, conspicuity, expectation violation, complexity, novelty, weather, etc.

The amount by which each of these factors individually, let alone in groups, raise PRT is generally difficult to say with much certainty. The important point is that the issue is not the driver’s PRT but rather the conditions that caused the increase to whatever PRT that driver actually produced.

The real performance determining factors should be examined, and not the PRT that they produce. If lighting and contrast are low, then PRT will be long. If the driver fails to see the object in time to avoid because of lighting conditions, the issue is visibility, not PRT (at least directly). If the driver fails to see the visible object in time because other road objects attracted his attention, or because he is texting on his smart phone, the focus should be the events that controlled attention, not PRT. Certainly, a specific number like 2.0 seconds results in a nice fuzzy feeling and the pretence of scientific precision, but in most cases this is merely illusory confidence.

In sum, the process should work backward from the way people normally think of it. The question accident investigators typically ask is “What is the expected PRT”? The better question is “What factors caused the driver’s PRT, what ever it was, to be insufficient?” The task is to explain what actually happened and not to hypothesize some specific number in the absence of real scientific evidence. The fundamental cause of most collisions is likely “late detection” (Rumar, 1990). Anyone who has investigated collisions knows that drivers commonly say that they never saw the pedestrian, etc. or saw him just a fraction of a second before the collision. What is the point in considering PRT in such cases? The real issue is the reason that detection was late.

3. Variability is critical

Variability is irrelevant to applying a value for gravity but absolutely central to interpreting PRT. Gravity is always 32.2 ft/sec², end of story. In PRT, variability is as critical as the measure of central tendency (mean/median), since it defines the range of normal behaviors. Research studies are little help for determining variability, beyond setting a lower limit. As I have explained, research studies are designed to minimize variability, so they typically underestimate the uncertainty of real-world behavior. This is most important in situations that require thinking, i.e., ones that are not highly reflexive.

Moreover, there is still the additional problem in defining normality even if variability could be convincingly determined. Suppose the mean PRT is 1.5 seconds and a driver responds in 2 seconds. Is this within the realm of normal driver behavior? The question is unanswerable without knowing variability. If the standard deviation is .25 second, then he is two standard deviations above the mean and is in the 5% of slowest drivers. If the standard deviation is .5 second, then he is only one standard deviation above the mean and is in the slowest 16% of drivers. Where are the limits of “normality?” The one or the two standard deviations above the mean driver? In contrast sensitivity, the Adrian contrast model sets the value at the 99.63% detection level (and then adds multipliers). That is more than three standard deviations above the mean and is a far looser definition of normality. Which definition is correct? Of course, PRT distribution exhibit strong kurtosis toward longer values, so standard deviations may greatly underestimate the number of the slow times.

There is one final problem in defining variability as well as mean/median. That is the problem of defining PRT itself. In counterfactual thinking, it is always easy to say that the driver could have avoided the collision if he had responded faster.

This may be trivially true, but then the important questions are

• 1) what is meant by “responded”? and more importantly
• 2) responded faster to what?

Let’s Get Real About Perception-Reaction Time (PRT)

Marc Green

Imagine a trial about a botched surgical procedure. A surgery “expert” takes the stand to give his opinion. Upon examination, he says that no, he has never done any surgery himself. Nor has he ever studied the underlying scientific disciplines of anatomy or physiology. He says that he qualified, however, because he has read a book chapter on surgery by the noted physician Paulski Olsonovich and that he once took a 2-day chiropractor course that included a 2 hour discussion of surgery.

Would this surgery “expert” be allowed to testify? Not likely. But substitute the phrases “perception-reaction time” for “surgery,” “vision” for “anatomy” and “cognition” for “physiology” and apparently, voila, the “expert” is qualified.

This probably explains why there is no area of “expert” opinion on road accidents that has more misinformation, more inappropriate use of canned numbers, more misunderstanding and, to use scientific terminology, more good old fashioned BS. Like the surgery expert above, most PRT “experts” have never actually done the task that they feel free to opine about.

They have likely never measured a reaction time nor done any other behavioral scientific research and do not understand the complexities of scientific research and how much the methodological details determine what a scientific research study can actually tell you. In short, science, like surgery, is something you do and not just something you know.

Moreover, most “experts” have never read the original source data and don’t have the background to evaluate and interpret the studies if they did. Like the surgery expert, they have no training or experience in foundational scientific areas, human learning, memory, perception, decision-making, etc., to put the results into a broader behavioral context. They rely on secondary sources that omit many of the critical methodological details necessary to interpret the data.

Accident reconstruction is about physics – speeds, time, distances, etc. Accident reconstructionists, however, sometimes feel compelled to go beyond physics and to give an opinion on causality and accident avoidability.

Here is where the trouble starts. The accident reconstructionist cannot give an avoidability opinion without providing a PRT value. This clearly goes beyond physics into the realm of human behavior, i.e., the field of psychology. With no scientific experience in psychology, however, the “expert” simply parrots a value that he has heard in a course, read in a secondary source book, pulled blindly from a computer program, etc. although he has no real understanding of where it comes from or what it means.

The article below, published in Collision 2009 and elaborated in (Green, 2017), demonstrates why such an approach is inadequate. It also shows why it is necessary to actually read the original source research and why a background in basic perception, cognition, etc. is necessary to understand what the research is really saying. Lastly, it shows why a background in having actually performed behavioral research is essential to opine on topics such as perception-reaction time.

Perception-Reaction Time: Is Olson & Sivak All You Need To Know?
Collision, (2009), 4, 88-95.

Accident reconstruction often requires a driver “perception-reaction time” (PRT), the interval between obstacle appearance and driver response initiation, i.e., the foot just touches the brake pedal and/or the hands just start turning the wheel. The PRT number is often a critical factor in establishing causation and subsequently in assigning blame.

There are two popular opinions and rationales for PRT.

• The first opinion is that the PRT is 1.5 seconds. The usual basis for 1.5 seconds is that the reconstructionist read it in an accident reconstruction book, learned it in a class or simply believes that it is the “accepted value.”
• The second opinion is that the PRT is 1.1 (or 1.6 for the 95th percentile driver) based on “Olson.” This opinion almost invariably means that the accident reconstructionist has read one of Olson’s secondary sources, such as a chapter in Forensic Aspects of Driver Perception And Response (2003), or has simply seen it cited somewhere. In fact, the data stem from Olson & Sivak (1986), but Sivak remains anonymous because few have read the original research. For simplicity, I will simply refer to the data as “Olson,” which is how they are usually referenced.

In either case, the rationale is inadequate. PRT is a very complex, situationally-dependent phenomenon that cannot be captured in the canned numbers that are so typically employed. Few who reconstruct accidents know much about the underlying science, where the numbers they quote originate, how they were obtained or what they really mean.

This article addresses the misuse of canned numbers (including the AASHTO 2.5 seconds and computer programs) in general but focuses primarily on the “Olson values.” There are three main problems.

• First, every research study has limited generality because it is conduced under a specific set of conditions. An accident reconstructionist wishing to apply Olson, or any other research study, to a specific accident should understand the differences between the driving situation in the study and the specific accident. These differences will be smaller in some cases and larger in others, but there will be always differences. In some cases, Olson does not apply at all. In fact, the concept of PRT itself may not even apply. The discussions below of visibility and the tollbooth problem are examples.
• Second, Olson is a perfectly fine study, but it is only one of perhaps 100+ driver PRT studies. These other studies provide data for other sets of conditions. Knowledge of these studies allows the reconstuctionist to better interpolate and extrapolate PRT for a broader set of conditions. However, there are no existing data for many common accident scenarios, so it is often impossible to determine a PRT with much precision. For example, there are almost no data for PRT at night, when accidents are frequent.
• Third, assigning a reasonable PRT requires knowledge that goes even beyond the PRT literature. The issue of driver PRT cannot be snipped off from the larger topics such as perception, memory and learning and examined independently. This is especially true in accident scenarios where no PRT data exist. The assessment of older driver PRT, as discussed later, is a good example.

What Does Olson Actually Say?

In order to properly use Olson (or any other study) as a basis for estimating real world PRT’s, the first step is to carefully analyze the experimental procedure. The second step is to determine the differences between research conditions and the accident conditions. The last step is to compensate for the differences. This is the most difficult problem.

A close reading of the Olson & Sivak study reveals the important methodological details. Olson tested two groups, a younger group of 49 drivers with an age range of 18-40 and an older group of 15 drivers with an age range of 50-84. The drivers were told only that they would be a study of driver behavior. They drove the test vehicle during daylight at about 27-31 mph with the experimenter sitting in the rear seat. The route took them over a rural road chosen so that there would be no distractions or possible hazards. After 10-15 minutes, the vehicle came to a hill. The experimenters had placed an obstacle, a 6″ x 36″ block of foam, in the left side of the lane directly in front of the driver. As the driver ascended the hill, the obstacle came into view. The sight distance to the obstacle was about 150 ft (46 meters), which translated to about 3.3-3.8 seconds time-to-collision (TTC). Instruments measured the time/location at which the driver released the accelerator and pressed the brake.

In order to determine the PRT, the driver had to re-travel the route and tell the experimenter where he had first seen the obstacle. Olson then calculated the putative PRT time by measuring the distance from the location where the driver claimed to have first seen the obstacle to the location where he released the accelerator. PRT is this distance divided by speed.

Their results show a median PRT of about 1.1 second to press the brakes, with no difference between younger and older drivers. The 5th percentile drivers responded in .8 second while the 95th percentile driver responded in about 1.6 seconds. Olson has published these results in several later book chapters but without the methodological details.

First, the research was not exactly a study of PRT to an unexpected obstacle. The PRT determination required the driver to return to the scene and to say where he first saw the obstacle. At this point, the obstacle was expected and not a surprise.

This is a very unusual way to determine PRT. Usually, the PRT clock starts counting at the moment the signal is presented. It is unclear how accurately drivers could say where they were when they first saw the obstacle, so there are questions about what this study actually measured. However, one thing is certain: if the PRT clock had started counting at the moment when the driver first had a clear sightline to the obstacle, then the PRT would have been longer.

Reading the actual study reveals that the methodology was biased to produce short PRT’s. There are many other procedural factors that further promoted very short PRT and that limit the study’s generality for assigning PRT to real accidents.

1. Drivers were alerted. The term “alerted” unfortunately has two senses, which often creates confusion. Some authors use the term “alerted” to mean that the driver knew that there was an obstacle or even a particular obstacle ahead. In this sense, “alerted” means “expecting.”

The other sense of “alert” refers to general arousal level. Drivers in the Olson study may not have been expecting a particular obstacle, but they certainly were alert and had a very high arousal level: they were participating in an experiment where their behavior was being monitored. There was even someone sitting in the back seat watching them. Moreover, they had been driving only 10-15 minutes before encountering the obstacle. Arousal level is related to driving time.

The well-known phenomenon of vigilance decrement (Mackworth, 1948), a rapid decline in detection, typically starts within a half hour after task initiation. Further, research (Philip, Taillard, Klein, Sagaspe, Davies, Guilleminault, & Bioulac, 2003) has shown that time spent driving is a better predictor of decrease in driver performance than hours without sleep. The short driving time in the Olson study gives the test drivers a significant arousal advantage over a real driver who may have been on the road for an extended period.

In sum, the Olson drivers’ high arousal level likely produced shorter PRT’s than would occur under many normal driving scenarios. Olson was fully aware of this likelihood when he noted that “The subjects in this study were possibly alert relative to the general population of drivers” and that “the results are probably conservative (i.e., lower) to what would be found in the real world.”

2 The testing occurred during the day. Olson does not specify the times of his testing, but it is likely that much of it was performed when drivers are at a moderate or high point on their “circadian rhythms,” the normal 24-hour cycle of arousal that all people experience.

For most people, the arousal cycle has lows in the late afternoon and especially in the early morning hours. During these periods, many performance measures, such as accident rates and PRT are at their worst. One study (Wylie, Shultz, Miller, Mitler, & Mackie, 1996) of long haul truck drivers, for example, found that accidents correlated with time-of-day, early morning hours, but not with time-without-sleep. As a rule of thumb, in fact, it takes about 24 hours before people exhibit major sleep-deprivation losses.

Olson’s drivers then likely had this additional arousal advantage over normal drivers in the early morning hours who are at a low point on the circadian rhythm. However, drivers who habitually work nights may have their rhythm “phase shifted,” so the peaks and lows are at different times than normal drivers.

3. The obstacle appeared at the point of fixation. Olson placed the obstacle on the roadway at the crest of a hill and directly in front of the driver. It likely the exact location where the driver was fixating at the moment he reached the 46 meter sight distance. Location of an obstacle in the visual field can affect PRT. The optimal location is along the sightline at the point of fixation. Objects located here cast their images on the fovea, the retinal area of sharpest vision and the focus of attention. Olson placed the obstacle in the ideal visual field location.

In contrast, many collision scenarios involve a lane incursion where a vehicle or pedestrian approaches from the side. The obstacle then first appears in peripheral vision, where visual sensitivity is lower and attention is weaker. Moreover, when a viewer detects an object in peripheral vision, he most likely makes a saccadic eye movement toward it.

The saccade requires time to move the eye plus a “dwell time” for the viewer to perceive the scene. The total saccade time about is 1/3 second in good day visibility. At night, the time is likely to be longer. The first saccade may miss the object, so viewers may have to make more than one saccade to “home in” on the target. When the new fixation requires a significant change in distance, such as shifting gaze from a mirror to an obstacle a few hundred feet down the road, the eye’s change of accommodation and vergence and reacquisition can drive the time up to as long as a second (Travis, 1948.)

Lastly, if the target is more than 15^o from the sightline, the driver will likely also have to make a head turn. Imagine a driver approaching an intersection or railroad track. He must turn his head to look one direction and then the other. It takes the driver 85th percentile driver .7 seconds to turn his head one way and then another 1 second to turn back the other (Long & Nitsch, 2008). This 1.7 seconds search time is on top of the PRT.

Visual field effects likely explain why Olson & Sivak found a 1.1 median PRT second while studies (Green, 2008a) using lane incursions typically find slower mean PRT’s of about 1.5 seconds. (About .1 second of this difference is likely due to the difference between using median and mean as measures of central tendency.) Olson and Sivak’s 95th percentile level was 1.8 seconds while the 95th percentile lane incursion PRT would be about 2.4 seconds, which is also near value used by AASHTO in geometric road design.

In sum, the Olson study optimized the PRT by placing the obstacle at the fixation point directly ahead of the driver. PRT will be longer when objects approach from the side as well as for other reasons discussed in subsequent sections.

4. The visibility conditions were good. Olson tested drivers in daylight and good visibility, so obstacle visibility was not a limiting factor in driver behavior. PRT is likely to increase at night and under other low visibility conditions.

In fact, when visibility is sufficiently low, the concept of PRT becomes irrelevant. After all, if the driver can’t see the obstacle, then he can’t respond to it. For example, assume that PRT for a pedestrian cutting left-to-right across the driver’s path in good visibility conditions 1.5 seconds. In this case, driver first sees the target in peripheral vision. At night, the same pedestrian wearing dark clothing emerges from outside the driver’s headlamp beams. When the pedestrian is far to the left, he receives little headlamp illumination and is invisible.

As pedestrian and vehicle approach, more headlamp illumination falls on the pedestrian. At some point, driver sees the pedestrian. In theory, the 1.5 seconds reaction time clock starts when the pedestrian first becomes visible in the periphery. But when is that? [Note: Olson didn’t start timing PRT until the point at which the driver actually saw the obstacle.] In order to state a well-defined PRT, it would be necessary to know the exact point at which the pedestrian became visible. Even if this could be calculated, then it would still be necessary to specify the point where the pedestrian became conspicuous enough to draw attention and eye movement. This point is likely unknowable with great precision.

It is impossible to precisely estimate of the amount of slowing that will occur at night. However, some qualitative statements are possible. For the same pedestrian walking the same path, driver will have less time to avoid the collision at night because the pedestrian will likely have to be much closer in order to achieve the required visibility. The difference between day and night PRT will depend on factor such as street lighting, pedestrian clothing, background clutter, etc. A pedestrian wearing white clothing, for example, will often have better visibility and more approximate daylight visibility conditions than a pedestrian wearing dark clothing. However, there are exceptions (Green, 2008b).

Lastly, low visibility conditions also slow cognitive processing by creating uncertainty and by impairing recognition. I explain this further in the next section.

5. The obstacle appeared suddenly and unambiguously. Olson’s drivers responded reflexively and did not have to think much because the situation was very clear. There was minimal cognitive processing, little uncertainty and no complexity, so PRT was very short. Moreover, the variability is very small because people are relatively uniform in their speed of making reflexive responses.

Situations that are more ambiguous or which develop more gradually require conscious thinking that slows response and drastically increases variability. For example, a driver traveling at night who approaches red and white dots (e.g., the rear reflective tape on a truck) at some ill-defined distance must gain “situational awareness.” He must identify the lights, determine the distance, search memory for previous similar experiences, decide what is going to happen if he responds and if he doesn’t respond, choose a response, chose how hard to make the response, etc. (Green, 2008). Moreover he must consider his ability to control vehicle speed and direction.

The “tollbooth problem” (Fajen, & Devaney, 2006) provides a good example. Imagine a driver on a high-speed limited-access road traveling 65 mph. Suddenly, he sees a tollbooth up ahead about a mile away and realizes that he will have to stop. Does he start braking immediately? The answer, of course, is no. Immediate braking wastes time arriving at the tollbooth. Rather, the driver has an internal model of his vehicle’s braking capabilities and has learned the mount of time/distance needed to stop at a comfortable deceleration (or even at an uncomfortable deceleration.) Eventually he reaches the critical distance and begins to brake.

Theoretically, PRT would be the time between first sighting of the tollbooth and the pressure on the brake pedal. However, this is not a “reaction” in any conventional sense, so the concept of PRT doesn’t really apply. The driver does not brake because there is no need to act. While the tollbooth problem might seem trivial, drivers face similar problems frequently. Up ahead, they see brake lights or unidentifiable objects, some dim dots of red and light. Should the driver brake immediately or wait until he is sure of the situation?

The point of the tollbooth example is that there is much more to PRT than perception. Drivers have a mental model of their ability to control their vehicle. The decision to act is always based partly on this mental model. The model’s constituents are the “safe field of travel” and “stopping distance” (Gibson and Crooks, 1938). As a driver travels down the road, he is surrounded by obstacles, cars ahead, curbs and other barriers, pedestrians crossing the road, etc. which define a safe field of travel. This field changes constantly as new vehicles, pedestrians, etc. appear and change position.

The driver also has a mental stopping distance and steering model of his ability to brake/swerve his vehicle. This area is like a cocoon that surrounds the driver, providing a buffer zone with obstacles. Drivers believe that they can avoid collision with obstacles outside the cocoon. Ideally, the driver steers his vehicle through the cocoon’s center, adjust speed and direction as the safe field of travel dynamically changes.

For this scheme to work, the driver must accurately assess object distance, speed and stopping distance (or time). However, distance perception is highly fallible, especially for small points of light, unfamiliar objects, foggy atmosphere and some other situations. Drivers are also poor at judging their own speed (Denton, 1980) and there are many situational factors that can cause them to underestimate how fast they are going, I e., fog and, low edge rates (Denton, 1980.) Drivers may also err in their belief of stopping ability when driving an unfamiliar vehicle or on wet or icy roads, sharp downgrades, dark conditions, etc.

Moreover, most drivers have likely had little or no experience making sudden stops, especially at high speeds. They base their cocoon size on their experiences stopping at lower speeds. Since stopping distance increases with the square of speed rather than linearly with speed, they are likely to underestimate the needed distance.

Even if the driver decides to respond, the choice of response is sometimes unclear. A driver heading toward a tractor-trailer blocking the road may find that there is no time to brake and that steering to the left will take him into oncoming traffic while steering to the right will put him in a ditch. This is termed an “avoidance-avoidance” conflict where the driver must choose among a set of bad alternatives.

In such cases, PRT typically is very, very long. Often, the driver can’t decide and fails to respond at all before collision. The common example is the underride accident where there is an unfortunate tendency to assume the driver’s failure to respond because he had fallen asleep. In fact, the driver may have been caught in an avoidance-avoidance crisis.

6. The drivers were traveling slowly. Olson’s drivers traveled at speeds ranging between 27-31 mph. At such slow speeds, sudden, abrupt braking or steering is less likely to cause an unrecoverable loss of control and to have dangerous consequences. In contrast, drivers traveling at 65 mph on a freeway may to hesitate to make sharp swerves or go to full-out braking because of potential control loss. They have to weigh the hazard of a collision with the hazard created by a loss of control that sends the vehicle over a median or guardrail, into other traffic or that initiates a side-skid and rollover. It is a type of avoidance-avoidance conflict that will likely lengthen PRT.

The fear of losing control is likely why drivers frequently resort to two-stage braking (Prynne & Martin, 1995). They initially push the brake pedal down part way and then monitor the situation, hoping that they can avoid the collision without and extreme response that risks loss of control. If collision is still likely, then the driver might go to the extreme maneuver.

7. The “older” drivers were not all old. Olson somewhat surprisingly failed to find any slowing in their “older drivers.” This has caused many to claim that aging has no effect on PRT. However Olson’s “old” group included drivers as young as age 50. While visual abilities start their decline in the early 40’s, the significant effects do not begin until viewers enter the 60’s. Olson does not give the ages of the individual drivers, so it is impossible to know the number who were in their 50’s and early 60’s where aging effects are small. However, it is very possible that Olson found no aging effect, in part, because their “older” drivers were too young.

Olson’s task further likely minimized aging effects. As discussed elsewhere (Odom & Green, 2008), studies in the basic research literature have repeatedly found that impairments of aging (and other conditions such as distraction and alcohol use) are more pronounced when perceptual and cognitive abilities are taxed under conditions such as low visibility, uncertainty and complexity. The simple, virtually automatic avoidance task in the Olson study required little cognition. It was performed in good visibility, so perceptual abilities were not a limiting factor.

Moreover, research with older subjects always raises the issue of representativeness. Olson does not state how he recruited the subject drivers. However, most researchers would routinely screen their subjects, especially older ones, for any visual or other health problems. The older subject drivers are then likely to be healthier, more active, in better visual and cognitive condition than the population as a whole. Moreover, the drivers very likely agreed voluntarily to be in the study.

Only the relatively healthy and “spry” senior is likely to volunteer for a research study. In sum, research on screened, self-selected older drivers likely overestimates abilities of the older population as a whole. In any event, the “older” group consisted of only 15 drivers.

This discussion of older driver PRT highlights the point that PRT assignment often requires knowledge of the general psychological literature and of scientific methodology.

• First, it is necessary to actually read Olson’s study in order to learn that he placed drivers as young as age 50 in the old category. This is not a detail that is ever mentioned in secondary sources.
• Second, the effects of complexity and uncertainty on the size of age-related deficits do not appear anywhere in the driver PRT literature or any computerized PRT program. It is basic science published in basic science sources.
• Third, the important issue of representativeness would not be apparent to anyone who was not intimately familiar with the way scientific research is conducted.

Conclusion

Accident reconstructionists should take the Olson results for what they are – the fastest that a driver can avoid an “unexpected” obstacle in highly optimized conditions.

Any deviation, such as low visibility, peripheral visual field location, complexity or uncertainty is almost certain to increase PRT. The finding that there is no loss of PRT with age is not generalizable and depends on specific conditions. Lastly, real drivers are unlikely to be as alert as the drivers in the study. Lower arousal level may produce longer PRT’s, especially at low points in the circadian rhythm and after driving for extended periods.

Each of the 7 factors described above would doubtless add time to Olson’s optimized 1.1/1.8 seconds PRT but assigning a precise number is difficult. I have sometimes seen opinions where someone arbitrarily adds 0.5 or 1 to compensate for nighttime or complex conditions. While essentially guesswork, these estimates are doubtless closer to reality than the simple, foveal, daytime, high-arousal values taken at face value. However, there are few if any PRT data for many of these conditions. This is why it is so important to have general knowledge about perception, attention and memory to fall back upon. They are often the only available guides.

Despite the lack of data for many situations, however, I can draw two practical conclusions about assigning a driver PRT.

• First, estimates will often cover a very broad range because precision is impossible.
• Second, estimates will often be very high – much higher than are normally seen. Low visibility and violated expectation make the obstacle disappear and even a moment’s hesitation to search or to think or to decide upon response can eat up seconds. The AASHO Redbook’s view of PRT written in 1973 remains true today:

“Whenever the driver is confronted with a complex traffic or highway situation and is required to make choices, judgments, and decisions, his response time may increase to 2, 3 or even 5 seconds” (p. 278).

References

American Association of State Highway Officials (1973). A Policy on Design of Urban Highways and Arterial Streets. Washington, DC: AASHO.

Denton G. (1980). The influence of visual pattern on perceived speed. Perception, 9, 393-402.

Fajen, B. R. & Devaney, M. C. (2006). Learning to control collisions: The role of perceptual attunement and action boundaries. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32(3), 300-313.

Gibson, J.J. & Crooks, L.E. (1938). A theoretical field-analysis of automobile driving. American Journal of Psychology, 51, 453-471.

Green, M. (2008a) “How long does it take to stop?” Methodological Analysis of Driver Perception-Brake Times. In M. Green, B. Abrams, M. Allen, Forensic Vision With Application To Highway Safety, 379-406. Tucson: Lawyers & Judges Publishing.

Green, M. (2008b) “Pedestrian accident analysis” Methodological Analysis of Driver Perception-Brake Times. In M. Green, B. Abrams, M. Allen, Forensic Vision With Application To Highway Safety, 329-348. Tucson: Lawyers & Judges Publishing.

Long, G. & Nitsch, A. (2008). Effect of dead turning on driver perception-reaction time at passive railroad crossings. Transportation Research board 2007 Meeting CD.

Mackworth NH (1948). The breakdown of vigilance during prolonged visual search. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1, 5-61.

Odom, J. & Green, M. (2008). Aging Vision. In M. Green, B. Abrams, M. Allen, Forensic Vision With Application To Highway Safety. Tucson: Lawyers & Judges Publishing.

Olson, P. & Farber, E. (2003). Forensic Aspects of Driver Perception and Response. Tucson: Lawyers & Judges Publishing.

Olson, P.L. & Sivak, M. (1986) Perception-response time to unexpected roadway hazards. Human Factors, 28, 96-99.

Philip P., Taillard J., Klein E., Sagaspe P., Charles A., Davies W., Guilleminault C., & Bioulac, B. (2003). Effect of fatigue on performance measured by a driving simulator in automobile drivers. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 55, 197-200.

Prynne, K. and P. Martin 1995. Braking behavior in emergencies. SAE Technical Paper 950969.

Travis, R. (1948). Measurement of accommodation and convergence time as part of a complex visual adjustment. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, 395-403.

Wylie, C. D. Shultz, T. Miller, J. C. Mitler, M. M. and Mackie, R. R. (1996). Commercial motor vehicle driver fatigue and alertness study: Project report. Technical Report FHWAMC- 97-002, Federal Highway Administration, Washington DC.

History Of Trucking And Transportation

By Spencer Jensen

Introduction To The History Of Trucking And Transportation

The history of trucking and transportation has followed an interesting trajectory. A good portion of the transportation that is still used today was invented in the twentieth century, a time period in which most of the earlier forms of transportation rapidly became obsolete. The history of trucking is just another part of the picture. The history of trucking changed very rapidly once the twentieth century began, although the history of trucking technically dates back to the late nineteenth century.

Trucking Before 1900

Railroads were basically the trucks of their day. Freight was moved from place to place using railroads in the nineteenth century. Railroads were considered wonderfully impressive inventions at the time, and many people treated railroads as symbols of the fact that they were living in an era of tremendous technological and social progress. A good portion of the people who became wealthy in the nineteenth century did so by investing in railroads.

Railroads almost serve as a symbol of the fact that the nineteenth century was indeed an impressive time period full of rapid social and technological change, but the twentieth century was more impressive and the changes were more dramatic. The twenty-first century appears to be leaving the twentieth century in the dust as well, continuing this trend.

As impressive as railroads were, the freight could still only travel in highly predetermined paths, and the freight was often limited to the most centralized urban areas. From there, the freight was still moved using vehicles pulled by horses. Railroading was a departure from traditional modes of transportation, but it was still dependent on earlier modes of transportation and limited in terms of what it could accomplish.

The rise of trucking made all the difference in terms of the movement of freight, but trucking didn’t really begin until the twentieth century. There were trucks in the nineteenth century, but they were treated as showpieces and technological marvels as opposed to valuable tools. Their utility was primarily for advertising revenue.

It should be noted that one of the biggest boosts to the trucking industry was the widespread growth of paved roads. Roads were much less extensive in the nineteenth century, especially in rural areas. The roads that people would find there weren’t paved. Even if trucks were more advanced in terms of the technology, they weren’t going to be as useful as the trucks today just because the infrastructure of the nineteenth century was not up to the task.

However, the technological limitations of the earlier trucks were certainly nothing to sneeze at for anyone. These trucks used electric engines. It is true that electric engines are praised today for being more environmentally friendly than the internal combustion engines that they could theoretically replace. However, today, the storage batteries for the electric charges are much more efficient. People are capable of traveling longer distances on a single charge. It is also possible to design lots of different refueling stations in the modern world, which would theoretically make it easier for electric engines to be adopted on a wider scale.

Even with the earlier internal combustion engines, drivers were often limited in terms of the distance that they could cover due to the lack of refueling stations on their journeys. With electric engines, the engines would run out of the necessary power fairly early in the process. Drivers could only travel using electric engines using a very narrow driving range.

Modern trucks are also distinguished by the fact that they have tremendously large load capacities. The trucks of the nineteenth century were miniature by comparison. Even if the infrastructure were in place to allow people to travel longer distances and even if the electric engines were more efficient than they were, people still would not be able to carry much in the way of freight using the earliest nineteenth century trucks. As such, the entire process would not be especially cost-effective for anyone.

Traveling much more than short distances in these trucks also would have been unsafe and nearly torturous. Trucking today is often a difficult and dangerous job. Truckers work long hours, and they’re technically getting exposed to the pollution of the road and the sun all day long. The earliest trucks were amazingly even worse when it came to exposing the drivers to the elements. Early vehicles in general were extremely unsafe compared to the vehicles of today. A good portion of the safety features that people take for granted did not become standard until the late twentieth century. The temperature fluctuations that bother truckers today would have been torturous for the people who were driving the trucks of the nineteenth century.

However, the trucks of the nineteenth century were certainly an important part of the process. They served as a template for the trucks that would shortly arrive on the scene in a more influential manner. Technology builds on itself, and the trucking industry of the twentieth and twenty-first century had to get its start with some prototypes. The nineteenth century provided those prototypes.

Railroads also helped set the precedent for being able to move large amounts of freight over long distances. People were already used to that at this point during nineteenth century history, which made the transition to the modern trucking industry that much easier for the people of the time.

 Trucking in 1910

The internal combustion engine was technically invented in 1884, but the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine didn’t really become an economic and cultural force to be reckoned with until the 1910’s. There were other technological improvements during this time period when it came to early trucks, including the switch from chain drives to gear drives. Gear drives last much longer and are easier to use.

The combination of the tractor and the semi-trailer that is so iconic today began during this time period. This design made it that much easier for people to transport freight across large distances in the first place. Trucks were not going to be profitable unless they could carry large amounts of freight from one location to the next in the modern manner. The trucks of the 1910’s were some of the first trucks that were capable of doing so.

There were around one hundred thousand trucks on the road by the year 1914 in the United States. However, the trucking industry was still nothing like it is today. Early trucks had wheels made from solid rubber and iron. The rubber that people are more familiar with today was created in World War Two. The tires of old were woefully inefficient.

People today often complain about trucks wearing down the surface of asphalt roads. However, asphalt roads can withstand a lot of weight. The roads of the early twentieth century were often covered with gravel, and some of them barely even had that level of protection. The first weight limits imposed on trucks in 1913 were actually imposed in order to defend the roads against damage. The first trucks were also not capable of traveling very quickly, largely due to the nature of the tires. As such, it was not going to be very easy to try to move cargo with them anyway.

The Trucking Industry and World War I

World War One, like World War Two after it, helped create many of the facets of modern life that are taken for granted today. Railroads were strained with overuse during the years of World War One. The situation created a demand for alternatives, and the technology was in place for a new trucking industry.

Roy Chapin was the industrialist who helped pioneer the trucking industry of today. He helped found the company that set the stage for American motors. He also helped pioneer the first long-distance shipments by truck. The development of the new inflated tires, known as pneumatic tires at the time, allowed trucks to travel more quickly and more efficiently. By 1920, a million trucks were on the road. It was a steep increase from the previous six-figure estimation.

The development of the trucking industry only became more extensive over the course of the twentieth century. The New Deal policies that expanded the roads and the development of the interstate revolutionized the trucking industry. However, even before 1920, the trucking industry was already thriving.

The beginning of trucking happened earlier than many people think, which is partly due to the fact that moving freight is so economically important. Developments related to moving freight were going to occur relatively early since there is so much economic push for them. The history of transportation has always been colored by technological, cultural, and economic factors.

The early trucking industry and the beginning of the history of trucks was largely influenced by factors as major as a world war and factors as minor as a change in tire technology. Many of the developments that have transformed society got off the ground as a result of similarly modest beginnings. However, by 1920, many of the most major developments in the trucking industry were yet to come for everyone in the world.

Trucking History 1920s

The history of trucking changed dramatically between the beginning of the 1920’s and the beginning of the 1930’s. Technological and tremendous social changes managed to drive the history of trucking in the 20’s. Trucking in the 20’s specifically was largely shaped by technological change that made trucks more efficient and the economic growth that created more drivers in general, as well as the lingering effects of World War One. It was a crucial decade for the history of trucking.

Trucking in the 20’s

People in the 1920’s were still recovering from the effects of World War One in more ways than one. A huge portion of the culture of the day developed based on a reaction to the war. The government took over the railroads until the year 1920, and railroads barely had the capacity for any domestic products when they were burdened with moving around munitions and other supplies that were important to the war effort.

Domestic Products Fueled Trucking Industry

The burgeoning trucking industry began to get more involved in transporting domestic products around the country, and this didn’t stop even when the government relinquished control of the rails in the 1920’s. The trucking industry achieved more power during the war years, and the industry held onto that power and reach. A new niche had expanded, and this was a trend that was only going to continue in conjunction with many of the other cultural changes in the 1920’s.

Driving Becomes The New Norm

This new niche attracted a lot of enthusiastic entrepreneurs. Some of the same people who would have become wealthy for constructing new railroads or getting involved with the railroad business a generation ago soon started to get in on the new trucking industry that was taking shape all around them. Given the economic improvements of the 1920’s relative to earlier points during this time period, it was the perfect moment for a lot of new entrepreneurs to enter the market and try to expand this particular niche.

Automotive Industry Takes Off

One of the most striking aspects of automotive history in general during the 1920’s is the simple fact that driving went from a niche activity to a common one. There still weren’t as many drivers on the road in the 1920’s as there are today, but it was the decade in which driving was really becoming an important part of the American lifestyle.

The 1920’s was the Model T era, where cars were still black and interchangeable, but these black and interchangeable cars still helped transform the nation. Henry Ford made it possible for middle class people to own and operate their own motor vehicles, and he also managed to indirectly create a lot of new industries and technological developments in the process.

New And Improved Roads

Since driving was becoming so common, there was an incentive to update and improve the roads in rural areas. Technically, the old-fashioned roads served their purposes just fine, but they didn’t meet the needs of automobile drivers. Updating and improving the roads opened up rural areas to both cars and trucks, expanding the range of truck drivers everywhere. A lot of the resources that trucks are going to be transporting originate in the country in the first place, so being able to open up the country to trucks made all the difference in the trucking industry.

The Diesel Engine Is Born

The development of the diesel engine was also a major development in the history of trucking. Diesel engines have excellent fuel efficiency compared to gasoline engines. While today, an improvement like that would largely be praised for its environmental benefits, at the time, the improved fuel efficiency helped expand the range of trucks. Filling stations still weren’t as common as they are today. However, the introduction of more filling stations was also an important development in the history of trucking in the 20’s. The long haul truck driving jobs that are famous and infamous today started to become more commonplace during the 1920’s, along with the short haul trucking jobs.

When many people imagine trucks of the past, they are probably mainly wondering when the trucks that they would conceptualize as modern trucks emerged. The trucks made before the 1920’s looked like motorized wagons and ran more like motorized wagons. People today would visually recognize 1920’s trucks as modern trucks. The cabs of the trucks became enclosed, which helped complete the look. The important fifth wheels of trucks were also introduced during the 1920’s, and these were essential for the sake of hooking up trailers in the first place.

Filling Stations Begin To Pop Up On Local Corners

American filling stations date back to the year 1905, where the first one was constructed in St. Louis, Missouri. The drive-in filling stations that people are more familiar with today got their start in 1913. The number of filling stations expanded considerably throughout the 1920’s as the number of American drivers increased and the gas stations could become more profitable.

Before this point in time, the people who needed to replenish their gasoline supplies would have to count on bringing enough gasoline with them, or they would have to hope there was a blacksmith shop, general store, or hardware store nearby. Neither strategy was going to work particularly well for trucks, so the increased availability of filling stations and the increased efficiency of trucks made all the difference in the history of trucking.

The Roaring 1920s Saw It All

Truck and trailer sizes also become standardized during the 1920’s. It was easier for the freight industry to function under those circumstances, and producing trucks on a broad scale became more efficient as a result. The standardized size and weight of trucks was also good for the new roads, so the development of both managed to reinforce each other during the 1920’s.

Safety was a huge issue with early vehicles in general, but trucks did become safer during the 1920’s as well thanks to power assisted steering and brakes. The power assisted steering and brakes made the trucks much easier to use, which made it possible for more people to drive trucks. Trucking in the 1920’s was largely driven by technological and economic progress, which makes complete sense in the era that is still known as the Roaring Twenties.

Trucking History 1930s

The trucking industry suffered throughout the Great Depression of the 1930’s just like every other industry, but the industry did still manage to make some progress during this time period nonetheless. Some entrepreneurs still succeeded, taking advantage of the economic stratification that occurs during times of economic depression. The governmental reforms of the decade helped truckers then, and have continued to help truckers now within the framework of the history of trucking. Trucking in the 30’s continued in spite of everything, making trucking seem like a fitting metaphor for the time period in general.

Trucking Entrepreneurs During the Great Depression

The onset of the Great Depression changed almost everything throughout the world. Most industries suffered during the Great Depression, and the burgeoning trucking industry and freight industries were no exception. In the 1920’s, many entrepreneurs flocked to the new trucking industry in order to jump on the trend and build their fortunes. They helped make the trucking industry a force to be reckoned with in the first place, taking some of the power and domination away from railroads as a result.

A lot of these entrepreneurs were out of business by the time the Great Depression hit, and some of them never recovered their lost fortunes. However, it should be noted that the economic depressions that are bad for society as a whole can end up benefiting some of the wealthiest and most successful people in any given society.

Trucking Industry Able To Grow During Great Depression And Years After

These individuals can take advantage of the reduced competition during these bad economic times, and they can also benefit from a time period in which many items have lost value and have come down in price. These sorts of trends were specifically beneficial for the people entering the trucking industry who needed capital.

Entrepreneur W.W. Estes got a trucking business off the ground in Virginia. He didn’t need much capital in order to do so, and the capital that he did manage to get his hands on was very inexpensive. Even during the worst years of the Great Depression, his business managed to grow and succeed. W.W. Estes wasn’t the only one. The trucking industry more or less managed to contract but also expand during the ’30’s.

People in the trucking industry who managed to stay in business during the Great Depression managed to benefit from the economic recovery that started to take place after the worst years of the Great Depression, so they ultimately came out ahead even if they suffered from setbacks during the early 1930’s. Even some of the wealthiest people of the 1930’s lost everything during the Great Depression, but the wealthy people who didn’t sometimes became even richer.

New Deal Policies and the Great Depression

The Great Depression also changed the history of trucking forever, partly as a result of New Deal policies.The construction of roads expanded further as a result of the Public Works Administration, which was started as part of the New Deal in order to create more jobs throughout the United States. Thousands of miles of road were constructed through the Public Works Administration.

It is true that the creation of the interstate highway system did not really get off the ground until the 1940’s, but the development of the new roads during the Great Depression helped set the stage for these developments too, while also making a huge difference in the history of trucking in general.

American Trucking Association Formed

The lives for truck drivers improved after the early 1930’s. The American Trucking Association formed, which helped protect the interests of truckers. In 1934, a code of fair competition was created in the trucking industry, making it a more equitable industry in general. Many of the corrupt corporate practices that helped initiate the Great Depression in the first place also influenced the trucking industry, and regulations like this were partly created in order to stop that situation from arising again.

Railroad/Trucking Rivalry

The rivalry between the railroad industry and the trucking industry really started to become more heated during the 1930’s as well. Early in the decade of the 1930’s and before that point, the Interstate Commerce Commission only regulated the railroad industry. They did not regulate trucking companies. This was largely the result of cultural inertia. Railroads had been around much longer than trucking companies, some of which were actually formed in the 1930’s itself.

1930s Economic Downturn

The early 30s were hard for most Americans. The government during the 1930’s was desperate to try to fix the economic problems of the day, and they were receptive to the complaints and concerns of many different industries. The rail industry of the day was losing business to the trucking industry, largely because the trucking industry’s lack of regulation gave them something of an unfair advantage.

This lack of regulation was actually one of the reasons why some trucking entrepreneurs during this time period were able to succeed in such a bad economy. If these same people had participated in the rail industry, they would have had worse luck. The fact that trucks could now complete long haul journeys worsened a problem that had been developing for years.

Motor Carrier Act Of 1935

The government responded to the concerns voiced by the rail industry, and Congress passed the Motor Carrier Act in 1935. As a result, the trucking industry was to be regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission. While it is true that this was partly a measure that was enacted in order to help the railroad industry, it did have benefits for the trucking industry and its employees. The Interstate Commerce Commission helped push for regulations concerning the working hours of truck drivers, which were often far too long and strenuous during the 1930’s. By 1938, hours of service regulations improved the lives of truck drivers all over the country.

Given the cultural changes that took place in response to World War Two in the 1940’s, the benefits that truck drivers received during this time period were that much more important. The lives of truck drivers would have been very different if they had been forced to work in a manner that was more consistent with earlier policies, while also trying to meet the demands of the war effort.

The trucking industry was still fairly new during the 1920’s and the 1930’s. During the 1930’s, many of the problems in the trucking industry were ironed out, creating a more stable and more equitable system. Truckers today are still benefiting from many of the reforms that took place during this time period, even if the Interstate Commerce Commission no longer exists today.

Trucking Industry During The 1950s-1960s

The construction of the interstate highway system continued during the 1960’s, so in some ways, the developments in the trucking industry that occurred during the 1950’s were continued during the 1960’s. However, trucking itself was starting to become a popular topic of discussion during the 1960’s. Trucking and the lives of truckers themselves weren’t as well known to the general public before that point in history, and this change helped shape trucking in the 60’s. However, the development of the interstate highway made trucks and truckers ubiquitous enough that neither could be ignored by the general public. Regulations regarding trucks were also refined during the 1960’s, which only helped raise awareness about trucks and truckers.

Interstate Highway Development and Pop Culture

People were moving to the suburbs in droves during the 1950’s, and commuting to the city through the new interstate highways was becoming very commonplace. Trucks were hauling items throughout the country at the same time. Drivers became used to driving right alongside the large and intimidating long-haul trucks. This was during a time period where there were few safety features for cars or trucks. Highways during the 1960’s were significantly narrower than modern highways. The speed limits were also 55 mph. The highways of the day had a way of creating camaraderie among drivers. Drivers saw truck drivers transporting everything from gasoline to logs in a society that was increasingly dependent on successful long-haul trucking.

Suburban drivers all throughout the country began discussing trucks more often, which raise both awareness and curiosity about them. The American Wild West was a popular subject during the 1950’s and the 1960’s, and the people of the day had a tendency to project those narratives onto lots of unrelated subjects, including truckers. Truckers started to be conceptualized in terms of modern cowboys riding powerful modern vehicles and surviving based on their own wits and determination. This narrative was still developing in the 1960’s, but in many respects, it has not died out even today.

Popular Trucking Songs

Films and songs about truckers and truck driving started achieving popularity during the 1960’s. There is still a stereotype today that many country songs are about trucking. Some of the first country songs about trucking were written during the 1960’s, which is also when a lot of modern music genres were being crystallized. Some of these same songs are even around today.

Driving And Music Becomes Part Of The American Culture

The first FM radio to be installed in a car was introduced in 1952. In 1963, all-transistor radios were added to cars. Listening to music in cars during long commutes was starting to become part of American culture during this time period. Unsurprisingly, a lot of people were interested in listening to songs that were about cars and driving. They liked listening to songs about the powerful trucks driving on the road next to them as well.

Field tests during the 1950’s and 1960’s demonstrated that a lot of the trucks of the day were contributing to the degradation of the new roads just due to their sheer size. In 1964, theAmerican Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials told Congress that one solution to this problem was that there should not be a solid upper weight limit for trucks. Instead, they recommended that the weight limit should be determined on a more case-by-case basis, where the weight limits were calculated based partly on the lengths of axles. This solution managed to avert a lot of potential conflicts between both sides, although it was not put into place until later.

It is possible that the discussions about the effects that the weight of trucks had on the roads only helped to cement their roguish reputation in popular culture. Naturally, professional truckers actually needed to have commercial driver’s licenses, which require their own set of training and education. There were special hours of services for truckers, and this was for the sake of other drivers on the road as well as for the truckers themselves.

The roguish image of truckers from this time period and today is somewhat dubious when the professional and rule-abiding aspects of the job are taken into account. Truckers also come in contact with police officers more than people in other professions, since they spend their careers on the road. However, people during this time period and through to the present were content to view truckers in a more symbolic way, and it seems as if a lot of truckers tried to embrace this image.

This image almost certainly inspired more people to become truck drivers in the first place. The 1960’s was a time period in which a lot of people were searching for their identities in an era of rapid social and technological progress. The restrictive lifestyle of the 1950’s and Cold War conformity left a lot of people wanting more. Some people embraced the progressive counter-cultural movements of the day. Some people embraced images of traditional masculinity, and they adopted truck driving as a profession that embodied freedom, manliness, and independence.

Naturally, the middle class 1950’s lifestyle was never accessible to everyone, and members of the working class would often have to embrace their own very different dreams. Trucking is a job that has attracted a lot of hardworking blue collar workers looking for job security for a long time, and this effect became more pronounced during the 1960’s. By the middle of the 1960’s, 8 million Americans made their living in the trucking industry.

Technological changes in trucks in the 1950’s and 1960’s helped popularize the truck driving experience further. Air conditioning, variable rear suspension, individual front suspension, and power steering all helped make these huge trucks safer and more comfortable to drive. Diesel engines became more powerful during this time period, and engine brake systems improved tremendously with the famous Jake Brake. Even new tinted windows made a big difference, helping truck drivers cope with sun exposure. Trucking driving quickly became open to more people.

The growth of interstate highways increased the number of trucks on the road. Technological and cultural changes helped popularize trucking. The increased interest in trucks and trucking caused more people to go into the profession. It isn’t surprising that there were over 18 million trucks operating in the United States by the year 1970.

How We Got Here: A History Of Regulation

The roots of regulation of the transportation industry go back to 1887, when Congress created the interstate Commerce Commission to oversee the railroad industry. The purpose of the ICC was to ensure that small communities, or communities with limited transportation access, would not be charged excessive rates and be held financially captive by their transportation providers. The ICC approved and set rates that controlled how much a product could be hauled for.

Trucking came under the control of the ICC in 1935, partly due to lobbying from the railroads, which were losing business to the trucking industry. By the 1930’s, trucking was no longer just an urban and short haul transporter, but was now competing head to head with the railroads for long haul transportation.

Under the Motor Carrier Act of 1935, new trucking companies had to seek a “certificate of public convenience and necessity” from the ICC. Companies already operating prior to 1935 were grandfathered in, and got their certificates automatically if they could document their prior service. New trucking companies found it extremely difficult to get operating authority.

The law required companies to file their rates or “tariffs” with the ICC 30 days before they became effective. Anyone was allowed to protest these rates, including competing companies or the railroads.

The regulatory landscape changed again in 1948 with the passage of the Reed-Bulwinkle act which exempted both the railroads and the trucking industry from anti trust laws. This allowed trucking companies to collectively set rates for cargo.

Trucking was broken down into three categories of freight. “Common carriers” were the large pre 1935 existing companies, that could apply for a tariff to haul any freight for any customers. “Contract carriers” could only haul for a maximum of 8 customers, which severely limited the growth of the trucking companies to the size of their customer. Unless the customer grew, the trucking company could not grow. And “Exempt Freight” was things that could be hauled by anyone, at whatever price was negiotiated, but only covered a few products such as logs, produce, cattle, and a few other items that were either very time sensitive or the big companies did not want to handle.

Under this system, one of the biggest issues became that of one compny buying the authority of another in an effort to expand their business. To understand the concept of “authority” lets look at a hypothetical situation. You have a trucking company in Philadelphia, and you have the authority to haul drywall to Buffalo. You find another company that has the right to haul drywall from Buffalo, to Pittsburgh. You buy the second company, and now you would seem have the authority to haul drywall between Philly and Pittsburgh. In truth, the only way you can haul is by going through Buffalo, transferring the load to another truck, and making up a second bill of lading. You do not have authority to haul directly between Philly and Pittsburgh. You also would need a separate authority for another product for the return trip, or the truck would have to return empty.

So from 1935 until 1980, the only way to grow a trucking business was to buy up other companies with authority to haul the products you wanted to the location you wanted to serve. Other companies or the railroads would fight this, claiming that they already served this market, or that they could serve that market but the demand was not there.

By the 1970’s, the handwriting started to appear on the wall that the system of regulation was outdated and ineffective. Products that were exempt from regulation were able to move at prices as much as 20-40% less than regulated commodities. For example, regulated prices for hauling cooked poultry were almost 50% higher than the rates for carrying unregulated fresh dressed poultry.

One of the most famous cases illustrating the absurdity of regulation was the “Yak Fat” case filed by a trucker in Omaha Ne. He had authority to haul meat, but when the customer asked him to haul drums of lard, he submitted an application to the ICC to haul the product and the railroads protested, claiming that they were serbing the customer and the area already. So they next filed an applcation to haul “Tibetan Yak Fat”, and of course, the railroads protested the application. They claimed that they were already hauling millions of tons of yak fat, and that allowing a trucking company in would cut into their business. They also claimed that the truckers could not haul yak fat for the rate they proposed and the lower rate would devastate the market.

Of course, the ICC rubberstamped the railroads protest and ruled in their favor. The story appeared in various newspapers and business magazines, and the owner of the trucking company was pictured with a yak at the Omaha zoo. The Yak Fat issue was one of the prime arguments for deregulating the trucking industry.

In the 1970’s, the Ford and Carter administrations altered the membership of the ICC by adding commissioners who were committed to deregulation of the trucking industry. In 1977, the ICC began to administratively deregulate the trucking industry. between 1975 and 1979, the number of companies applying for entry grew by over 700%, and the number approved climbed by over 800%. In 1980. the Motor Carrier Reform Act of 1980 basically ended the regulation of most trucking companies and commodities, and paved the way for the basic forms of trucking as we know it today.

The deregulation of the trucking industry led to the loss of power from the hands of unions, the end of many of the big unionized LTL companies that prospered under regulation, and the rise of the large truckload carriers that we see today. Companies that fought deregulation and free market rates died, companies that embraced deregulation prospered.

Origins of Trucking Regulation

Like an understudy who outshines the absent star, the trucking industry established itself during a temporary “absence” of railroads, and the railroads never regained the spotlight. During World War I, when the rails were nationalized to assure speedy transport of military troops and supplies, they were often forced to suspend shipment of other freight. Motor carriers took up the slack. The railroads returned to private control in 1920, but by then, trucks were an accepted form of transportation, and their use quickly expanded.

The railroads campaigned for state controls that would limit the competitive advantage of the trucking industry. The railroad industry had itself been regulated for many years–both by state commissions and by the Interstate Commerce Commission, established in 1887 for that purpose. Maximum-rate controls shielded merchants and formers from monopolistic pricing. Even more important as a historical explanation for regulation, minimum-rate controls protected the railroads from one another. But the same regulation that restrained rate cutting within the rail industry left railroads vulnerable to competition from outside.

The state commissions that oversaw railroads also sought controls on trucking, as a way both to ease the decline of railroads and to expand their own influence. Pennsylvania was the first state to adopt trucking controls, in 1914. Thirty-five states had followed suit by 1925. These controls–modeled after regulation of railroads and public utilities–restricted entry into the trucking industry and limited maximum and minimum rates that truckers could charge.

The first proposal for federal regulation of motor carriers took shape in 1925, in response to Supreme Court decisions that upset the informal practice of states controlling interstate trucking on the grounds that the practice invaded a field reserved by the Commerce Clause of the Constitution for federal regulation. The bill–drafted by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners–called for national controls that would be administered by boards of state commissioners, with the ICC–which had shown little interest in trucking regulation–to intervene only in the event of an appeal. The railroads solidly supported the proposal. Opponents included most truckers, representatives of labor, and shipper groups. But Congress delayed action with respect to trucks and focused instead on regulation of buses, since railroads were still primarily concerned with the decline in passenger traffic and revenue

When the depression settled in several years later, the railroads were extremely hard hit, and the pressure for trucking regulation increased. One vocal proponent was the Security Owners’ Association–a politically powerful group of investors in railroad securities that included more than 1,500 national and state banks, trust companies, mutual savings banks, and life insurance companies. In 1932, the SOA established the National Transportation Commission, with former president Calvin Coolidge as its chairman, and the following year the commission recommended regulation of trucking.

The railroads’ plight also attracted the support of many politicians, most notably Franklin Roosevelt. In a widely publicized campaign speech in 1932, presidential candidate Roosevelt called for elimination of the “unfair competitive advantages” of the trucking industry. Once elected, Roosevelt announced “plans for the regulation of all forms of transportation.”

The depression also served to eliminate the trucking industry’s resistance to regulation, as Ellis Hawley describes:

With the coming of the depression, the drastic drop in demand, and the resulting struggle for available markets, the attitude of some of the larger trucking firms began to change. Their position, they felt, was seriously threatened by the appearance of cut-rate, “fly-by-night” operators, who, with the aid of truck dealers and manufacturers, managed to get a truck on credit, to eke out a living on cut rates until they lost it, and in the process to force down wages and disrupt the whole rate structure. Under the circumstances, there was growing support in trucking, bus, and teamster circles for some type of regulation, some system that would establish minimum rates and wages and eliminate irresponsible operators.

Thus, in 1933, many trucking firms welcomed the establishment of a price and wage code under the National Industrial Recovery Act. Most truckers continued to prefer the code to legislation that would give regulatory control to the rail-minded ICC–the alternative favored by railroads, state rail commissions, and Roosevelt’s federal coordinator of transportation. The motor carrier industry–represented by the newly formed American Trucking Associations (ATA)–was joined in its opposition to legislation by shippers and by auto manufacturers concerned with maintaining the growing market for trucks.

Fearful that Congress would not renew the National Recovery Administration codes when they expired in 1935, the ATA modified its stance on a regulatory bill and testified that the industry was “willing to be controlled by the Federal Government” under a reorganized ICC. But when the Supreme Court declared the NRA unconstitutional in May of 1935, the ATA dropped its opposition to a regulatory bill altogether and became an active sponsor of federal controls.

With the major source of resistance now gone, legislation passed Congress with relative ease. The Motor Carrier Act of 1935 gave the ICC broad regulatory powers over most interstate motor carriers with respect to entry and rates, as well as labor practices, safety, and the issuance of trucking securities. Exempted from regulation were shippers who transported their own goods and carriers hauling unprocessed agricultural commodities–a testament to the political clout of “private carriers” and farmers. (In addition, intrastate trucking remained subject solely to state regulation.) With its domain only slightly narrowed by these exemptions, the ICC set out to reduce competitive disturbances both within the trucking industry and between trucking and rail.

The following years saw dramatic changes in the ICC and the industries it oversaw. Once regarded suspiciously by the trucking industry, the commission gradually adopted an attitude toward motor carriers that was strongly protectionist. The regulated trucking industry changed too–from a struggling infant to a mature, prosperous adult. State highway construction, responding to the flood of new cars bought following World War II, made trucking faster and cheaper. But the real boon was construction of the interstate highway system, which permitted truckers to compete seriously with railroads for long-distance freight. With the highways began a movement of industry away from rail sites and into suburban and rural areas serviceable by trucks. The industrialization of the South, which had few railroads to start with, also benefited trucking as it hurt the rails.

The highway network, combined with significant increases in standard truck size (from twenty-seven feet in the late 1940s to forty-five feet thirty years later), and the inherent advantage of being able to offer door-to- door delivery, produced a rate of growth in motor carriage far greater than that of the economy itself. By 1980, interstate trucking earned $67 billion a year, accounting for over 70 percent of interstate freight revenues. In 1979, the average family spent $800 a year for interstate truck transportation, which is a hidden cost in virtually every product the consumer buys. Of that, about 46 percent-$31 billion total-went to motor carriers regulated by the ICC.

The basic regulatory system that shaped the growth of the entire industry has been described. Many of the policies described were modified or eliminated in the late 1970s by the ICC; the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 essentially codified changes made by a commission that became increasingly reform minded as the prospect of legislative deregulation increased. Other aspects of the system were preserved; the 1980 act reduced regulatory controls on the trucking industry, but it did not eliminate them altogether.

Entry

ICC controls on trucking (like the earlier state controls) were modeled after classical public-utility regulation. The traditional rationale for such regulation is that certain enterprises–like the telephone industry, railroads, and electric utilities–are “natural monopolies.” The technology of these industries is (or once was) such that it would be wasteful to society to have more than one company take on the enormous cost of stringing phone lines or laying track. Since the average cost per connection goes down as the network expands, one competitor will inevitably emerge as the sole provider–or “natural monopolist.” In return for protecting the naturally monopolistic industry from competition, regulation requires that it provide service to all who desire it–what’s known as the common-carrier obligation. Thus the phone company can’t refuse to connect lines to a new home just because it’s out of the way.

The motor carrier industry was regulated as a public utility, even though it did not fit the description of a natural monopoly and that was not the rationale for the 1935 act. The ICC granted trucking firms near-exclusive operating rights to carry certain commodities on certain routes. In principle, these firms performed a common-carrier obligation in return.

The great majority of common-carrier operating rights held even in the late 1970s were issued under the “grandfather clause” of the Motor Carrier Act Given automatically to (18,000) trucking companies that were in business in 1935, the grandfather rights authorized them to maintain their existing routes and service. Later, operating rights became much more difficult to obtain.

New operating authority required a showing of “public convenience and necessity,” the watchwords of the 1935 act. An applicant had the burden of proving that existing firms weren’t already providing a needed service and that they wouldn’t be financially damaged by the additional competition. That a new carrier promised to offer an existing service at a lower cost was by law not relevant to the ICC.

Entry applications were open to challenge by established carriers, and requests for significant operating authority were almost always litigated–a process that could take up to two or more years and $250,000. As a result, applicants often struck deals with would-be competitors, narrowing the scope of their request in return for withdrawal of the legal challenge. Other requests were narrowly drawn to begin with so as to avoid litigation. Thus while the ICC technically granted a very high percentage of all applications for operating rights, the effect on competition was negligible. Most amounted to insubstantial requests, and from existing carriers at that. (Because operating rights were so narrowly defined, carriers had to apply continually for new authority to meet changing freight demands resulting from, for example, construction of a new factory or warehouse.)

Since entry was so tightly restricted, trucking firms typically acquired rights by buying them from an existing carrier. Operating certificates, like broadcast licenses and taxicab medallions, had a market value. For many companies, these certificates were their most valuable asset, and banks routinely accepted them as collateral on loans.

Most coveted were the “general commodity, regular route” certificates, which represented common-carrier authority to truck all but legally exempt goods over designated (“regular”) routes. Those licenses were so lucrative that, in 1977, the eight largest trucking companies–all of which held them–earned a rate of return on equity twice that of the average Fortune 500 company.

General commodity carriers engage in “less-than-truckload” operations–the heart of the motor carrier business. An LTL operation involves diverse cargoes of packaged freight and requires large terminals with loading docks where the cargo can be assembled for shipment or reassigned to local fleets for final delivery. LTL service makes transportation of many small shipments economically feasible–a service no other form of surface transportation can duplicate. Only 1,000 of the 17,000 trucking companies that were regulated in 1979 were general commodity carriers, but they accounted for two-thirds of total regulated trucking revenue. Each of the three largest general commodity carriers–Roadway Express, Consolidated Freightways–and Yellow Freight System–earned close to a billion dollars in 1979.

Most of the remaining firms regulated by the ICC were specialized, irregular route common carriers. These firms, which rely heavily on owner-operators to perform the actual transportation, haul truckload (TL) shipments of a homogeneous cargo using specially tailored equipment such as refrigerated trucks (“reefers”), armored cars, or automobile trailers. Specialized carrier rights-less valued than LTL rights because of competition from railroads for TL shipments-allowed considerable flexibility with respect to routes but authorized only a narrow range of specified commodities.

This system of assigning rights produced some bizarre restrictions. A specialized carrier, for example, might be allowed to carry exposed film but not unexposed film, or lead pipe but not plastic pipe. General freight carriers were often forced to take long, roundabout routes because their authority represented a “tacking” together of operating rights acquired through purchase and merger. Many operating rights contained only one-way authority; thus carriers were legally barred from carrying a load on their return trip (backhaul), even if cargo was readily available to be shipped.

Overall, the ICC’s system of route and commodity restrictions served to divide the market into thousands of segments, each served by only a few carriers. For shipments between large cities that were well-served in 1935, when grandfather rights were issued, there might have been as many as 12 carriers to choose from. In geographic areas of the country that developed after 1935, the choice was likely between only two or three. Long-distance shipments often had to be “interlined” between two or more carriers with adjacent routes.

In addition to general commodity and specialized common carriers, ICC regulation governed contract carriage-service to individual shippers on a long-term contract basis, often using specialized equipment. In recent years, some 3,000 contract carriers, operating under ICC permits that had negligible market value, hauled approximately 7 percent of the total regulated tonnage. During the 1920s and early 1930s, state-regulated common carriers perceived the contract hauler as a threat because he could attract lucrative freight by undercutting their published rates-rates that in theory reflected the added cost of the common-carrier obligation. To prevent what common carriers argued was cream-skimming, the 1935 act provided for setting a floor on contract carriage rates. The ICC also limited severely the number of shippers a contract carrier could serve.

Rates

In addition to restricting entry, the ICC was authorized to regulate trucking rates. The need to control excessive rates is apparent, since a shipper often had little choice as to which carrier could haul his goods to a given destination. But the major objective of ICC controls was to prevent rates from being set too low to maintain an acceptable level of profits and service in the industry. The system that developed collective ratemaking was well suited to that objective.

Collective ratemaking in the (regulated) motor carrier industry was performed, much as it had been historically in the railroad industry, by private “rate bureaus.” These bureaus–regional organizations run by a full-time staff and financed by dues from participating carriers–established rates that were applied uniformly throughout a designated geographic area. Ten rate bureaus composed of general commodity carriers controlled the vast majority of trucking shipments within and between regions of the country.

Rate bureaus operated much like cartels. Carriers held open meetings at which shippers could testify but then voted in secret on proposed rates. While this is price-fixing pure and simple, it was exempted from antitrust action by the Reed-Bulwinkle Act of 1948 passed by Congress over the veto of President Truman.

By law, all bureau-set rates had to be approved by the ICC. But over the years, the commission was extremely sympathetic to the industry and protective of its health. What’s more, the magnitude of the task-several thousand rates were filed every day–left the ICC little choice but to rubber-stamp rate-bureau decisions. In 1977, the commission rejected lesser than 1 percent of the trucking rates filed.

In theory, any regulated firm was free to undercut the collectively fixed rate, but few did since the local rate bureau or a rival carrier was sure to protest. Protests were often filed automatically, regardless of whether the challengers were directly affected. The most notorious example involved an exasperated carrier who filed a rate to carry yak fiat from Omaha to Chicago. Even though yak fat was an imaginary product, thirteen different carriers challenged the rate!

Rate bureaus traditionally served other functions besides providing a forum in which carriers could meet to discuss and set rates. None was more important than the periodic filing of “general rate increase” proposals, designed to raise every bureau-published rate by a fixed percentage in response to higher costs. These proposals, based on average carrier costs, were routinely approved by the ICC. Unlike most regulated utilities, the trucking industry was not held to a maximum rate of return, and the average return on equity for regulated truckers was well above that for other industries.

Unregulated Trucking

A substantial sector of the trucking industry was unregulated, technically speaking. Though not of major size in 1935, this sector accounted for 60 percent of total industry revenue in 1979 and was growing rapidly. Unregulated trucking companies–primarily private carriers and haulers of exempt products–did not need ICC approval to operate, but their services were severely restricted by the ICC nonetheless.

Private carriers are actually shippers who choose to haul their own goods. In 1935, only a small percentage of industry freight went by private truck; by 1978, that share of tonnage had grown to 40 percent. Some of the largest private carriers–Sears Roebuck, for example–have fleets of more than 1,000 trucks.

The dramatic growth in private trucking came about despite ICC regulations. In general, private carriers were barred from soliciting freight on a commercial basis. (The major rationale was the potential for a private carrier to subsidize his transportation operations out of his non-transportation operations and thus gain a competitive advantage.) Since the normal flow of goods for an individual shipper is in only one direction, private carriers’ backhauls were generally empty.

Empty backhauls were also a chronic problem for the 100,000 or more owner-operators who made a living hauling unprocessed food–the other major form of unregulated trucking. An exempt trucker who carried tomatoes to a cannery could not haul canned tomatoes–a regulated commodity–back to the growing area. To avoid “deadheading,” many independent truckers carried nonexempt goods on the return haul under temporary contract to a (specialized) regulated carrier–a practice known as trip-leasing. (Also common was the hauling of “hot” freight.)
Other owner-operators worked under permanent contract to regulated carriers. Under this system–much as with trip-leasing–the certified carrier provided operating rights plus managerial services in return for a 20 to 30 percent commission. (Critics of regulation termed this practice “share- cropping.”) Many specialized commodities–such as household goods and steel–were carried almost exclusively by owner-operators working under long-term contract.

Economic Objections to Regulation

A common view is that regulated firms naturally abhor regulation and would prefer their “freedom.” But the regulated firms in the trucking industry are the very last to want freedom …In this sense, regulation is topsy-turvy. Rather than protecting consumers from the vices of “unbridled enterprise,” regulation is protecting regulated enterprises from the discipline of the marketplace.

Economists criticized the idea of regulating the trucking industry almost from the beginning. Their basic theoretical argument can be simply stated: Trucking is an inherently competitive industry which, when allowed to operate by free-market rules, does an efficient job of allocating and pricing trucking services. The industry possesses neither of the characteristics of a natural monopoly–high capital costs (or other natural barriers to entry) and large economies of scale. Only in LTL operations, which require expensive terminals and a large volume of shipments to run efficiently, might one find significant concentration, but even there, the economies of scale are exhausted far short of monopoly control. And the truckload sector–made up of tens of thousands of small firms, many of them operating just a single rig–is almost a textbook example of a competitive industry.

Regulation’s defenders often counter that the trucking industry should be sheltered from competition because, like a public utility, motor common carriers have an obligation to provide service. The economist’s first response is that such an argument puts the cart before the horse. The common-carrier obligation is the necessary result of a regulated system in which consumers have no alternative supplier, not the justification for it. Second, there is no evidence that ICC-regulated common carriers actually honor that obligation, which is impossible to enforce anyway; trucking firms serve out-of-the-way places, but only when it’s profitable to do so.

While trucking was regulated as if it were a natural monopoly, the rationale for the 1935 act–aside from protection of railroads–was that the industry was too competitive, with alleged results–chaos, cutthroat pricing, excess capacity–that were destructive to the trucking industry, shippers, and ultimately the public. Even if that rationale was valid during the Depression, it ceased to be long ago.

Destructive competition is a “theoretical novelty” about which economists have argued for years, according to James Miller:

It is still not clear whether even in theory destructive competition is feasible (assuming that firms in the industry are rational profit maximizers). But if it is, the requirements are that the industry has substantial fixed costs and that demand be either quite unstable or secularly declining. The interstate trucking industry simply does not fit these requirements. Although there are some fixed costs, the vast majority of costs are variable. As a matter of fact, the ICC uses a rule of thumb that 90 percent of all trucking costs are variable. Also, though demand fluctuates, with seasonal peaks in various areas of the country and for different commodities, its overall pattern is fairly predictable. Finally, as is well known, the demand for trucking has grown rather steadily over time.

That growth in trucking demand came partly at the expense of railroads, and one argument for continued regulation of trucking-echoing the concerns of the 1930s-was the need to prevent further diversion of freight from rails. This raises considerations related to the theory of the second- best, which states that when distortions exist in one part of the economy (e.g., certain aspects of railroad regulation), it is not necessarily efficient to correct distortions in other parts (e.g., trucking regulation). However economists have also shown that second-best considerations do not hold insofar as the distortions are the source of excessive costs of operation. It is always desirable to correct imperfections that lead to smaller output.

In sum, the major arguments for treating the trucking industry like a public utility–to prevent industry concentration, assure service to out-of- the-way places, and hinder destructive competition–have little basis in theory and scant empirical support. Nor are second-best considerations with respect to railroads compelling. What theory and evidence point to, rather, is a system that produces monopoly profits, excessive costs, inefficient price–service options, and discriminatory rates–in short, a system that benefits the regulated industry at great cost to the public.

Monopoly Profits

Regulation provided the two conditions necessary for cartelization: barriers to entry and a means of price fixing. Rate bureaus could set prices well above cost without fear of being undercut by new firms. As a result, regulated carriers received monopoly “rents.”

The clearest evidence of monopoly profits is the value the market placed on operating certificates granted free by the ICC. If profits were normal, no one would pay for the right to enter the industry.

Various estimates placed the total value of operating certificates prior to deregulation at several billion dollars. In 1974, the ATA reported that in recent acquisitions, operating rights had generally sold for amounts equal to 15 to 20 percent of the revenue produced by those rights. Using ATA figures, the White House Council on Wage and Price Stability estimated that industry rights were worth $3 billion to $4 billion. In an independent study of twenty-three attempts to purchase certificates, Thomas Gale Moore confirmed the ATA’s judgment: Buyers on average paid about 15 percent of the expected annual revenue for the rights they purchased. Based on that figure, Moore estimated that large and medium-sized carriers owned rights worth between $2.1 billion and $3 billion.

Other evidence of monopoly profits comes from the 1950s, when unusual circumstances produced a virtual controlled experiment. A series of court decisions forced the ICC to broaden the exemption of unprocessed agricultural goods to include fresh and frozen poultry and frozen fruits and vegetables. The U.S. Department of Agriculture conducted “before” and “after” studies in different markets and concluded that deregulation led to both lower rates and improved service. Shipping rates for fresh poultry fell by 12 to 53 percent, for an average of 33 percent. For frozen poultry the average decline was 36 percent. (Averages for poultry are unweighted.) Rates for frozen fruits and vegetables declined by 19 percent on average. After Congress reregulated frozen fruits and vegetables in 1958, shipping rates rose.

Variations on intrastate trucking controls have also enabled economists to conduct crude natural experiments. Trucking within the state of New Jersey is unregulated. Rates there were found to be 10 to 25 percent lower than for comparable interstate shipments. In Maryland, where intrastate household-goods moving is unregulated, rates were found to be 27 to 87 percent below those of interstate movers. International comparisons also found that trucking rates in countries with little or no regulation were substantially lower than those in regulated countries.

Still other evidence of monopoly profits comes from a comparison of brokerage commissions in the regulated and unregulated sectors. Regulated carriers typically claimed 20 to 30 percent of the revenues earned by owner-operators working under a leasing arrangement. This commission paid for services-insurance, marketing, management-and rental of operating rights. In the exempt sector, agricultural brokers charged 7 to 10 percent for the same services. The difference in commission rates would seem to represent a monopoly rent on ICC certificates.

Excessive Costs

ICC controls enabled carriers to set rates above cost, but they also raised the cost of operation itself-for both regulated and unregulated truckers. The evidence here is more qualitative, as analysts have been hard put to quantify the economic effects.

Route and commodity restrictions are one likely source of inefficiency, leading to unnecessary circuitry, low load factors, and excessive interlining (i.e., transfer of cargo between shippers), all of which consume gasoline and labor. Various studies have reported finding high rates of empty backhauling, particularly among exempt and private carriers, but it’s hard to say how much of total industry underutilization was caused by ICC restrictions.
The ICC’s system of rate regulation was another source of excessive costs. Particularly in the LTL sector–where general rate increases were based on average industry costs–the system protected less efficient firms. That protection was limited, however, in areas where (LTL) carriers could compete on the basis of service.

The general rate-increase mechanism also led to higher labor costs. Since over 60 percent of motor carrier operating expenses go for labor, a rise in Teamster wages was usually sufficient to trigger an across-the-board increase in bureau-set rates. Regulated carriers had less incentive to resist union demands, knowing they could pass the cost along to their customers automatically. Any single firm had an incentive to reduce its costs, but the industry as a collective bargainer faced no such incentive. (While high wages are treated here as an “excessive cost” of operation, they more accurately represent a monopoly rent to organized labor.)

Regulation tends to increase wages through another effect as well. It strengthens union power by preventing nonunion firms from entering the industry and competing for traffic carried by unionized firms. Based on an empirical study of these two effects, Moore estimated that regulation–unionization produced gains to Teamsters employed in the trucking industry of between $1 billion and $1.3 billion in 1972.

Inefficient Price-Service Options

In the same way banks offered depositors free checking accounts and other bonuses to get around federal ceilings on interest rates, many regulated truckers offered better service–such as more frequent pickup or rush-hour delivery–in place of cheaper rates. When regulation restricts rival firms from lowering prices, they will inevitably compete by offering customers better service. Additional service raises operating costs. While this is not intrinsically bad, service competition is inefficient because customers generally don’t value the additional service at what it costs to provide it. On the plus side, the service is worth something to customers, and it serves to reduce monopoly rents as it restores consumer surplus.

While regulated carriers found limited ways to circumvent ICC controls, shippers were still faced with inflexible and inefficient rate-service (price-quality) choices. Some shippers would have preferred less service at a lower rate. Others would have gladly paid a premium for still better service. Collective ratemaking precluded this, however, and thus distorted shippers’ decisions about such things as where to locate, when to schedule production, and how large an inventory to maintain.

Discriminatory Rates

Other distortions resulted from the rate structure for regulated trucking. To prevent individual shippers from being arbitrarily advantaged by preferential treatment or efficiency differences between carriers, the ICC required regulated firms to charge “equal rates for equal miles” to shippers moving similar freight. But when costs varied, some shippers were overcharged and others were subsidized.

For example, regulated carriers charged the same rates for backhaul (the direction with the light load) as for prime haul, even though backhaul costs are lower because of the additional capacity. This affected shippers’ locational decisions and discriminated against certain regions, because traffic to an area tends to be either predominantly prime haul or predominantly backhaul. The “equal rates for equal miles” rule also precluded peak-load pricing. Thus shippers had no incentive to take advantage of off-season months, when carrier costs are lower.

Another form of price discrimination resulted from regulated truckers’ policy of charging more for high-value goods than for low-value goods that cost the same to transport. The greater the market value of a product relative to its transportation costs, carriers reasoned the less concerned shippers would be with freight prices. Thus truckers charged twice as much to haul nylon as cotton hosiery out of South Carolina. The shipping rate for champagne was considerably higher than that for ginger ale.

This system of price discrimination eventually proved counterproductive as certain shippers resorted to more expensive (to society) alternatives such as private carriage or air freight. The loss of “good freight”–freight assigned rates that were especially high relative to cost- eventually became one of the most serious problems faced by the regulated trucking industry.

In sum, ICC regulation produced monopoly profits, excessive costs, and other inefficiencies resulting from inflexible price-quality choices and rate discrimination. The price tag to consumers, by many estimates, was billions of dollars annually.

Who benefited from this system? Most directly, the owners of ICC certificates did; but only the original owners, oddly enough. Those who bought certificates earned no more than a competitive rate of return when the cost of the certificates was taken into account. As with any asset, the value of future earnings made possible by ownership gets capitalized into its price.

Labor was the other major beneficiary of ICC regulation. Teamsters, like certificate owners, earned economic rents in that cartelization of the industry, combined with unionization, resulted in wages higher than would have been necessary to entice them to work. Moore estimated that between 74 and 97 percent of the cost to consumers of ICC regulation ($3.4 billion in 1972 by his calculations) was rent to capital and labor.

Trucking regulation had other, less direct beneficiaries. Among them were the 3,500 attorneys who comprised the ICC Practitioners’ Association. Employees of the ATA, member conferences, state trucking associations, and rate bureaus also benefited. These individuals were evidence for the argument that a large portion of monopoly rents will often be spent on trying to protect the monopoly.

9 Items Struggling Owner-Operators Usually Don’t Have

by Bruce Mallinson

Learning how to take care of certain maintenance items without the help of a shop is paramount to an owner-operator’s success.

After working with owner-operators for the last 37 years, I’ve concluded there are at least nine items that struggling owner-ops usually are missing:

Turbo boost gauge: Driving without a turbo boost or manifold pressure gauge is like driving blind. The boost gauge will inform you when you have a leak in the charge air system, a failing turbo, clogged fuel lines, a faulty ECM, dirty air filter(s), a dirty fuel filter or are using too much throttle on the level, resulting in a fuel mileage loss.

Exhaust gas temperature gauge (or pyrometer): This gauge works in conjunction with the turbo boost gauge and will inform you if the exhaust gas temperature is too high or if there is a boost leak. If you’re lugging the engine, the fuel filter is dirty or there is a power problem, you’ll need to know the differences in the boost and pyrometer gauges.

Kevin Rutherford’s Scan Gauge: This gauge will give you an instant readout of your fuel mileage and about 63 other useful bits of information from your truck’s data link.

Fresh fuel filters: Many owner-operators are not changing their fuel filter soon enough. We get many trucks in for dyno testing for low power complaints and find dirty fuel filters. Back in the 1980s, we used to change the fuel filter once a week. Now, it’s at oil change intervals, and 30,000 miles is way too long to run a fuel filter.

New crankshaft torsional vibration damper: This part is located on the front of the crankshaft and removes torsional vibration from the engine. They absolutely do wear out, regardless of what your mechanic has to say, and must be replaced every 500,000 miles.

Usually, mechanics don’t change them, and that is wrong. This is a wear item just like a tire and must be replaced. It has a large steel ring that rides on a Teflon bearing and floats in a thin layer of silicone. At about 380,000 miles, the Teflon bearing starts to wear, and that impregnates the silicone. At 500,000, the silicon has gotten hard, and the steel ring won’t be able to “float” and absorb the torsional vibration.

Engine parts likely to break because of this include the AC condenser brackets, alternator brackets, flywheel bolts, bell housing bolts, accessory driveshafts, air compressor crankshafts, engine crankshafts, transmission input shafts and clutch disc springs. Need I say more?

Rebuilt driveshaft: Driveshafts should be rebuilt every 500,000 miles, especially if the truck is in a heavy-haul application or spends time in the mountains. Driveshafts bend, carrier bearings wear out, and U-joints get out of balance.

Cruise control awareness: Driving with cruise control on all the time will rob the engine of at least ½ mpg when in rolling hills or mountains. Use your right foot and drive by the turbo boost gauge – the less boost you can get the job done with, the better your fuel mileage – and pre-accelerate for hills. Cruise should be used only in level terrain.

Aftermarket muffler: Stock mufflers are more restrictive than aftermarket ones, and you can rob yourself of at least ¼ mpg by not installing a straight-through performance muffler.

Mechanical skills: I hear this sentiment often: I just want to drive the truck and don’t want to do maintenance in my off time.

Labor rates are high today, and you can cost yourself thousands of dollars a year by not keeping up with some of your own maintenance. One pleasure of vehicle ownership is performing simple routine maintenance. Repairing items as they fail or before they fail, cleaning the truck, changing the oil, greasing the chassis, changing the fuel filter and spending time looking for potential problems go hand-in-hand with ownership.

These are all simple steps you can do at home, and a little sweat equity will make you feel better about your truck and probably prevent a long list of problems.

Trucking Law: What works as ‘personal conveyance’?

From Overdrive Magazine;

I frequently am asked when it is permissible to record time spent driving a commercial vehicle as “personal conveyance” on a record-of-duty status.

Although a log line designated as PC is a relatively new phenomenon, the permissible recording of personal use of a commercial vehicle as “off-duty time” has been around since I dispatched trucks while I was in law school.

You can use a truck to drive your family to church, run to the grocery store or take a fishing trip so long as you are not doing so at the direction of the employer. Determining compliance can be a little more fuzzy, though, when driving to or from shippers or receivers, or the carrier’s terminal.

Here are some common questions:

1. What is personal conveyance?

PC is the personal use of a commercial motor vehicle while off duty. You are off duty only if you are not responsible for performing work for the carrier at that time.

2. How far may I drive on PC?

You can drive as many miles or hours as you want, provided you are really off duty. If the carrier is asking you to record time spent transporting a load from Bangor, Maine, to Long Beach, California, as PC, you would be falsifying your log. Transporting a load at the direction of the carrier is “driving time” as defined by the hours of service regulations.

3. May I pass the terminal to make a delivery knowing I will run out of hours and then record time deadheading to the terminal as PC?

No. Time spent driving back to the terminal fulfills a business purpose, not a personal use.

4. May I record driving time as PC when the carrier is directing me to travel in the direction of my next pickup?

No. Again, this is for a business purpose.

5. What is the penalty if I record driving time as PC due to coercion by the carrier?

The carrier is violating the coercion rule, 49 C.F.R. Section 390.6, and could be subject to five to seven years in prison for the felony of intentional falsification of a log. Likewise, if you falsify your log in this way, you face a possible felony charge for not resisting the coercion. The better course is to resist the coercion and “blow the whistle” to law enforcement about the carrier.

6. May I record as PC time spent driving my truck home or somewhere else without having a dispatch?

Yes. In that circumstance you are off duty, provided you are not doing so for a business purpose at the instruction of the carrier.

7. What are my rights if I refuse my employer’s illegal instruction to record time under a load as PC?

The Surface Transportation Assistance Act prohibits retaliation against a driver for recording on-duty time accurately. STAA provides monetary and nonmonetary remedies for drivers against whom carriers have retaliated.

8. Does the carrier get to choose where I go to take my 10-hour break?

Motor carriers may, but are not required to, authorize drivers to use a truck while off duty for PC to take their FMCSA-mandated breaks. FMCSA recommends that carriers have a policy in place on what they allow regarding PC.

What Are the DOT Driver Training Requirements?

The FMCSA requires the following DOT driver training: Entry-Level driver training (Part 380), Longer Combination vehicle training (Part 380), Hazardous Materials training (Parts 172 and 177), and Reasonable Suspicion Training for Supervisors (Part 382).  However, there are also areas of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSA) where training is implied.

Entry-Level Driver Training (ELDT)

ELDT has been around for many years and will be getting an update in 2020, but the current requirements are found in subpart E to Part 380.

An entry-level driver is one with less than one year of experience. The entry-level driver must be trained on:

·     Hours-of-service and fatigue

·     Driver qualifications

·     Health and wellness

·     Whistleblower protections

Additionally, entry-level drivers must have a certificate that shows they completed the training or the carrier must provide the required training and certificate.

The new ELDT requirements will be in effect on February 7th, 2020 and will require the driver to be trained at an entity (carrier or school) that is on the Training Provider Registry (TPR). This puts the onus on the training facilities to train the drier correctly according to Subparts F and G to Part 380. Training must include Theory (classroom) and Behind-the-Wheel (range and road).  

The driver must pass a test on all the required topics and skills. Furthermore, the driver will not be able to take the CDL skills test until FMCSA has a certificate of completion on file from the training entity. These new requirements apply to anyone that gets their Commercial Learner’s Permit (CLP) on or after 2/7/20.

Hazardous Materials Driver and Employee Training

Hazmat training is required for any driver that transports hazardous materials and for any other employee that is involved, directly or indirectly, with the transportation of hazardous materials, and must be conducted within 90 days of hire and before doing unsupervised hazmat-related work.

Training needs to be specific to what the employee does – the more involved the employee is in hauling hazmat, and the more dangerous the hazmat is, the more in-depth the training will need to be. 

Instruction must include:

1.   Training on general awareness and familiarization when it comes to hazmat,

2.   Function-specific training based on the employee’s job,

3.   General safety training when it comes to preventing and dealing with incidents,

4.   Basic security awareness,

5.   In-depth security training if the carrier must have a security plan, and

6.   Modal specific training, such as how to drive when hauling hazmat.

Drivers and affected employees must be retrained every 3 years or when the regulations or job function changes. A certificate of training, including a copy of training materials noting the person/company doing the training, should be issued to the driver upon completion.  A Carrier must retain a copy of the training certificate for three years.

Reasonable Suspicion Supervisor Training

Carriers are required to train supervisors on the reasonable suspicion process of driver alcohol and drug use, one hour for each topic.  This includes recognizing and documenting the signs of drug use and alcohol misuse, as well as company procedures for conducting reasonable suspicion testing.

The supervisor only needs to be trained once. However, if your supervisors don’t use the knowledge and skill they learned in the initial training frequently, consider doing refresher training in this area on a regular basis.

Implied DOT Training Requirements

Parts 390-393 and Parts 395 and 396 do not have training requirements proscribed in detail but do imply that training is necessary. Let’s look at these regulatory areas starting with Section 390.3(e):

Every driver and employee shall be instructed regarding, and shall comply with, all applicable regulations contained in this subchapter,

More simply stated, the driver needs to understand the federal motor carrier safety regulations. What the regulation does not specifically state is what the instruction needs to look like, the frequency of instruction, or the testing of knowledge. What is implied though, and what will be looked for during an audit or compliance review is if a carrier has a safety training program in place.

Two critical areas included in the above regulations are driver qualification and hours-of-service.  These areas carry the potential of severe consequences and you’ll want to make sure your drivers understand the rules and what you require of them.

Additionally, Part 391 requires that drivers must, by way of training or experience, be able to safely operate the vehicle assigned to them. If the driver does not have the experience (based on a background check) you’ll need to demonstrate that the driver was trained to operate the vehicle safely. Here again, the regulations do not specify how the driver is to be trained, or who must provide the training.

A good way to show compliance is to document the training. All documentation should include the five “W”s:  what, when, where, who, and why. It’s critical that you are able to prove that the driver had the necessary training and/or experience. Due diligence can be shown by ensuring:

·     The driver’s previous experience is noted on his or her application and that it is verified, and

·     That all your training is correctly documented.

Finally, Parts 393 and 396 require that all drivers be “conversant” on the vehicle and vehicle inspection requirements. While this requirement is vague, it seems to imply that a company should train drivers on vehicle requirements and inspections.

Your drivers are your day-to-day safety mechanism when it comes to preventing unsafe equipment from being operated on the road. If they do not know the rules you greatly increase your odds of an unsafe piece of equipment being operated on the road.  If you want more guidance, download our Driver Inspections: Critical Vehicle Maintenance Practices whitepaper.