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October 6, 1999 11:30 AM, EDT

As support snowballs for a separate motor carrier safety administration, the Federal Highway Administration continued to take body blows for its failure to adequately enforce safety regulations and for its sluggishness in issuing a final rule on hours-of-service regulations.

At a Senate hearing Sept. 29, safety advocate Joan Claybrook softened her strong support for moving motor carrier safety enforcement to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, effectively killing the program’s chances of being transferred there. Such a transfer had been vigorously opposed by the American Trucking Associations and other truck groups.

“We originally supported a move to NHTSA, but we don’t necessarily oppose a separate agency for enforcement, so long as data collection and rulemaking functions are transferred to NHTSA,” the former NHTSA administrator told the Senate Commerce Committee’s Surface Transportation Subcommittee.

Claybrook’s shift is significant because Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) has made commercial vehicle safety legislation – and the creation of a new motor carrier agency under the Department of Transportation – one of his committee’s top priorities. His bill, the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999, would do just that.

For the full story, see the Oct. 4 print edition of Transport Topics. .