Page 20 - ATR 3 2013

mINImUm INSURaNce
The Trucking Alliance is also coop-
“…those who belieVe that somehow the big erating with the FMCSA as it deter-
carriers doN’t care about the small carriers, mines whether the minimum amounts
this law showed that’s Not true.” of liability insurance that carriers must
—laNe kidd, presideNt, carry should be increased.
Kidd said that a recent survey of
arkaNsas truckiNg associatioN
motor carriers in the Alliance of almost
9,000 crash settlements between 2005
and 2012 showed that if all the carriers
for drug testing purposes. Currently, executives in a separate panel discussion had only maintained the current mini-
FMCSA requires a urinalysis despite the that the truckload carrier began insti- mum of $750,000, 42 percent of all the
fact that hair testing is more reliable. tuting hair testing after the company crash settlements would have exceeded
That requirement forces carriers that had two bad accidents, one at the end that amount.
want to use the best possible test to pay of 2005 and the other in early 2006, in FMCSA had no idea about those
for both. Kidd said that drivers are fail- which both drivers failed a urinalysis for numbers until the Alliance showed
ing drug tests at one carrier, sitting out cocaine use after passing an earlier test. it the data it collected, said Kidd. The
for a while and then passing a urinalysis Before it started hair testing, J.B. FMCSA has congressional approval to
at another carrier. Hunt’s post-accident positive drug test raise that amount, but until it does, car-
A hair test would catch some of rate was between 3.5 and 4 percent, and riers will find themselves inadequately
those drivers. Because hair testing is it had not been able to move the needle insured, while injured motorists won’t
twice as expensive, supporters of a despite all its best efforts. “When we have help paying their medical costs,
change want it merely to be an option. implemented hair-testing, it changed the particularly when a carrier goes out of
Greer Woodruff, senior vice presi- game,” he said. “We haven’t had a posi- business after an accident.
dent of driver safety and security at J.B. tive, post-accident urine test in over five
Hunt Transport, later commented to years.”

Most trucking companies
make (or lose) more

money on equipment than
they do hauling freight.

TRANSPORT ENTERPRISE LEASING LLC.

20 arkansas Trucking reporT | issue 3 2013