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July
13, 2004
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Headline
News
PTDI Certifies Truck Driver Training School Courses at a Pennsylvania
Community College and Recertifies Courses at Canton, Ohio, Truck Driving
School
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July
9, 2004
Contact:
E. Nancy O’Liddy, Director Public Affairs
703/838-1950 or noliddy@truckload.org
Alexandria,
Virginia – The Professional Truck Driver Institute (PTDI)
is proud to announce that Northampton Community College Driver Training
Program, in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, recently received PTDI certification
for its truck driver training course and Big Rig Truck Driving School,
in Canton, Ohio, received a five-year course recertification. A total
of 59 schools now offer PTDI-certified courses in 26 states and Canada.
Tina Frindt, director of the Northampton Community College program,
sought the PTDI certification for two reasons. First, she says, “schools
that we are in competition with use it as a tool to recruit people and
we wanted to put ourselves on a level playing field.”
Second, as a member of the National Association of Publicly Funded Truck
Driving Schools, Frindt was hearing a lot of talk about PTDI from other
members, and she was curious to know more. After discussing the particulars
of the PTDI process with a fellow member and hearing him say that the
work involved was worth it because “it had made a good school
even better,” Frindt decided to find out for herself. The result:
“He was absolutely right,” she says. “I knew it was
going to take a lot of effort and that we had a lot of work cut out
for us, but I feel very good about the fact that we did it. It was absolutely
worth it.”
“From a business standpoint,” explains Philip Lattavo, president
of Big Rig Tuck Driving School, “the PTDI certification is like
money in the bank.”
Lattavo says his school has sought recertification time and again because
it keeps them from getting complacent. “People are impressed by
what we had to do to meet PTDI standards,” he says. “For
schools that are not course certified, their main emphasis would be
‘How can we make our course shorter, simpler, less of an economic
burden on our company?’ Whereas we may have those things in mind,
the determining factor for decisions we make is always to keep our PTDI
certification.”
As a result, Lattavo
says, “We obtain a lot more students than other schools when [prospective
students] see the difference in the courses. Students are frank in the
recruiting and interviewing process, and they will tell you about other
places they have visited. With some frequency, we will hear them say
‘your program just seems so much better.’”
In addition to impressing students, Lattavo says, “We get a leg
up with the carriers because of PTDI certification.” He tells
students that many carriers they work with will not hire graduates of
uncertified courses.
According to Lattavo, Big Rig competes with at least three other truck
driver training schools within a 35- to 40-mile radius. “Students
have a lot to choose from,” he says. “PTDI does give Big
Rig an advantage.”
Top
TCA
Participates in SafeStat Follow-Up
You may recall a
recent announcement made in early June by the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration (FMCSA) regarding their SafeStat system. In an
official press release, FMCSA Administrator Sandberg made the announcement
that the agency is going to restrict access to some of the SafeStat
data in response to the report of the Office of Inspector General (OIG)
issued earlier this year. "By the end of this summer, we will temporarily
remove the Accident Safety Evaluation Area (SEA) and the overall SafeStat
scores from the Website,” Sandberg had written.
As a follow-up to
this announcement, TCA staff and member trucking company representatives
participated in a conference call with ATA and their Safety Policy and
SafeStat Subcommittee members to discuss this FMCSA announcement and
a number of other SafeStat-related issues primarily as they are linked
to the OIGs report and the SafeStat Validation Study that is currently
being written by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Based on this discussion
and feedback from the participants during the call, the ATA Safety Department
composed a memo which was forwarded to the Project Director at Oak Ridge,
and FMCSA upper management personnel as well on June 30, whose purpose
was to provide them with “constructive comments and concerns”
on the present SafeStat scoring system and SafeStat model. TCA member
trucking company representatives provided ATA with valuable feedback
on their concerns with the present SafeStat system that were included
in this June 30 memo. Specific issues that were raised included:
1) Normalizing
Data Used in the Accident SEA;
2) State–Reported Crashes Since a Compliance Review was Performed;
3) Time Weighting and Averaging the Power Units in the Accident SEA;
4) The Jumping Out of Service (OOS) Multiplier;
5) Time and Severity Weighting;
6) Peer Groupings; and
7) All Accidents versus At-Fault Accidents.
The SafeStat Validation
Study is due to be completed by sometime this fall, and TCA will keep
you posted on this and any other SafeStat-related developments. For
further questions please contact Rich Clemente at (703) 883-8847 or
email: rclemente@truckload.org.
To view a copy of the June 30 memo please click
here.
Top
OSHA's
Personal Protective Equipment Proposal - Comment Period Extended
The Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued
a notice of limited reopening of the rulemaking record for 45 days on
its proposed rule regarding employer payment for Personal Protective
Equipment (PPE). This extension notice was issued in the July 8, Federal
Register. OSHA’s proposed rule to require employers to pay
for PPE used by their employees was originally issued back on March
31, 1999. Subsequently, public comments were received and public hearings
were held, and the record was originally closed on December 13, 1999.
However, due to the significant amount of comments received in the record
and after analyzing the issues raised in the filed comments, OSHA has
determined that further information is necessary to fully explore the
issues concerning payment for PPE that is considered to be a “tool
of the trade.” OSHA is specifically seeking comments on issues
that relate to whether or how a general rule on payment for PPE should
address types of personal protective equipment that are typically supplied
by the employee, taken from job site to job site or from employer to
employer, and considered to be “tools of the trade.” The
comment period has now been extended until August 23, 2004.
According to the
original 1999 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), employers would
have to pay for all OSHA-required PPE at no cost to employees, except
for safety-toe protective footwear or prescription safety eyewear if
all three of the following conditions are met:
1) the employer
permits such PPE to be worn off the job;
2) the PPE is not used in a manner that renders it unsafe for use
off the job site; and
3) the PPE is not designed for special use on the job.
These requirements
addressed PPE of many kinds including: hard hats, gloves, goggles, safety
shoes and glasses, welding helmets, face shields, chemical protective
equipment and clothing, and fall protection equipment.
The provisions in
current OSHA standards that require PPE usually state that the employer
is to provide or ensure the use of PPE. Certain provisions specify that
the employer is to provide PPE at no cost to the employee; others suggest
that the PPE is owned by the employee, while other provisions are silent
as to who is obligated to pay for this equipment. A copy of the July
8 Register notice is available by clicking
here for an HTML and here
for a PDF. If you have any questions or feedback on this issue,
please contact Rich Clemente at (703) 838-8847 or email: rclemente@truckload.org.
Top
CVSA'S Roadcheck 2004 Yields Positive Results
For the fifth consecutive
year, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA)-sponsored Roadcheck
resulted in an increase in roadside commercial vehicle inspections.
This 17th annual event, conducted on June 8-10, resulted in 57,785 inspections
performed by state and provincial personnel on commercial vehicles.
That number represents 2,001 more inspections than last year, and nearly
49% more than the 38,864 completed in 1999. Of these 57,785 driver and
vehicle inspections conducted, a CVSA decal was placed on 27,749 (48.0%)
commercial vehicles showing that no safety violations were found during
the vehicle inspection. This is the highest number of vehicles with
no violations discovered in the history of the prior 16 Roadchecks.
Other “key” Roadcheck
2004 results showed fewer hours of service violations. Inspectors found
out-of-service (OOS) violations in 3.44% of the inspections; in 2003,
the corresponding percentage was 3.69%. In addition, the hazardous materials
OOS rate dropped slightly this year for vehicles – from 20.0%
to 19.1%, and was equal to last year’s number for drivers –
2.3%. Furthermore, the message about the importance of wearing a safety
belt has taken hold as the inspectors found only 1.3% of all drivers
inspected during Roadcheck 2004 were not wearing a safety belt.
On the negative side, for
the second year in a row, vehicle out-of-service (OOS) rates increased
from 22.7% last year to 23.9% in 2004. The driver OOS rate remained
constant at 5%. The number of violations discovered per vehicle rose
to 2.01, an increase over the 1.78 violations per vehicle in Roadcheck
2003.
The CVSA sponsors
the annual Roadchecks with participation by the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration (FMCSA), Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators,
Transport Canada, the Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA)
the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (Mexico), the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Transportation
Security Administration (TSA). FMCSA Administrator Annette Sandberg
said, “The roadside inspection program, and the emphasis placed
on the international Roadcheck, are important activities in support
of FMCSA’s overall mission to reduce crashes, injuries and fatalities
involving large trucks and buses.”
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