U.S. Studies Plan to Allow Younger Interstate Truckers

Federal safety officials are considering a trucking industry proposal to allow people as young as 18 to drive big rigs in interstate commerce to help ease a critical shortage of drivers.

Federal rules require that truckers must be at least 21 to haul cargo across state lines. The industry is proposing a three-year pilot program that, if successful, could lead to permanently lowering the age limit for truckers. Insurance industry and safety groups oppose the plan.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which wants to cut in half the 5,000 annual truck crash deaths in this decade, has asked for public reaction in the next 90 days as it evaluates the plan. The agency then will make a recommendation to the Department of Transportation.

The trucking industry suffers from a widespread shortage of drivers and chronic turnover. Research has shown that the industry needs to hire 80,000 new drivers a year to meet demand.

The three-year experiment with younger drivers is being proposed by the Truckload Carriers Assn., which represents long-haul carriers. It would train as many as 1,000 young drivers ages 18 to 21. These drivers would undergo 48 weeks of classroom instruction, on-the-job training and apprenticeship. They would not be allowed to drive unsupervised until the age of 19.

Robert Hirsch, president of the carriers’ group, said the requirement that interstate truckers be 21 effectively denies the industry a pool of potentially eager employees. Hirsch said the military has shown that young people can be trained to safely perform demanding jobs.

But safety advocates point to several studies showing that truckers 30 and under are more likely to get into crashes. Research also shows that younger truckers are more likely to get traffic tickets and ignore federal rules requiring rest. They note that lowering the driving age for truckers to 18 is at odds with the trend in many states to place restrictions on teen drivers.

University of Wisconsin economist Kristen Monaco, who analyzed national surveys of drivers in 1997 and 1998, found that 24% of truckers younger than 30 reported being involved in an accident, compared with 12% of drivers 30 and older.

“The proposal is very risky from a safety perspective,” Monaco said. “We have evidence that people under 30 tend to be less safe. Having even younger drivers--under 21--does not seem to be a good prescription.”

In California, where 18-year-olds are allowed to drive commercial trucks within state boundaries, state statistics for 1998, the latest available, show that truck drivers 19 and younger were 10 times more likely to cause fatal and injury accidents than were older truckers.

As for the driver shortage, Monaco said that the industry also could respond by raising pay. Truckers average $36,000 a year for a 63-hour week and more than 100,000 miles of driving, according to her research.

“If they want to recruit more people, they need to pay them better,” Monaco said. “And we have found that there is a relationship between better pay and improved levels of safety.”

“The fears that some people have are not supported,” said Hirsch, president of the trucking group. “It’s very important to understand that we are not going to take every 18-year-old. Every single day that they are in instruction, someone is going to be watching them. The companies are not cavalier about taking on this responsibility.”

But insurance industry organizations and safety groups said they will urge the Department of Transportation to not approve the plan.

“Our basic position is that young drivers and large trucks are a bad risk,” said Steve Oesch, a vice president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Gerald Donaldson, an expert on trucking issues with Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety in Washington, said that the experiment would be so tightly managed that it would have little validity.

“The control over these participants is going to be very tight so they don’t have an accident,” said Donaldson. “That means you couldn’t reach a conclusion here on whether it would be safe for 18- to 20-year-olds to drive in interstate commerce.”

Donaldson also said that officials of the federal truck safety agency had coached the industry group on how to prepare the proposal and questioned whether it would receive an impartial evaluation.

“The agency has told us that they were enthusiastic about the idea,” said Donaldson.

Agency spokesman David Longo said that the trucking group had received technical aid that the agency routinely extends to petitioners.

“We tried to help them flesh out their idea,” he explained. “We said: ‘You need to explain this better. . . . This doesn’t sound right.’ ”