It’s hard to know where to start talking about the Truck Safety Coalition’s meetings with the Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration over the last two days.  First of all it’s important to understand that the past relationship between us and these agencies hasn’t always been close.  OK.  Let’s be honest, there just hasn’t been any workable relationship with them at all in the past.  I attended a meeting in 2005 where I and members of other grieving families told our stories and asked for help enforcing existing safety rules.  The DOT staff sat stone faced, finger pointing at each other and other agencies and nothing ever came from any of our meetings. So it was with great hope that we accepted the invitation from newly confirmed Administrator Ann Ferro (we lost our vigorous battle to have her denied confirmation as head of the FMCSA) and the Secretary of Transportation Raymond LaHood to meet and talk about our (hopefully mutual) goals.

In a strange sort of way perhaps we are lucky that Ann Ferro, a member of the trucking industry lobby, was nominated by President Obama.  Because she was, and because we made such a ruckus about her, we got noticed.  Our squeaky wheel got attention.  And so it was that I found myself sitting in a big leather chair around a giant conference table in the DOT; sitting with a couple of other families, several attorneys, and other safety advocates including Ralph Nader.  I was sitting right next to Secretary LaHood, with a series of pictures of Dad and his smashed car resting on the table in front of the two of us.  As he did the introduction remarks, sweeping his glance around the table he had to keep looking at those pictures.

On behalf of grieving families everywhere we at Truck Coalition presented Mr. Secretary with two collage panels that showed over 120 pictures of the faces of crash victims.  Sadly, that’s just a fraction of the 5,000 people that are killed each year in crashes, or the 100,000 that are severely injured each year.  Dad’s photo was among those on the collage.  We told the Secretary that we appreciated his well known and often voiced commitment to safety.  But that we’d heard it before and we were skeptical.  Eventually our skepticism irritated him, but I don’t think he’ll forget us.  We asked that the Hours of Service Rules (the number of hours a truck driver can drive in a row, and the hours of required rest) be totally revamped.  The agency has tried twice before to get new rules passed, each time we took them to court because their “new” rule was no better, and sometimes worse for others on the road as well as the drivers themselves.  We don’t want the “new” administration to just tweak what had already been attempted.  We want a totally new overhaul, and one that makes sense.  And we want teeth in the rules so that they are enforceable, which in our view, requires the mandated installation of Electronic On Board Recorders (EOBRs) that will record when a truck is moving and when it is at rest so that the log books can no longer be fudged in order to get more work out of tired drivers.

We were repeatedly assured that “this is not your grandmother’s DOT.”  Well.  We’ll see.

This morning we had a followup meeting with Administrator Ann Ferro and her team alone.  We presented collages to her as well, and I told her that when she looks into the faces of those people I hoped she would remember that all the decisions she makes need to be made on the side of safety.  That changes have to be made in order to save lives, and of the people in the room, only she has the power to save lives.  We talked more specifically about the research behind our requests, some of which we don’t think she is aware.  We were again assured that it’s a new day at the DOT.  She seems personable and interested.  And we have to say we haven’t been this welcomed ever in the past.  But her staff are the same people that have been there for years and years.  We aren’t sure that she will be able to make such significant changes in an agency (the FMCSA) that is so dominated and controlled by the American Trucking Association (ATA) who has no interest in making themselves any more accountable than they already are.  Which is negligible at best.

So here I am in my hotel tonight.  Exhausted.  Hopeful.  I want so much to believe them.  And truly, I can understand their frustration at our skepticism.  They don’t know how to make it more clear to us that things will change, they just reiterate their mantra that “Safety is their number one concern.”  But we need actions, not words.  I so hope that they mean what they say and that they can find a way to work through the distractions thrown at them by the ATA and others who have for years blasted us as “anti-trucking.”  We know the economics of the issue.  We know that the nation’s economic well being rests on the back of truckers.  We all want to be able to go to our local stores and buy the latest and the best for reasonable prices.  But we can’t do it at the cost of innocent lives, both in cars and in the cabs of the trucks hauling that stuff across our country.

Dad worked in manufacturing his whole life.  He focused on safety at his plants and mandated any safety issues get fixed now.  I told that to Secretary LaHood.  As I spoke he turned his chair and we looked into each others eyes.  I told him that when Dad saw something that was unsafe in his work environment he made sure it got fixed now.  There was no long debate spanning years or argument over definitions.  He’d bust butt to make sure his people were safe.  If it was broken it got fixed.  Immediately.  I could not ask for anything less from the DOT.  Mr. Secretary nodded.  I hope he heard, I think he did.

Today as I was sitting in the FMCSA’s conference room across the table from Ms. Ferro I would periodically glance at the picture of Dad which lay on the table in front of me.  “Hey Dad!” I’d think, “Are you listening?  Do you hear this?  Can you believe it?  Ann Ferro, the new head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association knows your name!   Transportation Secretary LaHood has heard your story!  You’re making a difference Dad!  Can you even believe we’re sitting here?”  When I was ten years old I never would have dreamed that I’d be sitting at a table with Ralph Nader and a Cabinet Secretary.  That I’d have dinner with Mr. Nader after and discuss safety issues.  It goes to show that you just never know.  Before 2004 I never knew.  Sometimes I wish I still didn’t know.  But I can’t discount the personal growth all of this has given me.

Tonight I cry easily, the result of the stress being released.  I slept for four hours after I got back to the hotel.  In the middle of the day.  This is so important, we are so close to having impact.  We have made a tiny chink in the DOT armor…they know we’re out there and they know we aren’t going away.  But the personal cost to us is beyond measure, both in the loss of our family member and to ourselves personally.  Reliving the details of that terrible day, the details of the way we each lost someone we loved takes it’s toll.  As one woman who has been working on this for over twenty years said, “it feels like we’re going through the funeral every time we do this.”  It would feel so good to be able to put this all behind us, to move on with our own lives, hold those we love close in a more personal, less public way.

But we can’t.  Because those 120 faces looking out of that collage are asking for help to save lives.  And no one is going to do it but us.  The price we paid has to have been worth something.  I can’t express how much I hope it was.

After today’s meeting I toured the Library of Congress.  On a wall there I read “They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.”  I have heard over and over again from victims’ families how alone they felt before they found our group.  I hope our noble thoughts comfort us all as we work through these difficult issues.

Love you Dad.