9 their brakes far more often than trucks, were having accidents due to nonfail-safe failure of antilock. After a public hearing on October 25, 1975, NHTSA declared a moratorium on the antilock portion of the Standard for buses. This leads us to ask: If antilock is unsafe on a bus, how can it be safe on a truck? Since the summer of 1970, there have been hundreds of changes in FMVSS 121 through more than 40 official notices in the Federal Register. Meanwhile, NHTSA legal interpretations, exlusions from the rule, and postponement of effective dates have made the Standard almost unintelligible. The last up-dated publication of the Standard came in July, 1976. Changes since that have not been consolidated, and certain interpretations actually contradict the Standard. Of the many changes in 121, the most significant from the standpoint of overall safety was the downgrading of the brake torque requirement on steering axles by increasing the stopping distance to 293 feet for stops from 60 miles-anhour. Yet, we cannot overlook the many features that are still wrong. Of major importance are the following: 1. The requirement for anti-lock. We now know that anti-lock will not, even when working as designed, perform the miracles that NHTSA originally believed possible. Worse, we now know that anti-lock, regardless of who makes it, can upon failure or during periods of erratic performance from whatever cause, have a major effect on the braking ability of the vehicle at times when normal braking is desired. This ranges from complete loss of brakes on certain axles for periods ranging from seconds to minutes and longer, to false cycling of antilock which drains the air reservoirs. 2. Reliance on parking brakes as the emergency brakes on trailers. These brakes, held "off" by air pressure, are applied by spring pressure when the air pressure is removed. So as to permit the moving of the trailer without having air pressure available, means are provided for retracting the springs 10 mechanically. This is being done in the field to overcome problems caused by those brakes. A trailer in service with those brakes retracted that way has no parking brakes and, more alarming, if it separates from the tractor it has no brakes at all. 3. Air brake application timing specifications permit the manufacturer of new units that are not compatible with older units in combination operations. 4. The present Standard promotes incompatibility between new and old vehicles in combination. NHTSA has promised to revise the rule to cover only item 2 above, despite overwhelming evidence that the other three can cause accidents and deaths. There have been many strange accidents where malfunctions in the brake system mandated by FMVSS 121 was the only apparent cause. Major fleets have had to disconnect the antilock system on their vehicles. NHTSA knows this. The agency also knows that others have disconnected their antilock systems or have deliberately allowed them to go unrepaired without notice to any government agency. This is perfectly legal, since 121 is only a manufacturers' standard. It is being done because random losses of brakes have alarmed drivers and destroyed user confidence in the systems. I wish to make ATA's position clear. This summer our executive committee passed a resolution which reads as follows: "Resolved that the Executive Committee of ATA go on 11 That is where we as an industry stand today. For nine years we have been trying to make 121 work. We see possible progress, and in our own best interests we have attempted to foster that progress. In some instances we have succeeded. At other times our words have gone unheeded. This sort of "half-life" in the name of safety is not tolerable. We as an industry are concerned not only for ourselves but for the public as a whole. We are, after all, a public service industry. We move goods efficiently and economically. cannot ignore our public service responsibilities, and surely safety stands high on the list of priorities. We I again wish to thank you for the opportunity to present this overview of 121. It is our hope we can somehow work together before more lives are lost, and that we can bring full reality to a situation which for too long has been characterized by chaos, misunderstanding, confusion and indifference. Senator EAGLETON. Let me ask Mr. Strout and Mr. Markland and Mr. Dawson these questions. What has been your corporate experience with 121 brakes and what conclusions have you drawn? Has the brake system been helpful, harmful, or is it unresolved? TESTIMONY OF DONALD K. STROUT, VICE PRESIDENT, MAINTENANCE, WILSON FREIGHT COMPANY, CINCINNATI, OHIO Mr. STROUT. Mr. Chairman, my name is Donald Strout. I am with the Wilson Freight Company. Our experience has been that it has been very harmful. I am prepared to bring that out in my written statement. Senator EAGLETON. As a matter of corporate policy, does Wilson Freight Lines require that the 121 equipment be hooked up? Mr. STROUT. It was, Mr. Chairman, until 5 weeks ago when we decided that we no longer could live with the situation and it was necessary to disconnect. Senator EAGLETON. That is interesting. Tell me in your own words what caused you to come to that decision 5 weeks ago. Mr. STROUT. The vehicles were brought into service in the midpoint of 1976, so at this point they are 18 months old. Approximately 1 month ago they were 17 months old. At that point in time in checking all of the accident statistics, we have had twice as many accidents than with an equal quantity of previous trucks and four times as many jackknife accidents. We killed three drivers. Yesterday morning there was another driver killed because all the systems had not been disconnected, although practically all have been. It takes several weeks to do it. Senator EAGLETON. The deaths, including the one yesterday are you stating that in your professional judgment, and you are in charge of maintenance, that these deaths were attributable to malfunctioning of the 121 systems? Can vou say that? Mr. STROUT. Mr. Chairman, I can. I realize it is an opinion. It can be debated and discussed. All of these four fatalities were single-vehicle accidents. It is not a case of where we ran into somebody else. In each case there were slightly damp roadways, where it had just started to rain. They were generally known in our company of what we call jackknife accidents. They were all good drivers. There may be some area of doubt whether all four can be laid to the 121 and maybe there was only two or only three, but we had not even had the average of one driver per year getting killed until we accepted the 121 vehicles. Now we have four drivers in 1 year. Just Thursday afternoon of last week we had an accident with a schoolbus in Illinois. The female bus driver was injured. Fortunately there were no children on the schoolbus. This has gone on and on. We are talking about 343 accidents. I have the exact number in my written statement. There were 343 accidents in 18 months with the 121 vehicles. It is an average of an accident every 150.000 miles, where our previous record was 300.000 miles, which is twice as good. We used to have a jackknife every 4 million miles and now we have one every 1 million miles. It takes a long time to drive 4 million miles. Seventy-five thousand miles a year would mean 50 years to reach that amount. We felt that we had what was a very good braking system with proper balance between the tractor and trailer. We did not have the incompatibility of new tractors with the old trailers. We had the pre-121 system on both with the proper balance. I am really getting into my statement. Senator EAGLETON. Yes, I would like to hear it extemporaneously. Mr. STROUT. I was going to try to say this. In our company in the name of safety we cannot understand why a good brake system should be replaced by a system four times as bad. In our opinion, this action should raise some serious questions about the competency or incompetency of our National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Senator EAGLETON. When there is an accident, do you interview, as a matter of corporate policy, the driver to find out from him how it occurred. I am sure you interviewed the driver or the staff that had to do with the schoolbus collision. Did the driver in that case tell your investigator that it was because of 121 complications? Mr. STROUT. I would like to explain. My responsibilities at Wilson Freight are to specify and purchase the equipment and maintain the equipment and dispose of it when we feel it should be disposed of. Our safety department works under a different man in our company. I do not directly get to talk with these drivers on accident investigations. I normally have drivers coming to me and I stop them when I see them in the yard. We have been petitioned twice by our drivers. The largest group of our drivers is the Springfield, Ohio local with well over 400 drivers. The president of that local and business representative understand that our drivers begged for antilock to be disconnected. Senator EAGLETON. That is a Teamster local? Mr. STROUT. Yes, sir. When we resisted doing that, that is, resisted the disconnect, then they called the president of our company. It was necessary for a group of drivers, that is, it was necessary for the president to permit a group of drivers to come to our general office and have a meeting over this. Again, they insisted. Then we had our meetings with our legal people and the safety people. There was a general consensus of everybody concerned that we absolutely must have these disconnections from the moral and legal standpoint because of all these accidents and the potential of many more accidents. Senator EAGLETON. I am not trying to penetrate the attorney client relationship. You said you talked with your legal people. I presume they had to make a value judgment. If you leave the 121 on and you have a higher accident rate than before, they probably said they would have to weigh that against the fact that once you disconnect the thing and there is an accident, then the lawyer for the plaintiff is going to have a pretty good arguing point in front of the jury. |