U.S. Legislative Issues

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Anne Ferro, the Administrator for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), announced on July 25 that she will be leaving her post in August. Administrator Ferro has lead the FMCSA since being appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009. During her tenure as Administrator, Ferro has advocated for the expansion of safety regulations, including a revamped Hours of Service rule released in 2013 and an Electronic Logging Device rule re-released in 2014. Administrator Ferro will continue to work as a safety advocate as the new President and CEO of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) starting this fall. The AAMVA is a nonprofit organization that promotes traffic safety and motor vehicle administration best practices.




In what is likely to be her last congressional hearing as Administrator of the FMCSA before she resigns in August, Anne Ferro testified before a Senate committee on the opportunities and challenges faced when trying to improve truck safety on the nation’s highways. The hearing was held by the Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee on July 29. During the hearing, Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) questioned the effectiveness of the Hours of Service rule. Administrator Ferro countered, saying that the rule promotes safety by removing tired drivers from the road.




Both President Barack Obama and Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx spoke about the benefits of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication during recent speeches. During a July 15 visit to the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center in McLean, VA to promote his long term transportation proposal, the president spoke on the virtues of vehicles that could one day be smart enough to know whether another car is coming around a blind corner or communicate with other cars to keep an even distance thereby reducing congestion.

During a speech to the National Press Club on July 21, Anthony Foxx, the Secretary of Transportation also touched on V2V technology, saying "This whole idea that vehicles in the future will communicate with each other is a really big deal. It’s a big deal for safety and it’s a big deal because it’s an opportunity to engage the automobile in the work of insuring collision avoidance, and not only between automobiles potentially but also with pedestrians."

The Department of Transportation has found that the technology would only add between $100 and $300 to the cost of a new vehicle, but would eliminate four out of five crashes that do not involve an impaired driver.
 

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