Ferro’s final confirmation draws quick response

By LYNDON FINNEY
The Trucker Staff

11/6/2009

WASHINGTON — Anne Ferro’s confirmation by the Senate late Thursday to become the next administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration drew quick response from trucking industry stakeholders today.

All that remains for Ferro before she takes office is an as yet unscheduled swearing-in ceremony.

Ferro will come to FMCA from the Maryland Motor Transport Association, where she is president and CEO.

“Ferro is highly qualified for this position, having served as a state regulator leading the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration,” Dave Osiecki, vice president of safety, security and operations at the American Trucking Associations, said. “We look forward to working with her to advance ATA's comprehensive highway safety agenda to further improve the trucking industry's on-road safety performance."

“We are encouraged by the remarks she made about uncompensated time in her testimony before the Senate and look forward to her striking a balance between safety and the realities of how truck transportation is provided,” Norita Taylor, media spokesperson for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said.

In her testimony at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Sept. 23, Ferro talked about commercial transportation safety.

“Every other hour someone in our country is killed in a crash with a truck or motor coach and hundreds are injured. If it happens to someone close to you it’s intolerable – we shouldn’t have to wait for that possibility,” Ferro testified. “Whoever leads this agency must foster frank discussions about the fundamentals in the freight supply chain and motor coach industries that encourage participants to push the limits and put the driving public and other commercial drivers at risk. Uncompensated time, compensation by the mile or load, professional drivers classified as laborers – these are all aspects of a supply-chain model that rewards squeezing transportation costs out of the equation; factors that shift the cost onto the driving public and professional driver.”

The head of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance said his organization was pleased with Ferro’s confirmation.

“I have personal experience in working with Ferro in both positions she has held in the State of Maryland,” said Buzzy France, CVSA president. “She has an excellent understanding of how government, law enforcement and industry need to work together to solve problems, and will be a great advocate for safety.”

“The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s mandate requires a strong leader who can meet the challenges that come from a diverse industry and that person is rightly Ms. Ferro,” said Stephen Keppler, CVSA’s interim executive director. “Ferro has proven that she is committed to working with a wide range of stakeholders including CVSA and understands the important role that states and roadside inspectors play in ensuring highways safety, including our friends to the north and south in Canada and Mexico.”

A spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which opposed Ferro’s nomination, said the organization would not issue a statement about the confirmation.

A spokesman for Public Citizen, a safety advocacy group that was also opposed to her nomination, said it was not determined yet whether the organization would comment today.

Lyndon Finney, editor of The Trucker, can be contacted to comment on this article at editor@thetrucker.com.

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