Safety tips the scales.

• Author: Tyson, Ray
• Position: Alaska's trucking industry

Safety Tips The Scales

FROM KENAI TO FAIRBANKS, the trucking industry is looking for an even better year after rebounding from an economic recession in 1989, although prospects for long-term growth remain cloudy.

More than profits or losses, however, the buzz word among truckers in 1990 is "safety," or rather the apparent lack of it following five years of industry deregulation. As company executives see it, a poor safety record is simply bad for business, affecting everything from insurance rates to public perception of the industry. And that is why many companies, particularly the larger, more established ones, favor mandatory vehicle inspections, commercial driver licensing and drug testing.

"The big problem with deregulation and the economy overall, is that there is a lot of cut-throat pricing out there," says William Fritsch, general manager of the 130-member Alaska Trucking Association. "People keep lowering their prices to stay in business. But when revenue is low, one thing that is going to suffer is safety. They are not going to do maintenance as often as they should, like changing tires. They have a payroll to meet first. We want to know that when those big old trucks come down the road, they have good brakes and good drivers driving them."

Jim Doyle, long-time owner of Kenai-based Weaver Brothers Inc., believes deregulating Alaska's transportation industry, which lowered freight rates but also opened the door to scores of fly-by-night operators, "was the biggest thing that hurt some of the trucking companies." He adds, "There are absolutely no vehicle inspection or safety regulations in effect, and there are a lot of trucking companies running up and down the road with unsafe equipment. I do know that the quality of drivers is less now than some years back."

Before Alaskans voted to deregulate the transportation industry in November 1984, there were about 15 trucking companies in Anchorage, says William James, president of Denali Transportation Corp., which does business as Pacific Movers and is one of the largest movers of household goods in Alaska.

"Now there are 37 in Anchorage," he says. "All this did was create chaos (because) everyone wanted to get into the business, ranging from one or two people on up. I'm not a person who says we need a lot of regulation, but we need enough to be safe."

David Neely, president of Lynden Transport Inc., a huge general freight company, agrees that "safety is a major concern. Freight rates have tumbled, and at the same time there are truckers who probably aren't maintaining equipment as well as they could because they don't have the money to do it, or the insurance."

While a truck safety inspection law was passed a few years ago, the program was never funded by the legislature. Many truck companies are hopeful lawmakers will see fit to finance the program this year.

Rich Whitbeck, vice president and general manager of Anchorage-based Mammoth of Alaska, says his firm's policy is never to run a bad piece of equipment. "It is a serious concern...