Toxic chemicals and 18-wheelers: the dangers of deregulation.

• Author: Krause, Kitry
• Position: Includes article on trucking insurance

Toxic Chemicals and 18-Wheelers: The Dangers of Deregulation

The air on this damp September morning is thick with diesel exhaust as a long line of trucks rumble off I-95 and into a weigh station near Dumfries, Virginia. As on any other day when the weigh station is open, every truck must pull over the scales, but today there is a special twist to this routine. In a parking lot adjacent to the scale, a four-man team stops trucks for surprise inspections. The driver of an empty fuel tanker with Virginia plates is one of those waved over to the inspection site. He leans on his steering wheel while an inspector checks his license, driving hours log, and shipping papers. He climbs down and watches, tight-lipped, as the inspector shakes his gas tank, kicks his tires, and wriggles on the gravel-covered asphalt to get a close look at the suspension and brakes. The driver, who declined to give his name, is clearly embarrassed when the inspector finds the front axle brakes have been disconnected. The inspector sticks an "Out of Service' sign on the tanker's windshield and says the truck cannot be moved until all the brakes work.

If you had watched only this one inspection, part of a "nationwide' effort run by federal and state teams, you might feel safer the next time you're on the highway, jockeying for position with the 18-wheelers. Unfortunately, you would have had the wrong impression. Many states, including Virginia, had only two inspection sites. The officials at the Dumfries weigh station checked a total of eight trucks during a three-hour morning session. In addition to this driver's truck, two others were also put out of service for brake problems. But while eight were checked, hundreds rolled through the weigh station uninspected and accelerated back on to I-95. If three out of eight trucks were taken out of service for brake problems, consider how many others--in Virginia alone--are operating with potentially dangerous defects. Even more frightening, consider that one out of every 10 trucks carries hazardous materials such as gasoline, sulfuric acid or anhydrous ammonia.

Most of the 250,00 daily shipments of hazardous materials--four billion tons per year--move in trucks. A recent study of accidents in the Washington area has focused attention on the potential danger of trucks and the hazardous materials they carry:

On August 12 a tank truck on the Beltway leaked 500 gallons of corrosives onto the highway. Had the tank burst and released a chemical cloud, it could have been lethal, local fire officials said. There were no injuries, but 600 people were evacuated from the area.

On September 6 a propane truck flipped over on the Beltway, causing two small tanks to explode into fires. The main tank never blew, but it took 13 hours for the blaze to burn out. 400 people were evacuated.

On September 13 and 20 large trucks caused major accidents, again on the Beltway. One involved a tanker carrying oil, the other, a tractor-trailer whose brakes failed.

Across the nation, trucking is getting more dangerous. The Department of Transportation (DOT) reports the number of trucking accidents rose by 18 percent from 1983 to 1984, the largest jump since 1967. That's 37,200 accidents per year. One reason the roads are getting less safe is that federal deregulation of the trucking industry in 1980 so increased competition that less scrupulous trucking companies have tended to skimp on maintenance and permit unsafe practices by their drivers. Contrary to what proponents of deregulation argued in the late seventies, market forces have not adequately provided incentives to keep trucks safe.

The airline industry is another case in which experts have debated the possible links between recent deregulation and inadequate safety standards. In the wake of several crashes and numerous near-misses this year, some airline employees have admitted that airplane maintenance has suffered recently. American Airlines was fined $1.5 million in September-- the largest such penalty ever--for numerous safety violations. Although statistics still show that flying is a relatively safe way to travel, the Department of Transportation has proposed increasing the number of air controllers and plane inspectors in hopes of improving safety. Likewise, in trucking, we should not be satisfied by the fact that so far we have avoided a "Bhopal on wheels,' as one worried New York state transit official put it. The massive toxic gas release in India, which killed 2,000 people, as well as another major toxic leak from a Union Carbide plant in Institute, West Virginia, are recent reminders of the danger of hazardous materials. But you don't have to live next to a chemical plant or dumpsite; anyone who travels on or lives near a road used by truckers should recognize the danger that a major truck accident involving hazardous material poses.

Heads in the Sand

Trucking has always been a dangerous business, but from 1935 through 1980, strict economic regulation protected "for-hire' carriers in large part from the vagaries of the free market and thus took away some of the pressure to skimp on safety...