Tom Rice

When you put constraints on the ability of people to get capital, it has follow-on effects in the economy.

We want to be efficient and productive, and we want our people to be compensated well.

That is almost unbelievable to me. So they are saying you could drive for 48 hours straight and not have a higher chance of an accident?

And then they come back up in the last two or three years, but they are still down 30 percent.

Well, I think that what we have got here is we had a rule in place that had reduced traffic deaths, fatalities, accidents by truckers by 29 percent I think is what Ms. Meng said and that we have done a study with 27 graduate students in…

So actually, these rules could force you into a situation that you would normally thin was unsafe; correct?

My point is we do not know if it is going to save any lives.

They were going down before that.

All right. Today, how many trucking fatalities from trucking accidents are there average in America today?

What was the experience, the actual effect of the 2003 rule on injuries, fatalities, accidents, so forth?

Do you think these driver fatigued regulations are really applicable to short haul?

These people are not suffering from driving fatigue. They are in and out of their trucks all day long.

So is it more than 80 percent of motor carriers surveyed had experienced productivity loss since the new rules went into effect?

Now, today, is it not 20, 30 percent below what it was 15 years ago?

Actually, it is such a small percentage that we will not even know if these rules are having any effect, will we?

If we put this rule in effect, are we going to know that it has had any effect at all?

Well, if I am bouncing between the economists and regulators and the truckers, I am going to take the truckers every time.

Do you think that these rules could force truck drivers to drive in a fatigued situation when they otherwise would not?

The idea that this rule would apply to them is just absurd.

But under the rule as proposed, are we not forcing drivers into those hours? Yes, clearly we are. Yes, we are.

So we do not want to insert the government into their lives any more than we need to.

This idea from the federal bureaucracy that you are going to throw a wet blanket over everybody is just absolutely absurd.

I do think it is arrogance. I absolutely think it is arrogance. I think we need to rethink. We need to reset.

I know that it is not the easiest position to be faced with all these questions, but you know, there are a lot of concerns.

Did your study in its analysis of these 19 lives that could be saved, did it take into account the fact that truckers are now going to be moved into rush hour traffic?