WASHINGTON — House lawmakers have approved legislation directing the U.S. Postal Service to set new rules for keeping track of crashes involving its trucking contractors, including penalties against motor carriers for failing to report them.
On Monday the House passed, by voice vote, the Mail Traffic Deaths Reporting Act of 2024, which would require contract carriers and Postal Service employees to report to the agency roadway crashes involving vehicles carrying mail and resulting in injury or death no later that three days after the crash.
It also would require the Postal Service to maintain an internal database of such reports and publish an annual summary of information related to the reports.
The legislation, introduced in March by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., is in response to investigations of the Postal Service’s safety records involving its long-haul contract carriers and a government watchdog report published in February revealing lax oversight of its partner trucking companies, brokers and drivers.
“It is our hope this legislation creates a virtuous feedback loop at the Postal Service in which crash data enforces strict adherence to safety compliance and best practices,” Connolly said when he introduced the bill.
In a March 12 op-ed published in The Hill, Connolly detailed a tragedy that occurred in June 2022 involving two families driving on Interstate 25 between Greeley, Colorado, and Gillette Wyoming, and a truck carrying mail on a contract with the Postal Service.
“The truck’s brakes were out of alignment, it was uninsured, and its driver did not have a commercial driver’s license,” Connolly said. “The truck slammed into the back of the Godines’ family vehicle and, in an instant, a member of the Everts family and three generations of Godines lost their lives, including a 3-month-old baby girl.
“Unknown to most Americans, this tragedy is playing out across our country. Over the last three years, at least 79 people were killed in crashes involving trucks contracted by the Postal Service. Even more concerning, the number of lives lost could be even higher because, just last year, we learned that USPS did not even report serious crashes involving its trucking contractors.”
Reports submitted by contract carriers and Postal Service employees must include detailed information “describing, at a minimum, the crash, including the date, time, location, nature of the crash, information identifying the contractor, number of injuries, fatalities, and any contributing factors to the crash,” according to the bill. “An employee or contractor … shall update the report, in such form and manner as the Postal Service deems appropriate, to reflect any change in crash-caused injuries or fatalities.”
Postal Service contractors that fail to report a crash within the reporting deadline face penalties to be determined by the Postal Service, “including fines, suspension of contracts, or termination of contracts,” the legislation states.
“The Postal Service may take into account the severity of the applicable traffic crash and the frequency of noncompliance with the requirements of this Act by the applicable Postal Service contractor when determining which penalty to apply (if any).”
The bill, which now goes to the Senate, has a 34% chance of being enacted, according to govtrack.us, which analyzes legislation trends. Only about 21% of bills that made it past committee in 2021-2023 were enacted, the website noted.
Shane Shoemaker
Looks like the post office doesn’t know about Safersys. If they are having trouble checking their carriers accident records, that’s on them. The law order requires every accident to be reported to the FMCSA now because somebody doesn’t know how to check it. They want the carriers to do their work for them. Another government report for something that’s already reported, Ludacris
K Hill
Maybe they should track roadside inspections and try to prevent the crash! Be proactive instead of reactive!
Mail contractors are some of the worst looking trucks – poor physical appearance correlates to poor mechanical upkeep!
Timtruck
you wanna solve this for real? Check out 10 Roads. They literally came out of nowhere and will literally hire anyone. A good 50% of their drivers cant even speak English. Same applies to Amzon contractors and FedEx ground contractors. And many of the big driver milss, such as Werner, Swift, JB Hunt, Challenger, ect just to name a few. We driver have been saying this for years, and years and years except nobody art the fed even cares. I remember a few years back I was in renewing my license and here is this state cop translating the CDL tests into spanish so about 50 people could pass theirs. I said something about being able to read, write and speak conversational English as the rules say. They asked me to leave as it was none of my busines. Oh really? Then whose business is its? The people they kill or what?
Tom Ken
LOL, the joke’s on them. The USPS has now decided to move most long haul contracts to brokers. Good luck tracking the crashes.
Victor
Before 10 Road came along and took over most of the mail routes, you didn’t see the mail contractors running like demons everywhere. With 10 Road, they’re tailgating, weaving in and out of traffic and speeding like crazy. Correlation? Possibly…..
Bonnie Gillmore
This isn’t just a postal contractor issue. It is widespread throughout the trucking industry. Drivers not able to comprehend English, not properly trained. It boggles the mind trying to figure out some passed the written, skills and driving tests to obtain a cdl, if indeed they have one.
Steven Bailey
Quite often the post office ignores the fact that most of the contractor trucks that deliver over the road mail or picking up from local post offices are basically junk. The post office when they put contracts out for bid the trucks are supposed to conform to a minimum standard and many times they don’t. For my experience of working there in the transportation department the contractors that came in there bought old Ryder trucks Frito-Lay trucks anything that was cheap they could get their hands on and more times than not they came in on the back of the tow truck. The post office never inspected these contractors equipment or sanction them for not conforming to the post office standards. The contract is hired anybody that they could including immigrants that they could get to drive for cheap. Somehow it didn’t matter if they didn’t have proper licensing or had terrible safety records. The post office is really to blame for the whole situation they hire these people and they do not hold them accountable. They seem to turn a blind eye to Old broken down equipment.
Stephen Webster
We need to do the same with Amazon subcontractors and fedex
We need to stop Amazon from getting drivers from Canada ans mexico to haul freight inside the U S otherwise the higher cost could push the post office out of the parcel business?. If Amazon does not have to meet the same standards in my opinion