Sandberg Steps Down From FMCSA
Oliver B.Patton
Washington Editor
Annette Sandberg is stepping down as chief of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration after three years on the job.
Sandberg presided over the agency during a period of significant change in truck safety regulation. The new hours of service rule is the agency's biggest accomplishment during her tenure, but she left her mark on other significant initiatives, as well.
In her letter of resignation to President Bush, she said the agency has made "significant strides" in improving truck and bus safety.
"In this time we have reduced the (agency's) regulatory backlog by over 68 percent and provided additional enforcement focus at the local, state and federal level – resulting in the lowest large truck fatality rate since the collection of data began in 1975," she said.
Besides hours of service reform, Sandberg's agency launched a long-term effort to change the way it does business. Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010, as it is dubbed, is an attempt to realign the agency's resources so it can cope with anticipated growth of the trucking industry. Other initiatives include the ongoing effort to correct problems with the agency's online safety statistics database, and a pending proposal on electronic onboard recorders.
At the same time, Sandberg is leaving significant challenges for her successor – who is as yet to be named. The hours of service rule must be considered to be in flux, since it has been challenged in court by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and may be challenged on other grounds by safety activist groups. Also pending is a court challenge of the agency's driver training rule. On top of that, the agency has a long to-do list from Congress, which ordered up a raft of new rules in the highway bill passed last year.
Sandberg was to depart on March 1. She was silent about her reasons for leaving and her plans for the future.
American Trucking Associations President and CEO Bill Graves expressed appreciation "for a job well done."
"She and her team of safety professionals consistently demonstrated a willingness to openly examine motor carrier concerns and issues while maintaining the highest commitment to highway safety," he said in a statement.
In another change at the Department of Transportation, Kenneth M. Mead has resigned as inspector general.
Mead, who has been in the job since 1997, has been influential in trucking affairs on a number of counts, perhaps most notably in his support for creation of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
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