آیا بستن قرارداد با اپراتورهای مالک منجر به بدتر شدن نتایج ایمنی برای وسایط موتوری ایالات متحده می شود؟ مدارک و شواهد از سیستم اطلاعاتی مدیریت وسایط موتوری

Using data from the Motor Carrier Management Information System, we model crashes as a function of firm characteristics, with a focus on the employment relationship. We find that very small firms (one driver, one truck) and firms that contract with owner operators have fewer crashes than employee-only companies, once other firm characteristics and exposure are controlled. Additionally, though very small firms are more likely to have severe crashes, we find no relationship between the share of owner operators and crash severity.

Over 30 years after economic deregulation of US interstate trucking, industry regulation remains, primarily focused on safety. While it is true that trucking safety statistics have improved over time (see Appendix A), there are two key trends to note. First, the crash rates have largely leveled out since the mid 1990s. The number of fatalities involving heavy trucks has ranged from 4200 to 4500 since 1990. Adjusting for exposure, fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) dropped from nearly 5 at the end of economic regulation (1975–1980) to 2.4 in 1995 and since then has ranged from 1.9 to 2.4. Second, trucks account for a disproportionate share of the crashes on the road. The overall crash rate per 100 million VMT in 2008 was 1.24 versus 1.87 for trucks (FMCSA).1 The lack of continued improvements in truck crash rates has generated renewed interest in both economic and safety regulation. Some parties have focused on revamping the federal Hours of Service regulations governing truck drivers’ time. Others have called for new forms of economic regulation, particularly focused on owner operators – truck drivers who own their trucks and contract to carriers (as opposed to employee truck drivers)2 (Cassidy, 2010). The call for ‘reregulation’ has largely centered around port drayage and has focused on a mandate that drayage drivers be employees of trucking firms, rather than owner operators, who currently dominate this market segment. While the justification for altering the employment structure of port drayage was initially environmentally based, “clean truck” programs have been successfully implemented in Long Beach and Seattle (among other ports) without restructuring the employment relationship of drivers. The Port of Los Angeles, whose Clean Truck Program included an employee driver mandate, has been engaged in litigation for years due to this requirement and continues to allow owner operators to call at the terminals on the Port's property. As the environmental justification has not borne fruit, the argument in favor of employee mandates has switched focus to safety concerns (truck maintenance costs and economic pressures leading to increased risky behavior of drivers). A bill to mandate employee drayage drivers is currently in the California Legislature and may be reintroduced in 2012. A similar bill has been introduced, but not passed, in Congress. The focus on regulating the employment relationship due to safety-based considerations merits an analysis of whether using independent contractors leads to worse safety outcomes. This study approaches this question in two ways. First, we use the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS) Census database along with MCMIS Crash data to assess whether owner operators and firms that contract with owner operators are involved in more crashes than employee-only firms. Second, we analyze specific crashes to test whether firms that contract with owner operators are more likely to involved in severe crashes, controlling for other firm and crash characteristics. While the legislation previously mentioned focuses on owner operators involved in port operations, we take a more general approach to look at owner operators across the trucking industry.

While there is a great deal of research that focuses on trucking safety, few studies specifically investigate the link between the employment relationship and safety outcomes. The current debate over the use of owner operators in certain segments of trucking merits systematic analysis of this topic. Using the MCMIS Census and Crash files, we examine the relationship between owner operator usage and safety outcomes. First, estimating a count model of the number of crashes in which a carrier was involved in 2009 (and controlling for total miles traveled), we find that very small firms (one truck, one driver) and firms that contract with owner operators are involved in fewer crashes than firms who exclusively use employee drivers. These findings hold across all crashes as well as injury and fatal crashes. Second, focusing in more detail on crash-level data, we find little evidence that the probability of being involved in a serious crash (injury or fatal) varies significantly between carriers that contract with owner operators and those who do not use owner operator labor, though there is evidence that very small firms have a higher likelihood of severe crashes (though they experience fewer total crashes). This last finding suggests that while drivers at firms that contract with owner operators are less likely to be involved in crashes, their crashes may result in higher economic costs (including external costs). With our data limitations, we are unable to measure whether the overall effect is positive or negative, as there is no information on the damages from the crashes. In conclusion, we find no consistent evidence that firms which contract with owner operators are less safe than those who use employee drivers. In fact, the count models suggest the opposite. This provides preliminary evidence that safety-based justifications for restricting the employment relationship between firms and drivers are not supported by MCMIS data. While these results are consistent across specifications, there are limitations to the data, especially the lack of individual driver characteristics, that merit further research on this topic.