Has FMCSA’s Ferro lost it? Or is her credibility just shot?

Updated Jun 13, 2014
FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro testifying before Congress about the hours-of-service rule changes from 2013.FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro testifying before Congress about the hours-of-service rule changes from 2013.

Given recent actions by Congress to undermine FMCSA rulemaking and an emotional plea made to Congress in a recent DOT Fast Lane blog post by agency head Anne Ferro, what’s going to come of Ferro and her time at FMCSA?

Overdrive Senior Editor Kevin Jones posed the question in a blog post this week on OD sister site  CCJwhere he also writes that reps from the American Trucking Associations said Ferro forced the industry’s hand on going to Congress to try to straighten out the hours rule changes, as she couldn’t be worked with. 

In her blog, Ferro writes about several truck crash victims, saying the agency’s HOS rules protect families from trucking from the industry wants to undo the “life-saving” rules, as Jones notes in his blog post

She also writes that she’s committed to preventing tragic wrecks, “as a wife and a mother of two.” 

OOIDA quickly called for Ferro’s resignation, calling Ferro’s write up “demagoguery” against the industry and against drivers and saying the blog post shows a “clear bias” against truckers. 

Jones asks: Is she trying to score a job with a safety group or was she just borrowing from their playbook to get her way with Congress?

But “the essential question,” he says, “is whether she can do the job fairly and effectively.” 

And the industry isn’t relying on appeals to emotion, but actual data, he says. 

Click here to read his full piece on CCJ, where he also lays out what could happen with the legislation in question.