DetNews: Container Chassis Unsafe, Union Says

DetNews: Container Chassis Unsafe, Union Says

Teamsters Push Inspection Measure in Congress

December 15, 2003

Mike Cicchetti hauls cargo containers for a living. But if he’s with his family on the highway, he tries not to drive behind a container truck.

Cicchetti is one of a growing number of truck drivers and companies in the shipping business who say the chassis that carry cargo containers have become a serious safety hazard.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents thousands of truck drivers and hopes to recruit more, will hold a news conference in Detroit on Monday to describe an inspection system the union says shortchanges safety with sometimes fatal results.

The union says the steamship companies that own the chassis designed to carry containers beyond major U.S. ports are not spending the money to maintain the chassis that truckers use to get the containers to final destinations.

Cicchetti, 48, of Detroit said he pulls six or seven containers a day to various Michigan destinations. He often finds mechanical problems on as many as three chassis.

He said he has had wheels fall off on the road, brakes that screech when metal meets metal because the pads have worn down and electrical fires.

"I wouldn’t want to be in my car with my kids riding behind a truck with one of these chassis," Cicchetti said.

Fifteen people have died in three separate accidents involving trucks hauling containers since Oct. 1:

• A driver killed Nov. 14 in Houston when a rear axle tandem assembly separated from its flatbed container chassis. A wheel flew across the highway, smashing into a car windshield, killing the driver.
• On Oct. 9 in Long Beach, Calif., a crew on a container truck lost control after being clipped by a car. The container truck careened across a center highway divider, crashing head-first into two cars. Six people were killed.
• In Chicago, a container truck rear-ended a minibus Oct. 1. The minibus then collided with a tour bus. The three vehicles then collided with two more trucks. Eight people were killed, 16 were injured.

"Intermodal" containers are becoming a more popular way to move cargo in the United States.

Fully loaded containers, slightly smaller than a conventional tractor-trailer, are picked up directly from a ship via a crane and placed on the back of a flatbed rail car or truck chassis.

The number of containers passing through U.S. ports rose to 17.9 million in 2000 from 10.6 million in 1992, a 69 percent increase.

The Teamsters say the international steamship companies that own the container chassis have given short shrift to maintenance, leading to widespread braking and wheel problems.

"When we can avoid these kinds of tragedies, it can no longer be called an accident," Teamsters President James Hoffa told an audience in Newark, N.J., last week.

The union and the American Trucking Associations are pushing legislation, now in Congress, that would require more frequent safety inspections.

Legislation sponsored by Rep. Henry Brown, R-S.C., who represents the Port of Charleston, would give the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration additional authority to require inspections and maintenance and repair logs.

The steamship companies say the bill would lead to delays at ports and raise the cost of goods. They have been working on a voluntary agreement through the Intermodal Association of North America to address some of the truckers’ concerns without the burden of government regulations.

Jeffrey Lawrence, executive director of the Ocean Carrier Equipment Management Association, which represents steamship companies in Washington, said there was no data to back up claims of a widespread safety problems.

The overwhelming majority of traffic crashes involves driver error, not equipment malfunction, Lawrence said.

"There are going to be problems with pieces of equipment on any type of vehicle on the road," Lawrence said. "Statistically, there is no basis to their safety claims."

Dave Gray’s real life experience tells him otherwise.

Gray is the owner of Certified Alignment and Suspension, a southwest Detroit repair shop near the vast container yards on Dix.

There is a big difference between the condition of conventional tractor-trailers and container chassis, Gray said.

Gray said brakes are a major problem on the container chassis. From his window in the shop, Gray said he sees chassis where only one of four wheels is braking properly every day.

"It’s been an issue for a long time," Gray said. "The container companies just don’t have a maintenance program. Nobody is forcing them to do it."

Bill Tompkins, operations manager for Williams Maritime Repair Service in Boston, said he would like to see the Teamsters-backed legislation pass to allow for more thorough inspections.

Under present federal guidelines, Tompkins said his shop typically has about an hour to do an annual inspection of a chassis. That doesn’t allow enough time to pull the wheels and check the brakes and bearings, said Tompkins, a 35-year veteran of Boston’s port.

Having observed the industry standoff over the care of chassis for years, Tompkins thinks only more highway deaths will break the logjam.

"It can be resolved," Tompkins said of the safety problem. "The only issue is who is going to pay the bill. The only way it’s going to change is if you get some notoriety on this."

The article originally appeared inThe Detroit News on December 14, 2003 written by Jeff Plungis.