Straight Talk

THE UTILITY OF BACKGROUND CHECKS IN THE TRUCKING INDUSTRY
April, 2002

SUMMARY

The federal government has undertaken an enormous task in making our country and transportation industry less vulnerable to terrorism. Background checks for transportation workers have taken main stage in this effort. Background checks may be useful to improve the qualifications of persons who become truck drivers and to prevent potential terrorists from working in the trucking industry.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association ("OOIDA") is very concerned that background check procedures protect each individual's private information and prevent its misuse. OOIDA believes that the most efficient, cost effective, and least burdensome time to conduct background checks would be as a part of the commercial drivers licensing process. Finally, OOIDA also believes that the standards for background checks should be sufficiently effective to screen out potential terrorists, but not to broadly disqualify others for whom trucking is a viable profession.

BACKGROUND CHECKS COULD ADDRESS SOME TERRORIST THREATS FROM WITHIN THE TRUCKING INDUSTRY

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association believes that focused, tougher requirements for a person's entry into the trucking industry could bring security and safety improvements to our industry and the public. The central problem that background checks must address is the ease with which somebody can become a truck driver. OOIDA has long criticized the shortcomings of the current commercial drivers license ("CDL") requirements. A CDL simply does not mean that a driver has the ability to operate a commercial motor vehicle safely. The problems created by the lack of meaningful driver qualification standards are compounded by the deplorable recruiting practices of many motor carriers.

Motor carriers are known to recruit foreign nationals who have forged immigration documents. Carriers also recruit drivers from prisons, hire drivers who cannot communicate in English (in violation of 49 CFR 392.11(b)(2)), and hire drivers contrary to the best advice of their recruiters. Furthermore, current regulations only require carriers to do a limited background check within 30 days after the driver is hired! This is plenty of time for a terrorist to act before facing any background check.

The ease with which one can obtain a CDL and the willingness of many motor carriers to ignore the basic qualifications of their drivers combine to form an open invitation to terrorists in the trucking industry.

To address these problems effectively, a background check must be made part of the licensing process, not the hiring process. Someone who poses a terrorist threat should not just be denied work with a motor carrier, they should be denied the right to drive a truck.

A BACKGROUND CHECK REQUIREMENT FOR THE CDL WOULD SAVE TIME AND MONEY

Both the cost and time spent by the industry waiting for background checks would be minimized if they were performed once by the government during the licensing process rather than by a third party or every motor carrier each time a driver applies for a job. If background checks were part of the CDL approval process, the motor carrier would neither have to wait for a driver applicant's background check to be performed nor bear its cost.

With regard to the cost of a background check, the working assumption must be that, one way or another, it will be borne by the driver. If it is part of the licensing process, the driver will only have to pay for it once. Although motor carriers might offer to pay for a background check, it is a basic truth in the trucking industry that any cost expended by a motor carrier to keep a driver and truck properly qualified and licensed is inevitably deducted from that driver's compensation.

A system that makes background checks part of the CDL process is also the most time efficient proposal for motor carriers, drivers, and the government. Under this system, a driver will only be required to go through a background check once and would come to a motor carrier ready to work. If each carrier were to perform a background check for each driver/applicant, it would be bogged down with additional paperwork and a longer hiring process. The government will also be burdened by duplicate requests for information on the same driver.

Initial background check bottleneck and license renewal

It is likely that when the government institutes a requirement for a background check that there will be an initial bottleneck of background checks to be performed. OOIDA suggests that the background check requirement be focused on areas of the industry (such as in the hazmat hauling industry) or on drivers who will have more access to secure areas (such as proposed in the Transportation Worker ID Card proposal at DOT) rather than across-the-board background check requirement.

Although it may also take more time to do a background check at each license renewal time, this should present no problems to drivers or carriers. All a driver would need do to avoid the expiration of his license is to apply for renewal in a sufficient amount of time earlier than the expiration date. This presents no greater challenge to drivers or carriers than is inherent in current CDL renewals and expiration dates.

THE PRIVATE SECTOR IS UNQUALIFIED TO PERFORM BACKGROUND CHECKS:

OOIDA is concerned that should the government hand over the background check function to the private sector, both national security and individual privacy would be compromised. There are several reasons the background check function should not be left in the hands of motor carriers or private organizations on behalf of motor carriers:

Drivers' Private Information Would Be Compromised

Motor carriers are already notorious among truckers for misusing the background information collected, traded and sold by motor carriers and associated businesses. Drivers have little faith that motor carriers will protect the privacy of their sensitive and confidential information or use it for security background purposes only.

Background Checks Would Be Less Effective Against Possible Terrorists

* Although the American Trucking Association wants the federal government to give motor carriers access to nationwide criminal background information, it has proposed no standard for who passes a background check but leaves it up to each carrier's discretion.

* Nothing would prevent one carrier from hiring a driver whom another carrier rejected as a security risk. If a driver failed one carrier's background check, he or she has 299,999 more chances to get hired.

* Motor carriers have no authority to grant or revoke a CDL or hazmat license.

* Employers (in this case as many as 300,000 motor carriers) have no law enforcement responsibility, and few, if any, have the training to conduct background checks or assess what kind of background indicates a security threat.

* Even if a background check standard was to be instituted, there would be no guarantee or safeguard that carriers would respect it. An inherent conflict exists between the aggressive recruiting practices of motor carriers and background check standards that would limit whom they can hire. Once a carrier has expended the effort to recruit and hire a driver and send him or her out on the road, it has little incentive to do a thorough background check. It would only take one carrier to ignore or not perform a background check on one person for the entire system to fail, and a terrorist to obtain a truck for an attack.

STANDARDS FOR BACKGROUND CHECKS

In order for background checks to be effective and performed fairly, with maximum protection of privacy, OOIDA suggests that the process include the following principles:

* Background check standards must be standardized and be consistently applied.

* Background checks should be conducted by persons within the agency (i.e. FBI and INS) possessing the background information. The applicant/driver should be the only person who learns of any details that negatively affect the outcome of their background check. All other interested parties, including licensing agencies, should only be told whether the person has passed or failed the background check.

* An individual who fails a background check should have the right to appeal the result of a background check and have the opportunity to correct any information used to make that determination.

* Background check standards should be defined to weed out potential security risks but not be so broad that they eliminate other persons for whom trucking may be a viable profession. Those standards should be confined to the background characteristics that have been identified as similar to those of persons who have previously engaged in terrorist activity or persons who will have access to secure areas of our transportation infrastructure. Persons who have had trouble with the law, have paid their debt to society, and do not have a background that identifies them as a potential terrorist should not be shut out of the trucking industry.

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