and direction the bus was going, we will be out there on that man right away as quickly as we can have somebody available to do it because we do not condone this. I certainly wouldn't dispute the fact that it happens because I know it does happen. We are very anxious to get at the majority of drivers, actually in a sense, who are guilty of this type of thing. As far as management is concerned, we will move in fast and hard on them if we can nail it down to who it is. Mr. HEMPHILL. I have no criticism of the management. I want to ask one final question: Does your management subscribe to a State law such as they have in Connecticut where speeders lose their license? Mr. NEELY. Yes. In my work I have periodic contact with a great number of police authorities. Our position is that we do not want any special favors at all. We want our men to comply exactly with the law. Mr. HEMPHILL. Do you believe that ought to be the law, you have the power to take their license if they are speeding? Mr. NEELY. I think that is good law. Mr. HEMPHILL. It is good policy, too; is it not? Mr. NEELY. It is very good policy, but I think the facts have to be very well established. Mr. HEMPHILL. Most of the policemen I know are fairly honorable people. The only time I ever got caught in my life, I was just as guilty as all get-out, I paid the fine and told the fellow I did not want to hear any more about it. He was one of the best friends I had. Mr. NEELY. As far as our industry is concerned, management does not condone this. If a man is going to lose his license for doing it, we have no objection. Mr. HEMPHILL. Do you have a company policy if you get caught for speeding or one of these violations which you know causes one of these big wrecks, "We take your license"? Do you have anything like that? Mr. NEELY. It is a little more complex with a union involved for industry to do that. We have progressive discipline. This can be grounds for dismissal but on the basis of one speeding ticket I don't think we could actually discharge the man under the present collective bargaining situation. The union would not agree that that was sufficient ground for dismissal. But if a man has a cumulative bad record, including speeding or other violations, he is up for discharge. Again, it depends on the facts and ability to uphold before a board of arbitration. Mr. HEMPHILL. Who pays the fine when the man gets caught? Mr. NEELY. The man pays the fine. The company does not pay any fine. The only exception to that might be if a light goes out and it went out en route and the driver was not responsible for that or could not have controlled it. That type of thing the company will occasionally-or fail to have the proper license plate, we will pay that, but no speeding, no traffic violations does the company pay. That is the man's personal responsibility. Mr. HEMPHILL. Thank you. Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Neely, getting back to the bill at hand, as I understand your testimony, it is based on several objections. One is the difficulty that you have in negotiating with the Teamsters or the unions that represent your drivers. That is easy enough to understand. There is hardly a need to debate that or to get additional information on that. Mr. HEMPHILL. Let me ask you this: Wouldn't the union cooperate with you on safety? I should think that would be their first ambi tion. Mr. NEELY. The union will cooperate but when it comes to a matter of disciplining a man, their position is one of protecting the individual man. They have no liabilities as far as the performance of the man and they, in my opinion, lean over backward in the protection of the individual as compared to the safety position as far as the public and the company and the company's liabilities are concerned. But this is a natural outgrowth of the politics involved and the role which they play. I don't say it critically in any sense of the word, but this is the tendency and many times the union president, will appeal a case he does not think he is right on, but if the membership wants it he is in there pushing it. This is part of the political atmosphere in which he lives. Mr. HEMPHILL. That is part of his job. He has no choice. It is like the district attorney who gets a client he is told to prosecute. The grand jury by its indictment brings out a true bill. He does not want to prosecute. I have seen cases like that. But he has no choice if he is going to accept the honor as well as the responsibility. Mr. NEELY. That is right. Mr. WILLIAMS. That was the first problem that you brought out, not necessarily in order, but that was one of the problems. That is certainly worth giving thought to. The second one that you brought up was the possible conflict with State laws, dealing with the same subject. That could be very easily handled by, I believe, by the subcommittee in writing legislation by putting a proviso in there and I am enough of a States' righter to advocate that the passage of this legislation would in no way affect the operation of laws in effect in any State. I do not think that would pose much of a difficulty. Of course, you never can tell about this crowd across the street over here what they might do if it ever gets to them. Mr. NEELY. That is correct, if the interstate regulations said that it did not restrict the amputee from driving and the State of Maryland did, you could not hire a man to drive in Maryland in intrastate service. Mr. WILLIAMS. I would not want to try to repeal any State laws. The third thing you brought up is that you find yourself in great sympathy with this legislation but otherwise, you oppose it. It is similar to legislation sponsored by 85 Senators in the other body but they cannot get it out of the subcommittee. That happens so often. What you are saying in effect is that notwithstanding the actual capabilities of two people, one who may have an amputation and the other may not, that it follows ipso facto that a person with the amputation is less capable than the person without the amputation? Mr. NEELY. Well, that inference certainly could be drawn from the testimony. I think, however, that in an explanation of that in the bus industry the duty or the work of the driver is governed entirely by seniority. He can bid certain jobs as he gets older. In the bus industry basically we have three different models of buses at the present time. But this is standard because any driver may get any bus at any particular moment. In other words, the equipment is not tied in necessarily to the driver. The equipment, and this is one of the basic principles that bus transportation has been successful on, is that we have so many buses and if they are qualified to go anyplace and the drivers are qualified to go anyplace, that the public demands transportation to, we can take care of them because we have always worked on the premise that we try to take care of all the people who present themselves for any particular schedule. Anything that would diminish that flexibility of either the equipment or the utilization of drivers in turn would make for additional problems. This is not like you can assign a man to drive between point A and B with the same bus every time because the industry does not function that way. Our problem, of course, is to get utilization of equip ment. Mr. WILLIAMS. If you will excuse me, I do not think that poses too great a problem with respect to this legislation because of the fact, as I would contemplate the legislation, it would permit the ICC to prescribe rules and circumscribe the type of equipment that could be operated by any individual. So as to the seniority aspects, while he might be entitled to it as a company policy or under some type of union agreement when he moved from one type of equipment to another, the ICC regulations might prohibit him from operating the other type of equipment. We will now hear from Mr. B. A. Rennolds, who will present a statement on behalf of the National Association of Motor Bus Owners. STATEMENT OF B. A. RENNOLDS, VICE PRESIDENT, VIRGINIA STAGE LINES, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MOTOR BUS OWNERS Mr. RENNOLDS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is B. A. Rennolds and I am vice president for operations, Virginia Stage Lines, Charlottesville, Va. My company is a member of the National Association of Motor Bus Owners which has been described by the previous witness. Virginia Stage Lines is also a member of the National Trailways Bus System, an association of nearly 50 companies operating coast to coast. I am also authorized to speak for the latter organization in this hearing. I have been associated with the intercity bus industry for 27 years, during 15 of which I was director of safety for my company. As operating vice president, safety of operations constitutes an important portion of my responsibilities. As Mr. Neely has pointed out, we earnestly support the objective of employing increasing proportions of handicapped workers, but we feel equally strongly that we cannot risk the safety and welfare of our passengers by employing them as intercity bus drivers. As the members of this committee know, the modern intercity coach is a relatively heavy vehicle with complex characteristics. Many of the operations are over modern expressways on which all traffic moves at comparatively high speeds. To operate under these conditions, top physical condition is essential, and we are convinced that a driver, equipped with a prosthetic device, is inevitably subject to some increase in reaction time whenever the limb or member so fitted is involved. For a number of reasons, this is extremely important. Our coaches are equipped with power steering which is very sensitive to slight movements. Full use of both feet and legs is necessary since we do not use automatic transmissions. The left foot is required for use of the air-assisted clutch and the right foot for accelerator and air-brake control. Almost constant use of these controls is required while driving in congested areas. Numerous other controls have to be manipulated with great frequency such as headlight dimmers, turn signals, inside lights, ventilation, and air-conditioning controls. Particularly in the case of the very sensitive devices that govern operations of the vehicle, a sense of "feel" or "touch" is vital and, of course, is absent in any member fitted with a prosthetic device. For example, instantaneous and absolutely accurate steering response is essential in the case of a front-tire failure, and delay of the smallest fraction of a second could be catastrophic. Any abrupt movement of clutch, accelerator or airbrake pedal could readily result in injuries to passengers, some of whom might be in the aisle on their way to or from the restroom. It should also be noted that these operations must continue under all sorts of varying highway, terrain, and weather conditions. In addition to actual operation of the vehicle, drivers are required to load and unload baggage and express packages up to 100 pounds, assist or even carry disabled passengers (particularly in the event of an accident or other emergency), cope with disorderly passengers, make minor repairs to the coach, apply or remove heavy chains, and change tires weighing 200 pounds or more. Frequent movement by the driver in and out of the coach is also necessary on many runs where substantial volumes of package express and mail are picked up or deposited. It is our firm conviction that the performance of these tasks requires the unimpaired use of all physical characteristics, and especially so in the case of an emergency such as an accident or a fire. We have not overlooked the improvements that have been made in the design and manufacture of prosthetic devices. As already noted, they nevertheless still lack the ability to permit rapid reflex reaction and the sense of feel or touch essential to safe operation of a coach with its human cargo; nor is any prosthetic device completely infallible. Further, the driver of an intercity coach is, in most cases, the entire crew, and he must be able to cope with all types of situations often many miles from any supervisor or other company employee or even any outside assistance at all. Failure of a prosthetic device under such conditions would be extremely serious. We therefore earnestly urge the subcommittee not to report this measure favorably and, in any event, not to make any relaxation of the present regulations applicable to motor carriers of passengers. We appreciate this opportunity to present our views and, as Mr. Neely has indicated, will be glad to respond to your questions. Mr. WILLIAMS. The committee appreciates receiving your statement, Mr. Rennolds, and wishes to thank you for your appearance. Mr. RENNOLDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. WILLIAMS. The bells have already rung, so the committee will stand in recess. (The following material was submitted for the record:) THE PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT OF THE HANDICAPPED, Hon. JOHN BELL WILLIAMS, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN WILLIAMS: I appreciate this opportunity to express my views and the views of the President's Committee on H.R. 827. The Executive Committee of the President's Committee has endorsed the principles underlying H.R. 827, and we urge its speedy enactment. It may be possible that specific details are in need of refinement, but these in no way lessen the need for this measure. At present, the Interstate Commerce Commission will not permit handicapped persons to operate commercial motor vehicles in interstate commerce, regard less of their individual qualifications. This, as we see it, is in violation of one of the most basic principles of the President's Committee, which we have been striving to further for the past decade and a half-that every applicant for employment have the right to be considered on his own merits as an individual, and not be deprived of consideration merely because of the fact of his handicap. We have made progress in furthering this philosophy over the years but our progress has not extended to the Interstate Commerce Commission. There, the very fact of a handicap is sufficient, per se, to deprive the applicant of consideration for employment. This rigid principle of inequality is hardly in keeping with our times, which have seen an extension of opportunity for the handicapped, rather than a contraction. Further, this rigid principle of inequality, if extended in its logical direction, could result in a general negation of much of the progress achieved over the years. If amputees and the deaf are to be deprived of the opportunity to qualify as drivers in interstate commerce merely because they happen to be amputees or deaf, why shouldn't they also be deprived of the opportunity to work in other fields of endeavor? If the amputees and the deaf are to be deprived, why not persons with other types of disabilities? Where does this stop? The circle of inequality could widen extensively, were the ICC philosophy to gain widespread acceptance. We do not ask that the ICC suddenly throw open its doors and give top priority to all the amputees and all the deaf. We do ask that the ICC take into consideration the appreciable advances made over recent years in quick-to-respond prosthetic appliances for the handicapped and in fingertip special controls for motor vehicles. We do ask that the ICC take cognizance of the fine records handicapped drivers have made in intrastate commerce-records that easily could stretch across State lines, were the ICC willing. We do ask that the ICC begin to evaluate human beings as human beings, and not as outmoded stereotypes wearing tags, "amputee,” “deaf.” We do ask that the ICC--as well as all Government agencies and all private industry-evaluate individuals as individuals, and not bar them merely because of handicaps. |