Boss for Buses

Last week a ten-year legislative drive to put interstate bus & truck traffic under Federal control came to a successful conclusion when Congress finally passed and sent to President Roosevelt its first Motor Carrier Act. Sponsored by Federal Transportation Coordinator Joseph Bartlett Eastman, this new law, effective Oct. 1, provides for drastic motor carrier regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission on Rates, Routes, Safety, Wages, Hours of Labor, Financial Responsibility and the issuance of securities over $500,000.

Common carriers must obtain certificates of public convenience and necessity, which will be given automatically to those in business as of June 1. Contract carriers must obtain permits, will get them automatically if they were in business as of July 1. Others, to operate, must show cause. Complete control is given ICC over common carrier passenger & freight rates.

Exempt from all except safety and labor regulations, thanks to potent Washington lobbies, are trucks used exclusively for carrying newspapers, fish, livestock and farm produce, all trucks owned by farmers' co-operative associations, private manufacturers and merchants. Totally exempt are school buses, hotel buses, trolley buses, taxicabs and buses & trucks engaged only in intrastate commerce. The Federal law will directly affect about 50,000 trucks, 100,000 buses. However, since every State but Delaware has some measure of motor carrier regulation, the new law will in effect do little more than stabilize an industry in which the big units heartily favor regulation. Though the railroads have been yowling long & loud for Federal control over their highway competitors, they are not expected to be greatly benefited by last week's enactment.

Eager to get started, ICC last week set up a new division, with Coordinator Eastman as temporary chairman, to work out regulations pending organization of a Bureau of Motor Carriers. What the ICC regulations will be like was clearly indicated at the Congressional hearings on the Motor Carrier Bill. With the Michigan statutes as a model, the ICC promised to work out Federal regulations fully as drastic. Michigan requires daily records and monthly reports, "reasonable" rates, a maximum speed of 50 m. p. h. for buses, 35 m. p. h. for trucks. It prohibits standees in buses, smoking or drinking by bus drivers on duty, prescribes a maximum daily driving period of twelve hours on, ten hours off.

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