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https://www.wsj.com/articles/trucks-mail-violate-safety-rules-deadly-crashes-8b9a4c92
WSJ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Trucks Hauling U.S. Mail Frequently Violate Safety
Rules. Crashes Killed 79 People Since 2020.
USPS, under pressure on costs, contracts trucking companies at cut rates and pushes
them to meet aggressive delivery schedules
By Christopher Weaver Follow
March 1, 2023 1005 am ET
For years, the U.S. Postal Service has faced competition from the likes of United Parcel Service
Inc. and FedEx Corp. To fight them off, it hired outside trucking companies at cut-rate prices,
required them to meet aggressive schedules and then looked the other way when they ran
afoul of highway safety rules, a Wall Street Journal investigation found.
The result has been deadly. Postal contractors have been involved in at least 68 fatal crashes
that killed 79 people in the past three years, according to police crash and inspection records.
Nearly 50 long-haul trucking contractors that moved mail for the Postal Service had safety
records so poor that another arm of the federal government, the Transportation Department,
put them on probation, DOT data show.
Particularly common among the postal contractors were violations of DOT rules meant to
guard against fatigue by limiting how many hours truckers can drive. About 39% of trucking
companies that hauled U.S. mail busted those limits and related rules at a rate DOT says raises
red flags, compared with 13% of for-hire trucking firms that were inspected during the time
period, a Journal analysis of DOT scoring data covering 2021 and 2022 found.
USPS tolerated the violations, and according to industry representatives, set unrealistic
expectations for speedy deliveries that at times led the truckers to skirt the rules. The Journal
identified dozens of cross-country trips listed in postal contracts with deadlines that would
require drivers to stay on the road longer than allowed, unless companies cut into their profits
by using multiple drivers.
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The Postal Service paid more than $115 million to a Murfreesboro, Tenn.-based trucking group
in 2021, making it one of USPS’s biggest vendors. Two sister companies in the group paid fines
in 2017 over safety violations, including failing to ensure drivers complied with the driving
hour limits, which led DOT to put them on probation.
Between 2017 and December 2022, the trucking group was caught breaking the rules limiting
drivers’ hours more than 200 times, DOT enforcement data show.
A Caminantes truck hauling mail near Denver hit a car carrying members of the Godines and Everts families, killing ive
of them, including a baby. The truck’s driver was distracted and lacked a valid commercial license, according to police
records.
PHOTO: 9NEWSKUSA
In June, a truck operated by another Postal Service contractor slammed into a Ford Edge as
the Ford slowed in traffic on Interstate 25 near Denver, killing five people including a baby. The
truck’s driver was distracted and lacked a valid commercial license, according to police
records. The company had a history of similar violations stretching back across its decade of
work with USPS, DOT inspection records show.
The record shows “this company really doesn’t seem to be that safe,” said Abby Godines, 19,
whose parents, her brother Aaron, his fiancée and their 3-month-old child were killed in the
crash. “It is just a disappointment that the Postal Service would even hire a company like this.
It is just not fair,” she said.
In February, USPS said it would end its contracts with the company, registered with DOT in
the name of Caminantes Trucking, based in Long Beach, Calif., after a Colorado television
station, NBC’s 9News, reported on the driver’s licensing status.
An attorney for Caminantes declined to comment.
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The Postal Service plans to revamp its contracting process later this year, said USPS
spokeswoman Sue Brennan. She said the Postal Service will begin requiring contractors to
meet specific DOT requirements, including for safety and maintenance, to get work and will
monitor their performance.
Ms. Brennan declined to answer additional questions about the planned changes and what
prompted them.
Cutting costs
Under pressure for years from falling revenue due to reduced volume of first-class mail while
it simultaneously struggled to meet consumer demand for door-to-door package delivery, the
Postal Service has slowed some deliveries and raised prices, among other cost-saving
measures. It has also increasingly turned to private trucking to move mail between
distribution centers.
USPS reported a loss of about $1 billion in the quarter that ended Dec. 31, after losing money
on operations every year for more than a decade. USPS makes most of its money by selling
postage but receives some funds from Congress.
Many of the private trucking companies work exclusively for the agency, which spends about
$5 billion annually on trucking contracts, making it one of the biggest U.S. purchasers of
shipping services.
During the pandemic, the trucking industry was pummeled by a combination of rising e-
commerce, a shortage of drivers and chaotic swings in the supply chain.
The Postal Service, which operates as an independent agency, was forced to further stretch its
network to keep packages moving. In one sign of the strain, its spending on emergency and
add-on trucking contracts more than doubled from 2019 to 2021.
“The Postal Service has been hit across the board,” said James O’Rourke, a professor of
management at the University of Notre Dame.
Under postal rules, contract officers must award business to the vendor that offers the agency
the “best value.” Contract terms can stretch across several years and don’t keep up with
market prices.
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In practice, industry insiders say this has driven down contractors’ rates to well below
industry averages.
Prices for trucking services are often about 15% to 20% below standard industry rates, said
John Sheehy, the president of the National Star Route Mail Contractors Association, a trade
group for trucking and transportation-related postal contractors.
USPS’s contracting manual’s only specific safety requirement is that trucking contractors
must have a DOT safety rating that is better than “unsatisfactory.”
At that rating, DOT bans a company from driving.
Large commercial shippers such as RXO Inc. and Schneider National Inc. generally refuse to
hire trucking companies with DOT’s probationary rating, called “conditional,” which is higher
than unsatisfactory, according to their websites. RXO and Schneider declined to comment.
USPS worked with dozens of companies with the conditional rating. It even continued doing
business with contractors accused of defrauding the agency, for instance by double billing it
for gas, according to investigative reports from the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector
General.
The Journal reviewed investigative records from the inspector general over the past decade
that show USPS continued contracting with at least seven major contractors for years after
investigators accused them of fraud, misappropriating funds, billing for dummy routes or
manipulating contracts. Some of the investigations were settled with monetary payments and
at least one resulted in a criminal conviction.
The Postal Service headquarters in Washington, D.C.
PHOTO: ERIN SCOTTBLOOMBERG NEWS
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Limited contractor oversight
USPS recently told the office of a member of its congressional oversight committee that it
didn’t track serious crashes by its trucking contractors, according to an email from February
reviewed by the Journal.
“They’re not even taking the time to find out,” said Zach Cahalan, the executive director of the
Truck Safety Coalition, an advocacy group, which had coordinated with the congressional
office on the inquiry. “There’s no reporting mechanism they have asked their [contractors] to
have in place to be notified when a large truck in their service results in injury or death,” he
said in an interview.
Ms. Brennan said the Postal Service reviews safety incidents with contractors as they happen
and frequently discusses safety efforts with them.
The agency’s inspector general in 2016 said the agency employed only 18 contract officers to
oversee its commercial-trucker network, saying that allowed for just four hours of annual
oversight work per trucking contract.
Ms. Brennan declined to comment on whether that staffing level had changed. She said about
1,078 USPS “administrative officials” helped oversee contractors on a day-to-day basis. The
inspector general’s report said such officials are post masters, facility managers and others
whose primary duties are unrelated to trucking contractors.
The company involved in the June crash in Colorado, Caminantes Trucking, secured its first
postal contract in April 2011, a USPS official said.
Mr. Sheehy, of the trade group for trucking and transportation-related postal contractors,
said the company, like many new entrants, undercut the bids of contractors that previously
served its routes.
Public inspection records, which cover routine checks, such as at weigh stations, and traffic
stops, show the Colorado crash was at least the 16th time Caminantes’s truckers were caught
without the necessary commercial driver’s licenses since 2017 and the second time that week.
Later last year, Caminantes paid a $21,460 fine to settle allegations by DOT that it violated
safety rules, including requirements to ensure drivers are qualified.
The driver in the Colorado highway crash was charged with vehicular homicide and other
crimes in December. James Colgan, an attorney for the driver, Jesus Puebla, said his client
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disagrees with the prosecution that he was at fault. Mr. Colgan said Mr. Puebla’s medical
certificate required for his commercial driver’s license had expired but that he renewed it in
the days after the crash.
Desiree Everts, whose daughter and granddaughter were killed in the crash, said learning
about Caminantes’s safety record “makes me sick.”
The crash took place as the Godines family and Ms. Everts’s daughter Halie were driving home
to Gillette, Wyo., from a birthday weekend in Denver. Halie and Aaron Godines took their 3-
month-old baby, Tessleigh, to the Denver Zoo for the first time over the weekend, according to
Ms. Everts and Ms. Godines.
The Godines family has sued Caminantes and Mr. Puebla for wrongful death, court records
show.
Pushing ‘to the limit’
The Postal Service requires contractors to fulfill schedules that veteran trucking company
operators said would be seriously challenging in light of DOT rules restricting driving hours.
One route in a contract reviewed by the Journal requires a trucking contractor to leave Salt
Lake City with a load of mail at 3:30 a.m. and arrive in San Francisco at 5:30 p.m. the same day
—15 hours after accounting for the time change from Mountain to Pacific Time. That is more
than the 11 hours of daily driving permitted under safety rules, and an hour longer than the 14-
hour limit on overall time worked by a driver, including stops and loading time.
Representatives of postal contractors said companies sometimes try to arrange for drivers to
tag-team on such trips, but that the relays can easily break down, for example if a driver is late
to the rendezvous point.
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“If something goes wrong, there’s a lot of pressure to get the job done at any cost,” said
industry representative Mr. Sheehy, himself a former USPS trucking contractor. The Postal
Ms. Everts made a curio cabinet with items from her family members killed in the crash.
LAUREN MILLER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
A family photo of Aaron Godines with his baby, both of whom were killed.
GODINES FAMILY
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Service is “pushing these people to the limit,” he said.
Mr. Sheehy said in recent years USPS has terminated or elected not to renew contracts with
companies that fall below 95% in their on-time rates. As a result, postal contractors can
struggle to meet the demands of their customer and comply with safety regulations, he said.
USPS spokeswoman Ms. Brennan declined to comment.
In the two years ended in December, DOT flagged 466 Postal Service trucking contractors for
high rates of violations related to driving hours, according to the Journal’s analysis of DOT’s
internal scoring system, which the agency uses to prioritize investigations. The Journal
identified the companies hauling mail through inspection records.
In February, DOT proposed an overhaul of its scoring system, which industry groups have
criticized, saying it can unfairly overstate risks at some companies. The new system is more
accurate, according to DOT.
The Postal Service’s own fleet, which includes mail-delivery vehicles, bigger box trucks and
tractor trailers operated by its own employees, are excluded from DOT’s safety regulations.
That means the overall safety of that portion of its operation can’t be evaluated using DOT’s
records. USPS has said it voluntarily complies with DOT requirements.
About 70% of Postal Service spending on transportation goes to trucking contractors,
according to USPS data published in an inspector general report.
Winning new contracts
The Murfreesboro USPS contractor with a record of safety violations, a group including
McCormick Trucking Inc. and Tracie McCormick Inc., works exclusively for USPS, DOT
records show. McCormick Trucking has been hauling U.S. mail since the 1970s.
“Each day, these motor carriers are dedicated to improving their safety and compliance
processes to achieve service excellence, while working within the parameters of shipper
requirements,” Marty Kirschnick, executive director of McCormick Trucking Inc., said.
He declined to answer specific questions about the group’s safety record and work with the
Postal Service.
The McCormick group faced a criminal investigation by the Postal Service’s inspector general
in part over its safety record starting in 2010, an inspector general report shows.
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Investigators found evidence that the company purposefully instructed drivers to violate the
rules capping their on-the-road hours, violated legal requirements governing drivers’ pay and
double-billed USPS by $1.14 million for gas, the report says.
The Justice Department didn’t bring a criminal case after a senior prosecutor said it was
unlikely to win because it lacked “any juror appeal,” according to the inspector general’s
investigative report. The DOJ official, Jack Smith, who is now the special counsel overseeing
DOJ’s investigations into former President Donald Trump, declined to comment.
The McCormick group settled civil fraud claims by the government for $750,000 in 2018
without admitting wrongdoing to resolve the double-billing allegations.
Mr. Kirschnick declined to comment. The Postal Service didn’t comment publicly at the time,
and Ms. Brennan, the spokeswoman, declined to comment.
After the settlement, the Postal Service awarded little new business to McCormick Trucking
Inc. and Tracie McCormick Inc. but continued to extend contracts the firms had already won,
contracting records reviewed by the Journal show.
A third McCormick company, McCormicks LLC, formed after the investigation began,
continued bidding on and winning new USPS contracts. The new company’s manager is the
daughter of McCormick Trucking Inc. founder Robert McCormick, according to business
filings and social media. The three companies share an address, contact information and at
least some trucks, DOT records show. The companies are separately owned, Mr. Kirschnick
said, although he said he served as spokesman for all three companies.
Headquarters of the McCormick group of trucking companies in Murfreesboro, Tenn. , shown in March 2021.
PHOTO: PICTOMETRY
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Appeared in the March 2, 2023, print edition as 'Dangerous Trucks Haul U.S. Mail'.
Ms. Brennan declined to comment on USPS’s contracts with the McCormick companies.
Meanwhile, DOT took action against McCormick Trucking Inc. and Tracie McCormick Inc. for
violations of its rules for monitoring vehicle maintenance and drivers’ hours on duty, fining
the companies about $57,000 in 2017 and downgrading the companies’ safety ratings to the
conditional status. Tracie McCormick Inc. was fined an additional $14,730 in 2018 for unsafe
operations.
A spokeswoman for DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration declined to comment
on the case.
The two companies have continued to violate safety rules. Tracie McCormick Inc.’s rate of
violations of the rules limiting drivers’ hours on the road surpassed a threshold DOT
considers high risk every month in 2021 and 2022, according to a Journal analysis of DOT
data. McCormick Trucking Inc. did so for 15 straight months through December.
In one crash, a driver for McCormick Trucking Inc. drifted out of his lane and killed an
Orlando, Fla., street-sweeper driver, who was standing on a sidewalk waiting for a tow truck
to load his disabled vehicle. Police determined the McCormick driver was responsible for the
crash and charged him with careless driving. The driver of the McCormick truck didn’t
respond to requests for comment.
The allegation was dropped when a witness to the incident failed to show up for a court date.
Write to Christopher Weaver at Christopher.Weaver@wsj.com