The next Truck Leasing Task Force meeting will consider how inequitable lease-purchase agreements affect how the vehicle is being maintained.
In a notice published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, Jan. 2, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced that the task force will have its next meeting from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Jan. 18.
The Truck Leasing Task Force was created to prevent predatory lease-purchase agreements in the trucking industry. In these agreements, a carrier leases a truck to a driver but still possesses control for the majority of the operation. At worst, truckers have claimed that they owed the carrier money at the end of the pay period. According to the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, the driver rarely ends the lease with ownership of the truck despite making numerous payments to the carrier.
As part of the meeting agenda, the task force will consider whether predatory lease agreements affect how often the truck is receiving maintenance and whether they can affect a vehicle’s condition.
FMCSA also plans to deliver and ethics presentation to the task force members.
How to register
The virtual meeting will be open to the public. Advance registration is required by Jan. 12 and can be completed here.
There will be a time designated for the public to comment. Speakers are requested to submit a written copy of their remarks for inclusion in the meeting records and for circulation to the task force members.
Previous meetings
A discussion took place during the Oct. 17 Truck Leasing Task Force meeting concerning whether the lease-purchase agreement model was even worth saving.
“Why are we trying to get into the nitty gritty of fixing these lease-purchase agreements? I would like to keep on the table that instead of creating regulations, no debt related to a lease-purchase program should be held by the carrier or affiliated company,” said Paul Cullen Jr. of Cullen Law Firm. “This would address the majority of the problems we are discussing. Why is this a system we should save?”
Congress ordered FMCSA to create the Truck Leasing Task Force as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The Jan. 18 meeting will be the task force’s third.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg set the tone as the first meeting in July.
“We’re working to make sure truck leasing agreements are not trapping drivers into predatory situations, and that is going to be the focus of this board’s work,” Buttigieg said. “We’ve seen a lot of ways that lopsided leases are preventing drivers from ever getting ahead and even leave them in a worse place than where they started through no fault of their own … These conditions are unacceptable for any worker in America and certainly for essential workers like those who get our goods to where they need to be through trucking.” LL
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