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Poll: Americans Believe It Is Unfair to Impose Trucking Regulations on FedEx Express

Dépèche transmise le 17 juin 2009 par Business Wire

ALEXANDRIA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On behalf of Brownbailout.com, Public Opinion Strategies conducted a national survey on June 2-3, 2009 of 800 registered voters regarding attitudes toward current legislation pertaining to overnight package delivery. The margin of error of the poll is +/- 3.46% in 95 out of 100 cases.

Key Findings

• Americans believe that overnight package delivery is important to the US economy.
  Fully 61% of voters say that overnight package delivery is either “extremely” (26%) or “very” (35%) important to the US economy. Another 30% believe it is “somewhat” important, and 7% say it is “not very” important.
• Americans value the reliability of the overnight package delivery system and would be concerned about changes that could make it less reliable.
  Fully 75% of voters say that the reliability of overnight package delivery is either “extremely” or “very” important to them, and 58% say they would be concerned if Congress were considering legislation that could make overnight package delivery less reliable.
• An overwhelming number of voters believe it is unfair to impose trucking regulations on FedEx’s shipping business.
  By a 70%-19% score, voters believe it is unfair for Congress to impose trucking regulations on FedEx’s shipping business in addition to the air regulations under which it has always operated.
• After hearing brief arguments from both sides on this issue, voters strongly oppose Congressional action.
  After hearing arguments on both sides of the issue (“bailout” because it only helps one company vs. “levels the playing field”/makes both play by same rules), voters oppose this proposed action by Congress to impose trucking regulations on FedEx by a huge 67%-20% margin.
• Voters say no need to change the laws.
  By an 81%-14% margin, voters agree that “consumers have choices, competitive prices and service options, so there is no need to change the laws.”

Bottom Line

Because Americans believe that the reliability of overnight package delivery is important both to them and to the nation’s economy, they say they would be concerned about proposed legislation that could make the system less reliable.

So, given how competitive Americans believe the current system to be, it’s easy to understand why they balk at Congress’ proposal to impose trucking regulations on FedEx’s shipping business in addition to the air regulations under which it has always operated. And, even after presenting brief arguments on both sides of this issue, voters end up opposing the proposed regulations by more than a three-to-one margin.

What Americans seem to be saying in this poll data is that there is already significant competition between the nation’s two largest overnight delivery companies, providing them with choice and price competitiveness. The system isn’t broken, and they see no need to “fix” it through additional regulation.

(Complete question wording and results available upon request.)