Evaluating FMCSA’s Truck Accident Prevention Proposals: Part II

In our earlier post “Evaluating FMCSA’s Truck Accident Prevention Proposals: Part I,” we reported on reaction within the trucking industry to new federal trucking regulations being proposed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

The FMCSA’s new initiative, which is called “CSA 2010” (for “comprehensive safety analysis”), is intended to prevent truck accidents by fairly identifying the most unsafe industry actors, implementing strategies to change those actors’ behavior, and getting the most egregious actors off the road.

In hearings before the U.S. House’s Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, industry group the American Trucking Associations (ATA) testified that it supported CSA 2010 overall but had concerns about how it would be implemented.

ATA spokesperson Keith Klein identified several very positive aspects of the proposal (discussed in the previous post). At the same time, he said there were two important reasons why ATA felt it had to bring its concerns to the attention of Congress.
“The first is a matter of safety, to ensure that unsafe carriers are selected for interventions, and the second is a matter of equity, to ensure that relatively safe carriers are not selected for interventions.”

American Trucking Associations: Changes to Promote Fairness Are Necessary or the Program Will Not Be Effective
Because ATA argues that the program as currently proposed does not ensure that all carriers will be treated equitably, it recommended these changes to the program:

• A final determination of fault should be made before a truck accident is entered into the company’s record, so drivers and carriers are only held responsible for the crashes they cause.
• To fairly compare the number of truck accidents attributed to each company — called the company’s “exposure measure” — the agency should use accidents per vehicle miles traveled, rather than the number of trucks or power units the company owns.
• The agency should only include final, adjudicated traffic tickets in the driver’s and company’s record — not unadjudicated “warnings” issued by law enforcement officers or tickets that are dismissed by the court.

Choosing the Proper Comparison Group, Inclusion of Only Concrete Evidence Are Most Important for Fairness
Generally, ATA would like to make sure that whatever is included in driver’s or company’s record is objective, reasonable and fairly reflective of the true situation.
For example, ATA argues, if a carrier terminates a driver, violations committed by that driver should be removed from the company’s safety record. Enforcement needs to be uniform from state to state. Long-term sore points, such as what ATA describes as “inequitable measurement” of open deck or flatbed trucks, need to be corrected.

Finally, ATA argued that the new initiative should not be made an official part of federal trucking regulations until the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute pilot program is complete. An evaluation study of the pilot is currently underway, and ATA recommends waiting until that study is complete before passing the proposed new regulations into law.

Most important to fairness is making sure the right comparison group is chosen, so drivers and companies have a fair shake at measuring up.

“A system that is based on inconsistent data and a flawed scoring methodology will not achieve its objectives. Instead, it will create inequities for some safe carriers and inappropriately allow some unsafe carriers to avoid scrutiny and consequences,” concluded Klein.

Related Resource:
“CSA 2010 Needs Additional Improvements, ATA Tells Congress” (Truckline, Jun 23, 2010)

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