From SCDigest's On-Target E-Magazine
March 21 , 2012
Logistics News: ATA Says FMCSA Continues Unfair "Blame Truck Drivers First" Policy
Agency Reverses Earlier Decision, Will Add Accidents Not Caused by Driver to Carrier's Record
SCDigest Editorial Staff
The Federal Motor Carriers Association's Compliance, Safety and Accountability program (CSA 2010) for reducing risks from truck driving by enhanced tracking of a driver's history and thus a carrier's own "safety ranking" has been somewhat controversial from the start, with questions about its efficacy and how shippers would react to the data.
SCDigest Says: |
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| The ATA says this is evidence of the FMSCA's "blame the truck driver first" approach, where carriers had their CSA ratings degrade due to accidents at which the truck driver had no fault. |
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What Do You Say?
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Recently, the FMCSA has rejected a motion by the ATA to change its approach to cataloging accidents when the trucker is not at fault in the accident and/or it could not have been avoided.
The ATA and other industry groups had requested that the FMCSA develop a process where police accident reports would be reviewed to determine crash accountability and remove non-preventable crashes from a carrier’s CSA profile. Initially, the FMSCA said it would make such a change.
After pressure from some special interest groups who have questioned the reliability of police accident reports, the FMCSA reversed its decision and now will not follow the revised process.
“With FMCSA moving ahead with its CSA carrier oversight system, it is more important than ever that the agency uses not only the best data, but also common sense to ensure it is targeting the right carriers and drivers for oversight,” ATA President and CEO Bill Graves said. “By backtracking on their commitment to implement a crash accountability determination process in early 2012 to hold carriers accountable for crashes clearly caused by the actions or inactions of a truck driver, FMCSA has bowed to anti-industry interest groups and unfairly called into question the integrity of police accident reports prepared by America’s law enforcement community.”
The ATA said that questioning the accuracy of police reports make little sense, as "Legitimate highway safety stakeholders know that much of this country’s traffic safety research is based on police accident reports."
It also said that the FMSCA's own data shows that when driver action is cited as the cause of a passenger car and truck accident, the majority of the time it is the passenger car driver, not the trucker, who is cited as the cause.
The ATA says this is evidence of the FMSCA's "blame the truck driver first" approach, where carriers had their CSA ratings degrade due to accidents at which the truck driver had no fault. It cited several specific examples:
• A December 2011 crash where the driver of a stolen SUV being pursued by police crashed into the back of a tank truck.
• A January 2012 crash involving a Utah State student who was texting and Facebook messaging when she rear-ended a tank truck.
• A February 2012 crash in Pennsylvania where an SUV traveling the wrong way on Interstate 70 collided with a tractor-trailer traveling in the proper direction.
• A February 2012 crash in Tennessee where an SUV crossed the median of Interstate 40 and struck a tractor-trailer traveling in the opposite direction.
(Transportation Management Article Continued Below)
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Why does this matter to shippers? Two reasons, in addition to the basic unfairness of the process: (1) In a period where there is already a significant and growing driver shortage, the degraded scores could cause carriers to terminate these drivers to improve their CSA scores; (2) If they keep the drivers, shippers could in a sense erroneously avoid a carrier out of safety concerns when the score on which they are basing that decision is really not valid.