Rumors continue to circulate that the FMCSA is discussing the idea of including drivers in the ranking system under CSA, and making that driver safety data public.
The FMCSA is said to be seeking the necessary authority to rate CDL drivers as part of the next highway bill.
A source within FMCSA stressed that making public the driver percentile rankings in the CSA BASICs “has always been the long-term vision.” Currently, drivers are not ranked against their peers in the BASICs, and data from drivers’ inspection histories is only accessible officially by prospective employers through the Pre-Employment Screening Program.
A recently released five-year plan (2011-2015) was released by the FMCSA. It made no specific mention of the concept of ranking drivers, suggesting achieving this goal could be more than five years away. However, the plan does refer to continuing development of “a methodology to assess the safety fitness of drivers to further identify unsafe drivers who should not be in the industry.”
Making driver safety data and rankings public may be a bigger project than FMCSA and Congress will feel is worth the trouble, says Joe Rajkovacz, government affairs specialist with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA).
Regardless of the outcome, this is certain to be an extremely contentious topic.
I encourage you to express your thoughts on the subject by commenting on this post.
Driving Ambition is a premier CDL truck driver staffing company serving Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Since 2001, we have specialized in matching safe, experienced CDL drivers for our customers and great job opportunities for our professional truck drivers.
Our commitment to safety and building solid working relationships with both customers and CDL drivers has allowed us to earn an unparalleled reputation with our Proven Drivers and Exceptional Service.
In late June, the FMCSA announced its draft strategic plan that will serve as a five-year guide to
achieving its mission to reduce crashes, injuries and fatalities involving large commercial trucks and interstate buses.
The plan, titled “Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration 2011–2016 Strategic Plan: Raising the Safety Bar,” is shaped by three core principles:
- Raise the bar to enter the motor carrier industry
- Maintain high safety standards to remain in the industry
- Remove high-risk carriers, drivers and service providers from operation
The plan lists 10 goals, each with the strategies it will pursue to achieve them. Some of these initiatives are already under way, such as CSA, the National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners, and the pending drug and alcohol clearinghouse. But there are some new ideas here, as well:
- Develop a new credentialing standard to make sure that everyone covered by the rules understands the rules. This would be part of an overall effort to raise the bar for entry into the business and prevent carriers from reincarnating themselves in order to dodge enforcement actions.
- Use safety and risk analysis to create a system of enforcement priorities that covers the entire transportation community, including shippers, cargo tank manufacturers or repair facilities and intermodal equipment providers, as well as bus and truck operators and drivers.
- Emphasize expanded traffic enforcement for car as well as truck and bus drivers.
- Expand the range of its partnerships beyond the enforcement, carrier, medical, and safety advocacy communities to include the judicial, education, insurance and shipping communities.
- Continue to look for incentives to push the use of safety technologies such as collision warning and stability control.
- FMCSA wants to become the authoritative source of safety data, and to assemble all that data in a single system that all can enter.
- Also on the list is continuation and expansion of the effort to research driver risk factors to support rulemakings and promote health, wellness and a culture of safety.
For itself, the FMCSA wants to clean up its “regulatory closet” by getting rid of obsolete or conflicting rules, and get better at hiring new people. Among its goals: get onto the Top 10 of the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government.
A key strategy will be to identify gaps in its authority that prevent the FMCSA from reaching entities (shippers, receivers, brokers, freight forwarders) that have an influence over safety. The greatest potential for improving safety lies in focusing outreach, oversight, and enforcement on everyone who is a part of that cycle, the agency said.
The FMCSA is asking for public comments on this and other aspects of the 17-page strategic plan. “This strategic plan represents a fresh and bold new view on issues critical to bus and truck safety, and I encourage Americans across the country to provide feedback and help shape the final plan,” said DOT Secretary Ray LaHood.
Comments on the draft strategic plan can be submitted to the Federal Docket Management System at www.regulations.gov, Docket ID No. FMCSA-2011-0098. In addition, FMCSA has set up an IdeaScale Community on its main Web site at www.fmcsa.dot.gov to comment on the plan. Public comments at the www.regulations.gov and www.fmcsa.dot.gov web sites will be accepted through July 29, 2011.
“The safety gains we have made as a nation are the result of people working together toward a common vision,” said FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro. “It’s vital that our stakeholders – starting with the American motoring public – participate in this dialog to shape the future course of truck and bus safety.”
For a copy of the FMCSA’s draft strategic plan, please click here.
Driving Ambition is a premier CDL truck driver staffing company serving Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Since 2001, we have specialized in matching safe, experienced CDL drivers for our customers and great job opportunities for our professional truck drivers.
Our commitment to safety and building solid working relationships with both customers and CDL drivers has allowed us to earn an unparalleled reputation with our Proven Drivers and Exceptional Service.
CDL Drivers and Carriers: Mark your calendars! Roadcheck 2011 will be conducted June 7-9.
Operation Roadcheck is a 72-hour roadside inspection and enforcement blitz in which an estimated 10,000 inspectors set up more than 1,000 checkpoints on highways across North America to monitor truck safety compliance. Since its inception in 1988, Operation Roadcheck is the largest targeted enforcement program on commercial vehicles in the world with an estimated 14 trucks or buses being inspected, on average, every minute from Canada to Mexico during the three day period.
The inspections are held in cooperation with the FMCSA, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, Transport Canada and the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation of Mexico.
As in past events, this year's Roadcheck will focus on commercial vehicle and driver safety and security. However, with the advent of CSA, these roadside inspections now play an even more important role. That’s because all inspection violations will become part of your CSA record. The Safety Measurement System (SMS) uses the on-road safety performance of carriers and drivers to identify candidates for interventions, determine the specific safety problems a carrier or driver exhibits, and to monitor whether safety problems are improving or worsening.
Here are five steps you can take to make sure you survive Roadcheck 2011:
- Understand the inspection process. The roadside inspection involves a comprehensive 37-step procedure which includes items related to vehicle, driver and cargo safety. Click here for a complete list of the inspection procedures.
- Know the most frequently cited violations. Last year, CMV enforcement conducted 65,327 inspections across the US. Of those, almost 49,000 were Level 1. 4.4 percent of the drivers and 19.6 percent of the vehicles were placed out of service. The specific driver violations include hours of service, false logs, license issues, age and drug and alcohol issues. For equipment, the most frequent violations include brake issues, tires and wheels, lights, load securement, steering, frames, and suspensions.
- Keep your vehicle clean and well maintained.
- Conduct thorough pre- and post-trip inspections.
- Treat the inspector with courtesy and respect.
The CVSA has announced that the 2011 edition of the North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria Handbook and Pictorial is now available for purchase. For more information on Operation Roadcheck, visit http://www.cvsa.org/.
Driving Ambition is a premier CDL truck driver staffing company serving Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Since 2001, we have specialized in matching safe, experienced CDL drivers for our customers and great job opportunities for our professional truck drivers.
Our commitment to safety and building solid working relationships with both customers and CDL drivers has allowed us to earn an unparalleled reputation with our Proven Drivers and Exceptional Service.
The FMCSA continues to have their hands full as they juggle several major issues that will have a significant impact on the trucking industry in the weeks, months, and years ahead.
Compliance, Safety, and Accountability (CSA), the FMCSA’s newest safety measurement program, was officially launched late in 2010. Carriers’ CSA scores are now being monitored for safety compliance.
As the first step in the intervention and enforcement process, the FMCSA has begun sending out warning letters to carriers it has identified as needing to improve safety performance in one or more of the BASIC categories that CSA tracks. The warning letter provides instructions for accessing motor carrier safety data in the Safety Measurement System (SMS). The FMCSA has provided a Factsheet, which includes a sample warning letter and FAQs, as well as a “Tip- sheet” about how to respond to a warning letter online. Carriers can use these documents to more effectively resolve FMCSA concerns and prevent escalated enforcement, such as an on-site compliance review.
Hours of Service: Friday, March 4 was the last day for stakeholders to comment on the FMCSA’s new Hours of Service (HOS) proposal. Since the proposed rule was announced in late December, the industry has mobilized to fight against the change and defend the current HOS rules. Many argue that the proposed rule rivals the U.S. tax code in complexity. To gather further industry input, the FMCSA hosted a listening session on Feb. 17th. Within days of the listening session, the FMCSA indicated their preference to reduce the number of hours a driver can legally drive per day from eleven to ten. Since 2004, the HOS rules have been the center of ongoing legal battles. Regardless of what the FMCSA’s final rule looks like, the legal battles will surely continue. We should know soon since, under a settlement agreement reached in October 2009, a final rule would be published by July 26, 2011.
Electronic Onboard Recorders (EOBRs): While busy with CSA and the HOS debate, the FMCSA in late January also proposed a rule that greatly expands the current rule put out less than a year ago. The newly proposed rule, which will go into effect three years after it is made final, would require all interstate commercial truck and bus companies to install EOBRs to systematically monitor their drivers’ HOS compliance.
The rule would apply to all carriers now required to maintain driver logs, which affects approximately 500,000 interstate carriers. Violators of the EOBR requirement would face penalties of up to $11,000 per offense and impact the carrier’s CSA rating and DOT operating authority.
The FMCSA has extended the comment period on this proposal until May 23, 2011. The FMCSA will consider all comments and material received during the comment period and may change this proposal based on those comments. The rule will likely be published prior to the June 2012 compliance date for the current EOBR rule. It will enforce the current rule during the period between the 2012 compliance date and the compliance date of the new rule.
Fuel: As if these safety and regulatory concerns weren't enough for the trucking industry, the rising price of fuel is having an impact that is putting carriers at risk – even as the nation slowly begins to roll to an economic recovery. In the wake of escalating unrest in the Middle East, diesel prices have continued to skyrocket in all regions of the U.S. Fuel is a significant expense for trucking companies that is often felt twice - first by increasing their operating costs and then by reducing freight volumes as consumers spend more on energy and are forced to reduce their spending on other consumer goods.
The U.S. Department of Energy Information Administration (EIA) tracks diesel prices and provides complete diesel price information on the EIA website. The national average price of on-highway diesel is currently at its highest level since early October 2008. Since the end of September, diesel prices have surged more than 76 cents — or 26 percent — and have declined in only three of 22 weeks.
Driving Ambition is a premier CDL truck driver staffing company serving Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Since 2001, we have specialized in matching safe, experienced CDL drivers for our customers and great job opportunities for our professional truck drivers.
Our commitment to safety and building solid working relationships with both customers and CDL drivers has allowed us to earn an unparalleled reputation with our Proven Drivers and Exceptional Service.
FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro conducted a brief video interview in which she defines the FMCSA’s broad safety strategy. The interview, which took place at the February 17 Hours-of-Service listening session, describes the three significant motor carrier safety initiatives that make up the interlocking pieces of the FMCSA’s overall safety strategy.
Those three initiatives - Compliance, Safety and Accountability or CSA program, truck driver Hours-of-Service (HOS) reform, and Electronic Logging, or EOBRs - designed to drive truck accident fatalities lower, focus squarely on driver behavior.
"It's all about the driver. It comes down to how the driver behaves and how well the company is supporting that driver's focus on safety," said Ferro. "It's a whole network of interlocking pieces that impact how the driver behaves…and that includes car drivers.”
Although fatalities in crashes involving large trucks dropped 36 percent from 2005 to 2009, the FMCSA's mandate is to reduce those fatalities even further.
Driving Ambition is a premier CDL truck driver staffing company serving Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Since 2001, we have specialized in matching safe, experienced CDL drivers for our customers and great job opportunities for our professional truck drivers.
Our commitment to safety and building solid working relationships with both customers and CDL drivers has allowed us to earn an unparalleled reputation with our Proven Drivers and Exceptional Service.
The FMCSA’s new safety program, CSA, went live over the weekend of December 12th. The general public now has access to most of the Motor Carrier Safety Measurement System (SMS) data for each carrier after a federal appeals court denied a suit to prevent the release of the CSA safety data.
With this official rollout, the program is now known as Compliance, Safety, Accountability – rather than its previous name Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010, or CSA 2010.
The key component of CSA is the SMS data, which analyzes all safety-based violations from inspections and crash data to determine a commercial motor carrier's on-road performance. The SMS uses seven safety improvement categories, called BASICs, to examine a carrier's on-road performance and potential crash risk. CSA officially replaces Safestat, FMCSA's former measurement system, which assessed carrier performance in only four broad categories. For a more detailed background on CSA, click here.
The general public can now go to http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/sms and view SMS data for a carrier by entering a carrier’s DOT or MC number. The search will reveal data that includes the carrier's BASICs scores in five of the seven categories (2 categories – Crash BASIC and Cargo Related BASIC are not currently accessible to the public). Below is an example of a search that reveals less than desirable scores (notice 4 “alerts”):
According to recent analysis by Commercial Carrier Journal, barely 12 percent of active motor carriers are ranked in any of the five publicly available BASICs. The majority of carriers are unranked because FMCSA set minimum thresholds of inspections to be considered within BASIC safety event groups. Those floors vary, but generally carriers must have three to five inspections in the past 24 months to be ranked in a BASIC.
More than half the carriers that are ranked have at least one “alert”, meaning they exceed the threshold for intervention. A majority of those alerts are in the Fatigued Driving BASIC. FMCSA plans to use those rankings to target interventions under its new graduated process, which starts with warning letters and escalates potentially to full-blown compliance reviews.
To help minimize the inappropriate use of SMS data to possibly characterize a carrier as unsafe or noncompliant, the FMCSA has posted a disclaimer on the SMS website indicating that the system does not represent a Safety Fitness Determination (SFD), is not a Safety Rating pursuant to 49 C.F.R. Part 385, and does not represent FMCSA’s final determination regarding the accuracy of the data contained in the SMS.
The FMCSA continues to highly recommend that all motor carriers periodically review the SMS data system and when necessary verify the accuracy of their SMS data through DataQs, an electronic data correcting system in which carriers can request a data review. The DataQ system is available online at http://dataqs.fmcsa.dot.gov/.
FMCSA also provides Safety Improvement Resources (SIRs) – a compilation of articles, reports, and other tools designed to assist motor carriers with improving their current safety management practices.
Driving Ambition is a premier CDL truck driver staffing company serving Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Since 2001, we have specialized in matching safe, experienced CDL drivers for our customers and great job opportunities for our professional truck drivers.
Our commitment to safety and building solid working relationships with both customers and CDL drivers has allowed us to earn an unparalleled reputation with our Proven Drivers and Exceptional Service.