The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is asking for your opinion on a proposal to revamp the current three-tier safety motor carrier fitness rating system. This includes exploring new data and resources to better assess a carrier’s fitness to operate.
The agency’s advance notice of proposed rulemaking, published in the Federal Register on Aug. 29, opens the door for potentially scrapping or modifying the current evaluation process. It may even lead to the development of a new method that incorporates the agency’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability Safety Measurement System.
Currently, safety fitness determinations are based on an analysis of motor carrier data, investigation findings, and thorough compliance reviews. These reviews can either be conducted on-site or remotely through a secure portal.
The current determination process assesses a carrier’s vehicle out-of-service rate, evaluates their crash involvement, and conducts a thorough examination of compliance with “acute” and “critical” regulations.
Acute regulations refer to noncompliance that is so severe that it demands immediate corrective action, regardless of the carrier’s overall safety management controls. Critical regulations pertain to management or operational systems controls.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has set a deadline of October 30 for receiving comments on the ANPRM.
“This is the first step in answering several questions, including do we even need a new safety determination rulemaking,” said Dan Horvath, vice president of safety policy for American Trucking Associations. “Overall, I’d say this is taking a broad step in asking a number of questions from carriers and getting their input. I think it’s definitely worth discussion.
“But if CSA is to be included, my gut tells me probably a lot of folks will say no, because it’s flawed data.”
Transportation attorney Brandon Wiseman, owner of Trucksafe Consulting, a regulatory compliance consulting and training company, suggests that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is considering changes to the fitness rating system because they are understaffed and unable to conduct extensive audits of motor carriers. Additionally, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, FMCSA has been using technology to conduct some audits in order to avoid on-site visits.
In 2016, the agency proposed a similar method for determining fitness ratings, but it was ultimately withdrawn due to industry opposition. Wiseman explains that this opposition was largely driven by a lack of trust in the CSA rating system.
“So now they’re looking for ways to get a bigger universe of carriers to assess for safety fitness,” Wiseman said. “They believe that the way they should do that is to potentially tie in motor carrier safety ratings to CSA scores. In the 2016 proposal, the industry was up in arms due to concerns about CSA that they’ve had over the years.”
Numerous truck and bus organizations, including ATA, opposed the 2016 proposal.
“ATA has long supported using data to target enforcement activities against bad actors in our industry,” ATA President Chris Spear said at the time. “However, numerous reviews have shown flaws in the data and in the CSA system, so it makes sense to withdraw this rule, which would have used CSA data to create publicly available fitness ratings.”
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) acknowledges that there is a problem with the current system. Every year, only a small number of carriers receive safety determinations. For example, in fiscal year 2019, only about 2% of the estimated 567,000 carriers were given safety determinations.
In recent years, carriers have been eligible for off-site audits if they have high scores in one or two safety categories called Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories. However, in 2018, the agency announced that this process would only be used for less serious carrier issues and would not apply to maintenance BASIC violations.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is seeking feedback on important questions regarding the safety fitness determination. The agency is specifically interested in comments regarding the following topics:
- Should the current three-tiered rating system of Satisfactory, Unsatisfactory, and Conditional be retained?
- How will the proposed changes to the safety fitness determination affect states?
- Should the SMS methodology, which includes all available safety data, be used to issue determinations?
- How can driver behavior data be incorporated into the safety fitness determination to prevent crashes?
- Should the safety fitness rating methodology assign more weight to unsafe driving violations considering their correlation with crash risk?
Your input and recommendations are essential in shaping these important decisions. Join the conversation HERE.
Source: Transport Topics
