A recently released ATA paper has led to headlines reporting that in truck/car crashes the car driver made a critical error about 75% of the time. This paper was part of the ATA's push to get FMCSA to begin assigning fault to crash reports that are used to calculate a motor carrier's CSA score. Although FMCSA is currently studying the matter, they've cooled on the idea since initially endorsing it. The most commonly cited reason is a belief that police generated crash reports may not be reliable enough.... Read More

There isn't a safety director out there who isn't constantly searching for ways to control the outcome of safety related events. It all starts with driver screening and selection. There's a lot of science that goes into that process, but to some degree, it's also a gut feeling process as well. Once the driver is hired and on the road, the focus shifts. Having an effect on what happens out where the rubber meets the road may be difficult and sometimes even elusive, but it's very important to a motor carrier.... Read More

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration recently released an overview of what it calls the Safety Management Cycle – SMC. Contained within that are SMP's – Safety Management Processes. Two more acronyms have been added to our inventory, but where do they lead us?... Read More

Earlier this year, FMCSA's Medical Advisory Board released recommendations regarding sleep apnea. The Board's report listed defined conditions that should require testing for apnea and conditions that must be met for driver medical certification. This step was a bit unusual because information of this nature is usually released as part of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.... Read More

Last August, Minnesota trucker Brian Paglusch was headed west around 11pm on the I-94 near Menomonie, WI, when he struck another truck in the rear. Just prior to the crash Paglusch braked heavily and veered left trying to get into the left lane. He was unable to avoid the crash, which resulted in his death.... Read More

In July, FMCSA staffers testified at a Small Business Committee hearing about the effects of CSA on small businesses. Since FMCSA administrator Anne Ferro did not attend, the committee chairman, Sam Graves, wrote to her summarizing the testimony and the committee’s questions. Not surprisingly the questions posed were similar to what the industry has been talking about.... Read More

FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro has declared CSA successful. Earlier this month she cited a comparison between 2011 and 2010 showing that fatalities in truck and bus-related crashes fell nearly 5% and there was an 8% reduction in the number of truck and bus violations detected by state inspectors. FMCSA is crediting these decreases with the fact that 2011 was the first full year that CSA was in effect. Although FMCSA is linking these two statistics together, there are really two stories here.... Read More

“For many carriers in the MCMIS data, the association between crash risk and the BASIC scores is so low as to be irrelevant...”

Last month the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a proposal to mandate the installation of Electronic Stability Control (ESC) on large trucks. Based on research they've determined that such a system can be 28 to 36 percent effective in reducing rollovers and 14 percent effective in eliminating loss-of-control crashes. Those are pretty impressive numbers in what are usually costly crashes with a high potential for injury or death.... Read More

There are certainly a lot of regulatory issues in trucking at the moment. Some are new and others have become a continuing saga – such as the hours of service. The issue of speed limiters is interesting in that a trucking advocacy group (the ATA) came out in favor of them before the government had really expressed a firm opinion. Parts of Canada have required them for several years and yet the dire predictions of the opponents have failed to materialize.... Read More