Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/1009508
August 2018 | Overdrive | 27 violations, the agency is specifically focusing on those violations of the daily and weekly limits," DeBruyne says. The decline may be less dramatic than what's claimed in the for-hire trucking population. Overdrive's annual CSA's Data Trail analysis, conducted with sister company RigDig Business Intelligence, shows a year-over-year drop of 42,382 violations, or 39 percent, in the so-called soft enforcement period of December to April when compared to the same months a year earlier. At the same time, if you excise the more than 24,000 violations coded 395.22(a) for carriers not having an ELD during the soft enforcement period, the falloff in hours violations appears even more dramatic than that claimed by FMCSA: a 62 percent drop in viola- tions of the bedrock HOS rules. Those 395.22(a) violations, had full enforcement been in force, would have been "no log book" violations for not running with an ELD when required. Mid-size to larger carriers appear to be benefiting the most from increased compliance. Carriers with one to four trucks, whose hours violations as a share of all violations has been falling for years, claimed a larger percentage for the first time in years for the first four months of this year. Part of that might be attributed to independent owner-operators delaying ELD use until April 1, the beginning of hard enforcement of out-of-service crite- ria associated with the ELD mandate. Faulty ELD equipment also has played a role in small fleets' problems with the ELD transition. Owner-operator Jon Hose of Texas was issued a false-log violation – 395.8(e) – in May. This came Hours of service violations before and after the ELD mandate December 2016-April 2017* December 2017-April 2018** 108,229 65,847 *Minus AOBRD-related violations **Minus both AOBRD- and ELD-related violations, though the number does include 24,742 violations of CFR 395.22(a), the parking place for no-ELD violations that inspectors were using prior to April 1 in order to exclude those violations from carrier CSA scores during the soft enforcement period. Remove those, which otherwise would have been 395.8(a) (no log book) violations if hard enforcement was in place, and it's clear that ELDs are delivering a dramatic decline in bedrock hours violations to fleets of all sizes. 500+ trucks 250-499 trucks 100-249 trucks 50-99 trucks 20-49 trucks 5-19 trucks 1-4 trucks HOS violations (including e-log-related) as a share of all violations, by fleet size 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018* Percentage of power units controlled by carriers according to fleet size, most recent full calendar year 5.8% 3.3% 6.6% 8.4% 14% 25.8% 36.1% 5.3% 3% 6.5% 8.6% 14.8% 28.6% 33.2% 4.9% 3.2% 6.8% 9.1% 16.2% 31.3% 28.5% 4.7% 3% 6.6% 9.1% 16.6% 31.7% 28.3% 4.9% 2.3% 5.5% 8.4% 16.3% 31.7% 30.9% * The number of 2018 violations is projected through the end of the calendar year based on the rate of violations seen during the first four months of the year. 42% 8% 11% 10% 11.5% 13% 4.5% Though fleets of one to four trucks control the smallest share of total power units among these categories of for-hire fleet sizes, in 2017 they received the sec- ond-largest share of total hours of service violations among the groups. What's more, after years of decline in the group's hours violations as a percentage of all viola- tions, in the first four months of 2018 the share increased by more than 2 percentage points. For most groups of carriers, the ELD transition saw largely a more stable transition when it comes to violations. The data is based on active power unit totals for 2017, estimated by RigDig Business Intelligence. Who has asked to see your CSA percentile rankings as a condition of doing business? No one, but I've seen evidence of third-party services used to approximate private scores 20% More than one of the above 35% Another third party 5% An insurance company 16% A freight partner broker/shipper 24% SOURCE: OverdriveOnline.com poll DO CSA SCORES STILL MATTER? These partial results show the distribution of answers to the question that were affirmative on whether scores were actually being requested. Not shown, but a significant result from the broader poll: More than half of independent owner-operator respondents reported never having had their CSA scores requested by any party. "Brokers do inquire about CSA scores," says owner-operator Jon Hose, who's experienced that criteria being used to choose a carrier. The sentiment reflects the larg- est share seen in this summer polling about the continuing bite of CSA percentile rankings.