National Petroleum News (NPN) has been the independent voice of the petroleum industry since 1909 as the opposition to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. So, motor fuels marketing and retail is not just a sideline for us, it’s our core competency.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/27063
MARKETING & SUPPLY BY DEBRARECHKE New safety program introduces new regulations and challenges COMMERCIAL CARRIER SAFETY CHANGES called Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA), is a new operational model that strives to provide a better view into “how well large commercial motor vehicle carriers and driv- ers are complying with safety rules, and to intervene earlier with those who are not,” according to the FMCSA’s website. The changes in regulations come after the number of fatal- T ities involving commercial trucks and buses showed it had lev- eled off. The FMCSA conducted a study that suggested more attention needed to be paid to the drivers of these vehicles. “Right now, there is a lot of misinformation going around,” said Dale Wessendorf, safety and fleet director for Smith and Solomon, a company that provides commercial driver’s licenses training programs. “The original program wanted to rate the driver the same as the carrier.”Thus, if the carrier was sent a warning letter, so, too, would the driver. “People thought they would lose hundreds of thousands of drivers because of this,” he said. This, however, was tweaked in the current version. The following breaks down the new CSA operational model into its three major compo- nents: measurement, evaluation and intervention. MEASUREMENT Within CSA, the Safety Measurement System (SMS) uses a motor carrier’s data from roadside inspections and other safety violations as well as crashes to identify drivers needing intervention. To evaluate and quantify the safety informa- tion, the SMS uses the Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs). These categories are designed to focus on behaviors linked to crash risk, including unsafe driving; fatigued driv- ing (or hours of service); driver fitness; controlled sub- stances/alcohol; vehicle maintenance; cargo-related; and crash indicator. A carrier is measured in each of these categories by the number of violations, the severity of those violations and when 8 MARCH 2011 HE FEDERAL MOTOR CARRIER SAFETY Administration (FMCSA) introduced in December of last year a new safety program for commercial motor vehicles designed to reduce crashes, injuries and fatalities. The initiative, those violations occurred (with more recent events being weighed more heavily). A carrier’s percentile, from 0 (best) to 100 (worst), is determined based on its BASIC measurements compared to the measurements of other similar carriers. EVALUATION After the data is collected, the next step in the CSA model is to evaluate the safety performance of the carriers using new measures. The new process strives to be more effective by identifying which carriers require what type of intervention. The SMS determines the carriers should be called “unfit” to operate according to the Safety Fitness Determination (SFD), which expands the use of on-road performance as calculated in the SMS and includes results of all investigations. INTERVENTION The intervention segment of the model has three parts and provides carriers with the information necessary to under- stand their safety problems and to change their behavior. The first category is early contact, which starts with the warning letter. A carrier identified for having safety prob- lems is sent a notice that provides instructions for accessing carrier safety data and measurement. Carriers can get their measurement results (BASICs scores), as well as the inspec- tion reports and violations that went into those results. Carriers and drivers can also monitor this data for accuracy and challenge it as necessary through FMCSA’s DataQs system. “The most important thing for drivers is to realize that a database is out there with all their safety information,” said Wessendorf. “It contains the results of all roadside inspec- tions and all crash data. This data exists even if the driver was not put out of service or at fault for the accident.” If the incident was a Department of Transportation reportable crash, then it goes on the driver’s record. “With any system, errors can be made,” he said. “It’s the driver’s responsibility to check it and correct it.” If there is a mistake on a record in the DataQs system, drivers and carri- ers can present their case to dispute the claim and have it taken off. It costs $10 for both drivers and carriers to request the information by visiting the FMCSA website. NPN Magazine www.npnweb.com