Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/391783
Logbook 14 | Overdrive | October 2014 Citing the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's refusal to face facts, a growing chorus of trucking associations and related groups are asking U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx to remove carrier safety data from public view. A bill introduced in the U.S. House would accomplish the same thing. "From the first publication of SMS [Safety Measurement System] methodology in December 2010, the statistical flaws of SMS have been pointed out to [FMCSA] and have been shamelessly and repeatedly ignored," begins a letter to Foxx from a transportation coalition. It was signed by representatives of the Alliance for Safe, Efficient and Competitive Truck Transporta- tion, National Association of Small Trucking Companies, California Construction Trucking Association, The Expedite Association of North America, Auto Haulers Association of America and others. The petition comes less than a month after the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and the American Trucking Associ- ations made a similar appeal to Foxx regarding the presentation of carrier Compliance, Safety, Accountability scores on FMCSA's website. The legislation introduced by Congressman Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) was referred to the House's Transpor- tation and Infrastructure Committee. Barletta's Safer Trucks and Buses Act would direct FMCSA to remove carrier CSA scores from public view and require the agency to submit to Congress a plan for improving the three-year-old CSA program. Once Congress approves the changes, CSA rankings could be pushed back into public view. The latest letter to Foxx points to studies demonstrating flaws in CSA's scoring methodology. One, a 2011 Wells Fargo report, found no correla- tion between SMS data and crash predictability among large carriers. ASECTT's analysis from 2012 came to a similar conclusion. The letter also accuses the agency of violating the spirit of the settle- ment from NASTC et al. v. FMCSA in 2011, which resulted in the agen- cy's posting online disclaimers that SMS scores are not safety ratings. FMCSA "has played mere lip service to that disclaimer and to its duty under Section 31144 to deter- mine motor carrier safety fitness," the coalition states. "Instead, the agen- cy has continued to tout unproven SMS methodology as an alternative standard to be used by the public in selecting carriers. The agency's advocacy of SMS has been seized upon by the plaintiffs' personal injury bar, thereby causing great harm to shippers, brokers and carriers." ASECTT had sued FMCSA, un- successfully, arguing that the carrier scores should be removed because the agency has promoted them as de facto safety ratings, and any change in the rating process should require a formal rulemaking. A federal appeals court dismissed the case in June. Despite industry filings that doc- umented statistical concerns about peer group anomalies, enforcement disparities among the states, flaws in the agency's DataQs appeal process and the absence of any mechanism for determining crash accountability, the coalition contends FMCSA "has taken refuge in a single uncritical report" prepared by its affiliate, the Volpe Center. Coalition members have made the case in writing to the administrator, in meetings with FMCSA, in hearings before the Small Business Administra- tion, in congressional testimony and in declarations before the agency's own Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee, "all to no avail," the letter tells Foxx. – James Jaillet Industry demands: Hide CSA scores CALIFORNIA MAY TEST a vehicle-miles-traveled fuel tax to replace its state fuel tax. Lawmakers last month sent Democrat Gov. Jerry Brown a bill that would create a pilot program to assess VMT and direct the California Transportation Com- mission to create a committee that would report its findings to the legislature by 2018. JANNIE REECE of Waynes- boro, Tenn., was named a Truckload Carriers Association Highway Angel for her efforts in helping to put out a fire in a car burning on a highway. Reece was traveling down I-20 in Leeds, Ala., on June 25 when a car pulled up beside her and suddenly caught fire. Reece currently drives for Transco Lines of Russellville, Ark. Trucking companies across the country are being misrepresented unfairly by their safety scores, a U.S. congressman says. Todd Dills