Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/599511
leading news, trucking market conditions and industry analysis T he National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is con- sidering a federal rule to require new trucks to be equipped with crash avoidance systems that brake automatically without driver input. NHTSA's announcement came in response to a petition filed in February by several pro-regulatory agencies, including the Truck Safety Coalition, the Center for Auto Safety, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety and Road Safe America. The man- date was recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board. While NHTSA did not say when it would make a decision to cre- ate a rule or not, it did say it has been studying and will continue to study the systems, and that its decision will be "made after study of the requested action and the various alternatives in the course of the rulemaking proceeding." Systems such as those from Bendix and Meritor Wabco have been spec options for all major heavy-duty truck makers for sev- eral years. The systems employ sensors, radar and cameras to scan the road ahead and can brake automatically. – James Jaillet A new analysis from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reiterates the agency's position that its Safety Measurement System uses enough data to issue rankings to prioritize carriers for intervention. The report comes amid increasing calls from industry, law enforce- ment and some members of Congress for FMCSA to remove from public view the rankings generated by the SMS, part of the agency's Compliance Safety Accountability system. The agency uses those measurements to prioritize carriers for intervention in an effort to improve regulatory compliance and, the agency contends, highway safety. Carriers are ranked according to their violations in seven Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories. FMCSA says the SMS contains sufficient data to produce BASIC scores for about "200,000 of the 525,000 active motor carriers." Those 200,000 carriers under the over- sight umbrella of the SMS, the agency notes, are involved in the vast majority – more than 90 percent – of all heavy truck and bus recordable crashes. The report comes to light following Congress' most recent attempt to include language in a long-term highway bill that would pull the CSA SMS BASIC rankings from public view. This most recent attempt fell apart with the highway bill itself and the current short-term funding extension. FMCSA in part addresses public-view concerns with a small section on a goal of "transparency" in offering public inspection and violation data on a central website. "Open and transparent reporting of safety data encourages a culture of commercial motor vehicle safety and creates incentives for motor carriers to improve their safety performance," the report notes. The agency also appears to have fully embraced third-party use of the SMS with this report. It says that "transparency also allows members of the public to make informed business decisions based on all available sources of FMCSA data, including FMCSA safety ratings, licensing and insurance information, and SMS data." Public and commercial third-party use of the system – such as by shippers, brokers and insurance companies – has been a principal concern of small carriers because of the volatility in the rankings at their level. FMCSA currently is at work on its Carrier Safety Fitness Determination rulemaking designed to revamp the safety rating process to primarily use violation data procured at roadside and during carrier investi- gations. – Todd Dills Scan the QR code with your smartphone or visit ccjdigital.com/news/subscribe-to-news- letters to sign up for the CCJ Daily Report, a daily e-mail newsletter filled with news, analysis, blogs and market condition articles. NHTSA may require auto- braking systems FMCSA defends accuracy, open records, of its CSA rankings Congress has attempted to include language in a long-term highway bill that would pull the CSA SMS BASIC rankings from public view. 12 commercial carrier journal | november 2015