Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/114712
Logbook Panel identifies biggest CSA issues Short hauls TRUCK PARKING will be studied by the U.S. Department of Transportation beginning April 1. The study, required by the MAP-21 highway funding law passed last July, will look at truck volumes and each state's ability to meet parking demands. The public display of carrier scores, reflecting data gathered from weigh station inspections and other sources, is one of the three CSA issues to be studied. Todd Dills A Compliance Safety Accountability subcommittee last month prioritized three issues for further work: crash accountability, data quality and public display of carriers' scores. The CSA Subcommittee to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee ended its Feb. 5-6 meeting with the recommendations. The full committee will consider them in April. Various data quality problems ranked No. 3. The problematic nature of the public display of carrier Safety Measurement System scores was No. 2. How to address crash fault and/or preventability in the Crash Indicator Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Category (BASIC) took the top spot. "FMCSA should exclude crash data for which there is a clear determination of not-at-fault" or nonpreventability on the accident report or elsewhere "for purposes of computing a carrier's Crash Indicator BASIC score," draft recommendations read. Most committee members felt that in instances where fault was noted on crash reports that it should be considered in the scoring. A minority suggested that FMCSA's higher standard of "preventable" or "nonpreventable" – determined during compliance reviews where DAIMLER TRUCKS North America notified up to 1,300 North American factory workers that layoffs could come at Freightliner and Western Star plants in Oregon and North Carolina. IN PREPARATION FOR changes to the hours of service rule, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration crash issues are found that could impact a company's safety rating – was a better mark. As for public display of carriers' SMS scores, a majority of committee members urged the agency to withhold percentile rankings in the BASICs from public view until other underlying issues could be resolved. The No. 3-ranked issue – the quality of data used in the formation of a CSA score – proved in many ways to be at the core of other issues, said committee members. Recommendations for fixing the issue included: changing the definition of a U.S. Department of Transportation-recordable crash for purposes of CSA to find something that better shows a correlation to future crash risk than the all-crashescount method used now; working with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance and others to standardize data and reports; and mending the disparity in geographical enforcement by weighting violations in a way that would normalize data from states that report heavily and those that don't. – Todd Dills published on its website two new guides, the "Interstate Truck Driver's Guide to Hours of Service" and the "Hours of Service Logbook." RAY LAHOOD, U.S. transportation secretary, announced in January he would not stick around for President Barack Obama's second term, but that he would remain until a successor is found. THE TRUCKERS JAMBOREE held annually at the Iowa 80 Truckstop in Walcott, Iowa, has added a third day. The show will be held July 11-13. The Truckers Jamboree held at the Joplin 44 Petro in Missouri is set for May 17-18. 14 | Overdrive | March 2013 Logbook_0313.indd 14 2/27/13 10:36 PM