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Improve the Safety of Motor Carrier Operations
Objective
The two most important factors in safe motor carrier operations are the operational status of the vehicles (trucks) and the performance of the individuals who drive them. If significant problems exist with trucks and/or the qualifications or fitness for duty of the drivers, the carrier should be rated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) as unsatisfactory, forcing corrections of the problems identified within a specified time period, along with greater FMCSA oversight because problems in either of these areas could result in severe consequences for safety. If problems in these two areas persist, the motor carrier should have its license to operate revoked. The Safety Board has called on the FMCSA to implement such a system.
Summary of Action
The Motor Carrier Safety Act of 1984 directed the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to establish a procedure to determine how safely motor carriers operate. Currently, the U.S. DOT, through the FMCSA, uses a system for determining how safely a motor carrier operates that does not place sufficient emphasis on driver or vehicle qualifications.
Currently, when any motor carrier receives an unsatisfactory rating in two of six factors (general, driver, operational, vehicle, hazardous materials, and accident), the carrier receives a proposed unsatisfactory rating, which becomes effective according to the following timeframes: a passenger or hazardous-materials carrier has 45 days to correct the noncompliance; freight carriers have 60 days. If the carrier corrects the noncompliance to the satisfaction of the Office of Motor Carrier Safety, the carrier receives a satisfactory or conditional rating. If the carrier does not correct the noncompliance within the established timeframe, the carrier receives an “out-of-service order” and is prohibited from operation.
The Safety Board believes that if the carrier receives an adverse rating (conditional or unsatisfactory) for either the vehicle or driver factor, the overall rating should be unsatisfactory.
On March 5, 2007, the FMCSA Administrator appointed experts from the motor carrier industry, safety advocates, and safety enforcement officials to serve on the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC). The MCSAC, which has held two public meetings since it was created, will provide advice and recommendations to the Administrator regarding motor carrier safety programs and motor carrier safety regulations. At the last meeting, the Committee voiced unanimous agreement with the concept of Safety Recommendation H-99-6 and is currently deliberating on its recommendation to the FMCSA on how best to implement the concept. This issue will be further discussed at the Committee’s next meeting in December 2007.
The FMCSA continues to work on its Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 Initiative (CSA 2010), which will lead to the development of a new performance-based operational model for determining motor carrier safety, emphasizing preventive measures, motor carrier education, and early detection of unsafe driver and carrier conditions by decoupling the safety fitness rating from the compliance review. FMCSA staff indicated at an October 12, 2007, briefing that the agency expects to begin pilot testing of its new safety fitness rating methodology in January 2008, with full deployment of the new system expected to begin in June 2010. Although the Safety Board continues to be concerned by the slow progress made towards addressing this area since this recommendation was issued 8 years ago, the FMCSA has made potentially viable plans to address this recommendation under the CSA 2010 Initiative. The agency has ensured the Board that it is ahead of schedule at this point in its action plan and has announced a public listening session for December 4, 2007, where stakeholders will be informed of the details of the pilot test and have an opportunity to provide feedback to the FMCSA on the proposed operational model. The Board will continue to vigilantly monitor the FMCSA’s actions to recognize the importance of driver and vehicle factors in addressing motor carrier safety as the CSA 2010 pilot test is deployed.
Action Remaining
Continue efforts to develop standards that appropriately recognize the importance of vehicle and driver factors in measuring the overall safety of a motor carrier’s operations.
H-99-6 (FMCSA)
Issued February 26, 1999
Added to the Most Wanted List: 2000
Status: Open—Acceptable Response
Change the safety fitness rating methodology so that adverse vehicle and driver performance-based data alone are sufficient to result in an overall unsatisfactory rating for the carrier. (Source:A 2001 special investigation of selective motorcoach safety issues [NTSB/SIR-99/01])
November 2007
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