| Figure 4.
Accident driver’s hours of service prior to Chelsea accident, reconstructed
from GPS electronic data.
Research has
shown that a combination of reduced sleep and fatigue from long-distance
driving can significantly increase reaction time. 5 While individuals experiencing sleep loss can usually rally momentarily to
perform at their non-sleep-deprived levels, their ability to maintain that
performance decreases as the length of the task increases. 6 Furthermore, the longer a person is continually awake beyond 14 to 16 hours,
the greater the occurrence and duration of attention lapses. 7 Driver sleepiness and fatigue have been strongly linked with commercial vehicle
crashes by the Safety Board and others. 8
Title
49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 395.3 states that a motor
carrier cannot permit a driver to exceed 11 cumulative hours of driving
following 10 consecutive hours off duty, to exceed 14 hours on duty following
10 consecutive hours off duty, or to drive after being on duty for 60 hours in
7 consecutive days or for 70 hours in 8 consecutive days. 9 The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has issued
interpretations and guidance to emphasize and clarify hours-of-service
responsibilities for motor carriers. 10 These interpretations and guidance indicate that the FMCSA “holds the motor
carrier liable for violations of the hours of service if it had or should have
had the means to detect the violations.” The guidance also states, “Intent or
actual knowledge by the motor carrier is not a necessary element of liability,
and carriers ‘permit’ violations if they do not have a management system that
prevents such violations.”
Motor Carrier
Driver Oversight
Equity Transportation
Company, Inc., is registered with the FMCSA as an interstate “for hire” carrier
of general freight, refrigerated food, and beverages. Equity began operation in
1980 and currently operates throughout the continental United States and
Canada. At the time of the accident, Equity operated 157 tractors and 541
semitrailers and employed 154 drivers.
Equity
drivers use handwritten logs to record their hours of service. These
handwritten logs are recorded on loose-leaf log paper instead of staple-bound report
books. Equity’s safety director stated that the company uses loose-leaf logs at the request of its drivers. According to Equity’s safety director, the company has a log review program in place, under which it electronically scans the written logs of all its drivers and checks them for hours-of-service violations. Additionally, 50 percent of the logs are verified by comparing them with supporting documentation, such as fuel receipts, toll receipts, and driver trip information. The logs of drivers who were placed out of service during a roadside inspection or who were involved in an accident are included in the verification process. Drivers who violate hours-of-service regulations may be disciplined by having their tractor’s top speed reduced, 11 by not being reimbursed for expenses, by being
suspended, or by being dismissed.
According to data obtained from the Motor
Carrier Safety Status Measurement System (SafeStat), 12 Equity drivers underwent 500 roadside
inspections from July 18, 2002, through July 18, 2004, which resulted
in 76 drivers being placed out of service. The resulting 15.2-percent
out-of-service rate may be compared to the national driver out‑of‑service
rate of 7.2 percent. Of the 76 drivers who were placed out of service, 73
had violated at least one Federal hours-of-service regulation.
Equity does not use data from its electronic
data systems to verify drivers’ written logs. According to the Equity
safety director, the data gathered from GPS are typically stored only for about
2 or 3 days because of limited electronic storage.
FMCSA policy
does not require motor carriers to maintain electronic data as part of their
supporting documentation because the FMCSA believes “Intelligent Transportation (IT) systems have not yet advanced to the
point where electronic monitoring of supporting documents by enforcement
officers is a feasible substitute for RODS.” 13 The FMCSA also notes that motor carriers are
still reluctant to integrate their data systems with those of the enforcement
community in a way that would allow real-time access to supporting documents. Nevertheless,
the FMCSA prefers electronically based record-keeping methods to traditional
paper records and does allow electronic data (for example, GPS data, automatic
vehicle identifier transponders, and electronic bills of lading) to be kept in
conjunction with paper supporting documents, as long as the data are maintained
for more than 6 months and are accessible and reviewable by FMCSA agents.
Compliance Reviews
Equity. In its most
recent FMCSA compliance review before the Chelsea accident (November 2003),
Equity was rated satisfactory. 14 This compliance review was initiated as a follow-up to a February 2003
enforcement action for violations of the hours-of-service regulations, and also
because Equity was identified as a category “B” carrier in SafeStat. 15 The FMCSA had already planned to perform a compliance review on Equity prior to the accident, in response to complaints from two former drivers who alleged that Equity had scheduled trips that forced them to exceed Federal hours-of-service limits. 16 This compliance review, the results of which were issued on July 27, 2004, and which resulted in a conditional rating for the carrier, revealed a 20-percent falsification
rate of driver’s logs. 17 Other log violations included driving for more
than 11 hours following 10 consecutive hours off duty, staying on duty for more than 14 hours following 10 consecutive hours off duty, and
driving after being on duty for more than 70 hours in an 8-day period.
In September 2004, following the July 2004 FMCSA
compliance review, Safety Board investigators examined the paper logs and
supporting documents of 11 Equity drivers who drove frequently from
July 27 through August 3, 2004. 18 Paper records and electronic data for six
Equity drivers were also examined for the period from August 30 through
September 7, 2004. The paper logs of one driver were illegible and could
not be reviewed. 19 Violations were found in the logs of all the
remaining drivers, including 51 false entries, 1 violation of the 70-hour
driving rule, 5 violations of the 14-hour driving rule, and 6 violations of the
11-hour driving rule.
Since July 2004, Equity has received
satisfactory ratings in two additional compliance reviews, the most recent of
which occurred on March 22, 2007.
Previous
Safety Board Action. For some years, the Safety Board has been
concerned about the adequacy of compliance reviews of motor carriers and has
expressed its concerns in several accident reports. 20 In 1995, the Safety Board investigated a fatal
motorcoach accident that involved a carrier with a 9-year history of repeated
hours-of-service and vehicle-related violations. 21 Despite the carrier’s record, the Office of
Motor Carriers 22 continued to rate the carrier satisfactory in
its compliance reviews. As a result, the Safety Board issued Safety
Recommendation H-99-6 to the U.S. Department of Transportation, recommending
that the department,
H-99-6
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.
The Safety Board has twice reiterated Safety
Recommendation H-99-6, most recently in response to the Wilmer, Texas, bus fire
accident, 23 and the recommendation is currently classified
“Open—Acceptable Response.” This recommendation is on the Safety Board’s List
of Most Wanted Transportation Safety Improvements. 24
In a 2006 response to Safety Recommendation
H-99-6, the FMCSA stated that, as part of its Comprehensive Safety Analysis
(CSA) 2010 Initiative, it is reviewing the compliance review process and
developing a new safety fitness rating methodology based on an objective
measure of driver or carrier safety performance data. The FMCSA expects to
deploy the new methodology by 2010. In its reply to the FMCSA, the Safety Board
noted that even if the FMCSA achieves its milestone, the expected time frame
for implementation of the new program is several years away. In the interim,
deficiencies in the current compliance review system allow unsafe carriers to
operate and should be remedied to protect the traveling public. Therefore, on
June 22, 2007, the Safety Board issued a safety recommendation that asked that
the FMCSA,
H-07-3
To
protect the traveling public until completion of the Comprehensive Safety
Analysis 2010 Initiative, immediately issue an Interim Rule to include all Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations in the current
compliance review process so that all violations of regulations are reflected
in the calculation of a carrier’s final rating.
Safety Recommendation H-07-3 is
classified “Open—Await Response.”
Electronic
On-Board Recorders
In January 2007, the FMCSA published a notice of
proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would require motor carriers with a “demonstrated
history of serious noncompliance with hours-of-service (HOS) rules” to be
subject to mandatory installation of electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs)
meeting proposed standards of accuracy, validity, and security. 25 (Equity’s GPS-based electronic dispatch system
is similar to the EOBRs that have been proposed to track driver hours of
service.) According to the NPRM, a carrier is recognized as a pattern violator
of hours-of-service regulations if it is found to
have a violation rate of 10 percent or more of any regulation currently
listed in Part 385, Appendix B,
Section VII, of the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Regulations during any two compliance reviews performed
over a 2-year period. Carriers identified as pattern violators would be
required to use EOBRs, instead of paper logs, to track and record driver hours
of service for 2 years.
Equity was cited for exceeding a violation rate
of 10 percent for a particular hours-of-service regulation in the July 2004
compliance review. However, Equity would not be identified as a pattern
violator under the FMCSA’s proposed rules because, although compliance reviews
conducted in 2005 and 2007 identified numerous hours-of-service violations, the
carrier did not exceed a violation rate of 10 percent on any particular
hours-of-service regulation.
According to the NPRM, pattern violators will be
identified exclusively via compliance reviews. In 2005, the FMCSA performed a
total of 8,097 compliance reviews on the approximately 911,000 active and
registered motor carriers; this means that less than 1 percent of all
carriers were assessed for safety and fitness. Moreover, flaws in the
compliance review procedures guarantee that even if the NPRM provisions are
implemented, many unsafe carriers will continue to evade even initial
identification as an hours-of-service violator.
In its NPRM response, the Safety Board stated
that, in light of deficiencies in the current compliance review program, it
does not believe that the FMCSA has the resources or processes necessary to identify
and discipline all carriers and drivers who are pattern violators of
hours-of-service regulations. Consequently, a program to impose EOBRs on
pattern violators that relies on the current compliance review program to
identify such carriers is unlikely to be successful.
The FMCSA outlined a series of financial and
regulatory incentives in the NPRM to persuade carriers to install EOBRs
voluntarily in their motor vehicles. The Safety Board stated in its NPRM
response that it is unconvinced that these incentives are sufficient to
override the financial motivation that pattern violators have for continuing to
circumvent hours-of-service regulations and to not use EOBRs for tracking hours
of service. The Safety Board further stated that the
proposed use of EOBRs as a form of remediation or punishment may taint industry
perceptions of the technology and undermine the FMCSA’s goal of achieving
voluntary, industrywide acceptance. The Safety Board’s position, as
stated in its NPRM response, is that the only way that EOBRs can effectively
help stem hours-of-service violations, and thereby reduce accidents involving a
commercial driver’s reduced alertness or fatigue, is for the FMCSA to mandate
EOBR installation and use by all operators subject to hours-of-service regulations.
Highway
The Chelsea
accident occurred within the 25-mile-long temporary traffic control (TTC) zone 26 that comprised the Michigan Department of Transportation’s (MDOT’s) I-94
Federal Aid Bridge Rehabilitation Project. The project, which included 21
bridges along the I-94 corridor from Ann Arbor west to Jackson County (see
figure 5), began in April 2004 at separate work sites on the east and west
ends of the TTC zone and ended in May 2006. The posted speed limit within the TTC zone was 60 mph for all
vehicles.
 |
| Figure 5.
Extent of the I-94 Federal Aid Bridge Rehabilitation Project.
Merge Traffic Capacity Analysis
Since the
beginning of the rehabilitation project, witnesses reported experiencing
traffic queues as a result of work-related lane closures. One method available
to MDOT engineers to address such anticipated queues would have been to conduct
a merge traffic capacity analysis, which is used to predict the effects of lane
closure on traffic density, traffic flow, and other highway variables. The Highway Capacity Manual 2000 27 and published research on queuing
resulting from TTC zone lane closures 28 provide a process for calculating queue lengths and delays. MDOT stated that it
generally performs a merge traffic capacity analysis before starting a highway
construction project to predict the effects of lane closures on traffic queuing
but did not do so for the bridge rehabilitation project because it considered
this effort to be highway maintenance, rather than construction. When, postaccident, the Safety Board applied the analysis
process to the hourly traffic volumes from MDOT’s traffic count database, the
analysis showed that merging from two lanes to one would produce traffic queue
lengths of well over 1 mile for several hours each weekday.
Conducting a
merge traffic capacity analysis would have enabled MDOT to identify
high-density traffic zones. This information would have allowed engineers to
create a traffic control plan to better accommodate the longer traffic queues
in the eastern section of the project, thereby providing motorists with proper
warning and reducing the possibility of rear-end accidents by unprepared
drivers. MDOT could also have used data from the merge traffic capacity
analysis to properly evaluate the acceptability of traffic queues in the
western section of the project and to consider other alleviation options, such
as expanding and utilizing the left shoulder as a through lane or restricting
maintenance to nighttime and weekend hours.
On
April 30, 2007, MDOT informed the Safety Board that it would begin
conducting merge traffic capacity analyses for all work zone projects by
October 12, 2007, as part of an effort to comply with updated regulatory
language in 23 CFR Part 630, Subpart J. 29 These regulations require each State to implement a work zone policy that
systematically considers and manages the safety and mobility impacts of all
Federal-aid highway projects. States are required to create processes and
procedures to implement and sustain these policies and are further required to
collect and analyze data to continually improve upon these processes and
procedures.
Traffic Control Devices
According to MDOT, as the I-94 rehabilitation
project progressed, TTC devices at individual work sites were to have been
removed or covered. During its postaccident investigation, the Safety Board
discovered several TTC devices in place at apparently completed or inactive
work sites. For example, investigators found inactive work sites with “Road
Work Ahead” signs in place and no “End Road Work” signs to indicate the end of
the TTC zone. MDOT regional traffic engineering and construction supervisors,
as well as personnel from MDOT headquarters, subsequently acknowledged this
lack of continuity in TTC placement.
In 2005,
MDOT instituted a pilot policy for a limited number of work zone projects that
it stated significantly reduced the number of deficient, inadequate, or improperly placed TTC devices. Under the policy, if an MDOT engineer documents a TTC device that is deficient,
inadequate, or improperly placed, the engineer immediately notifies the highway
contractor that it has 4 hours to correct the problem. If it is not corrected
within 4 hours, the contractor is to be fined $100 per hour until the problem
is corrected. 30 In
2007, MDOT implemented this policy for work zone projects statewide.
Probable Cause
The National
Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the
July 16, 2004, multiple-vehicle accident near Chelsea, Michigan, was the
accident driver’s failure to stop upon encountering traffic congestion in a
temporary traffic control zone likely due to a reduced state of alertness
associated with failure to obtain adequate rest. Contributing to the accident
were Equity Transportation Company, Inc.’s, insufficient regard for, and
oversight of, driver compliance with Federal commercial motor vehicle
hours-of-service regulations , which endangered the safety of its drivers and the traveling public; the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s failure to require motor carriers to use tamperproof driver’s logs; and the Michigan Department of Transportation’s failure to conduct a
merge traffic capacity analysis as part of a bridge rehabilitation project.
Recommendations
As a result
of this accident investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board made
the safety recommendations listed below. For more information about these
recommendations, see the Board’s safety recommendation letters 31 to the recipients.
To the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration:
Require all interstate commercial vehicle carriers to use electronic on-board recorders that collect and maintain data concerning driver hours of service in a valid, accurate, and secure manner under all circumstances, including accident conditions, to enable the carriers and their regulators to monitor and assess hours-of-service compliance. (H-07-41)
As an
interim measure and until industrywide use of electronic on-board recorders is
mandated, as recommended in Safety Recommendation H-07-41, prevent log tampering
and submission of false paper logs by requiring motor carriers to create and
maintain audit control systems that include, at a minimum, the retention of all
original and corrected paper logs and the use of bound and sequentially
numbered logs. (H-07-42)
To Equity Transportation Company,
Inc.:
Implement a
driver log review program that accounts for, tracks, and audits all
modifications to paper logs and that also collects and retains all available
electronic supporting documentation to verify driver compliance with Federal
commercial driver hours-of-service regulations. (H-07-43)
BY THE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD
Mark V. Rosenker Deborah
A. P. Hersman
Chairman Member
ROBERT L. SUMWALT Kathryn
O’leary Higgins
Vice
Chairman Member
STEVEN
R. CHEALANDER
Member
Adopted: December 4,
2007
|
_____________________________________________
6 “,”eds., and , Third EditionPA: W.B. Saunders Company, 2000.
NTSB
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