Trucking Industry Expresses Support For FMCSA Plan to Reward Safety Steps

Trucking groups and industry suppliers expressed support for a plan that would give motor carriers extra credit for instituting safety measures ahead of regulatory mandates but  did not agree on all of the details.

Many of the approximately 50 written comments posted on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s website suggested that carriers who install safety technologies or implement safety programs be rewarded with some sort of adjustment to their Compliance, Safety, Accountability scores.

The comments were made in response to an April 23 informational request on the agency’s “Beyond Compliance” concept.

“American Trucking Associations applauds FMCSA for considering the concept of recognizing motor carriers who go beyond mere compliance in their pursuit of safety,” the trucking trade federation wrote. “This program would help alter a challenging paradigm by changing FMCSA from an agency that takes an enforcement-centric approach to one that recognizes the safety benefits of incenting and rewarding safe behavior.”

Despite supporting the concept, ATA said it believes the agency has many important issues to address outside of this proposal that should take precedence.

“Not the least of these is necessary improvements to the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program,” ATA added.

Many of the commenters suggested that deploying any of a variety of safety technologies would be deserving of extra credit.

For example, the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association said they should include brake stroke monitoring systems, lane departure warning and blind spot detection systems, automatic emergency braking systems, trailer-based stability control systems, electronic stability control systems, driver monitoring and electronic logging devices.

MEMA also suggested that carriers receive credit for voluntarily employing administrative safety management tools and technologies. Those include systems that promptly alert carriers to driver licensing actions, use alternative testing methods to detect illegal drug use and deploy systems that provide data analytics and video alerts about unsafe driving behavior.

Werner Enterprises added speed governors, simulation training, adaptive cruise control, tire pressure monitoring systems, navigation and equipment monitoring to the list of technologies that merit consideration for extra credit.

FMCSA also should consider such safety program best practices as recurrent safety training, pre-employment screening, voluntary employer notification systems, sleep apnea testing and treatment, preventive maintenance safety practices, fatigue management plans, predictive analytics, health and wellness incentives and simulation training, Werner said.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association expressed doubts about the safety value of the Beyond Compliance concept, particularly for smaller carriers.

OOIDA said it regarded Beyond Compliance as “largely being driven by technology firms whose primary interest is financial and by large carriers, who have already adopted technology but have not realized real improvement to their safety scores.”

“OOIDA believes that proponents of technology are not sure that they can measurably improve motor carrier crash rates,” the association said. “FMCSA has expressed doubt that it even has the resources to verify each motor carrier’s adoption of new technology.”

But Steve Bryan, CEO of data analytics provider Vigillo, said Beyond Compliance “should consider something beyond obvious.”

“Who is to say whether one carrier finds great effectiveness in ELDs or speed limiters, while a second carrier has great success by retaining good drivers with more comfy mattresses in the sleeper and a third pays salaries and gets the driver home on weekends through better route planning?” Bryan wrote. “It does not matter, and the FMCSA does not have to try and select technologies or services or programs that they imagine might work. Stop imagining and just measure the objective results.”

National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Christopher Hart, said that while the agency does not have any comments on which incentives to use in the Beyond Compliance program, it “does wish to comment on what the incentives should not be.”

“It has been proposed that the CSA safety measurement system be modified to provide an incentive to carriers to implement safety programs and technology,” Hart wrote. “The NTSB is concerned that this approach would limit the FMCSA in its ability to oversee the safety of carriers and the usefulness of the scores in evaluating the benefits of the programs and technologies.

“Furthermore, changing the scoring methodology would affect the validity of the safety scores for grouping carriers with an increased crash risk.”