Carriers That Use Driver Screening Program See Lower Crash Rates, FMCSA Says

Trucking companies using the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Pre-Employment Screening Program reduced their crash rates by 15%, with midsize carriers seeing even greater improvements, according to a recent FMCSA study.

Overall, motor carriers that use the system to screen driver applicants saw an 8% greater reduction in crash rates than companies that don’t access the system and a 17% bigger drop in driver-related out-of-service orders than carriers not using the PSP system, according to the study.

“The PSP is still a relatively new program, and its use is continuing to expand within the motor carrier industry,” FMCSA researchers wrote in an October report. “Thus, performing this type of analysis in following years may provide additional insight into the effectiveness of the PSP.”

PSP and non-PSP groups saw a reduction in crashes that “aligns with the recent decrease in total [commercial motor vehicle] crashes” during that snapshot in time, but PSP groups saw greater gains in their safety record, according to the study.

PSP, launched in May 2010 as required by legislation, enabled motor carriers to screen driver applicants through a database for the most recent five years of crash records and three years of roadside inspection data from FMCSA’s Motor Carrier Management Information System. Records are available electronically online for a fee and must be obtained with the driver’s consent.

Drivers also can use the system to purchase a copy of their records.

The study compared crash rates and driver-related out-of-service orders for the 5,476 motor carriers that used the database, looking at safety records from the 12-month period prior to the start of the PSP system and the 12-month period after. The information then was compared with the 424,943 carriers that had not requested information from the PSP system.