Cross-Border Truck Program Limited by Strict Safety Standards, Ferro Says

This story appears in the March 21 print edition of Transport Topics.

SAN DIEGO — The United States’ new cross-border trucking initiative with Mexico will be a small-scale, “self-limiting” program because Mexican carriers will have to meet a strict set of safety standards to operate in the United States, the head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator said.

In a March 15 interview with Transport Topics, FMCSA head Anne Ferro also discussed the status of the hours-of-service rule and the agency’s decision to pay for electronic onboard recorders to be installed on Mexican trucks delivering across U.S. highways.

Ferro also offered suggestions to truckers and shippers regarding the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program.

Referring to the agreement allowing trucks from Mexico, Ferro said, “Not every Mexican carrier will be able to do this.”

Speaking here during the Truckload Carriers Association meeting, Ferro noted that just 27 Mexican fleets participated in the 2007-09 pilot program, although its original target was 100 fleets.

“They will have to have a significant willingness to commit themselves to participate,” she said, including a strong customer base. “Participation will be limited by the safety initiatives we have today.”

Any Mexican fleet that wants to operate in the United States beyond the current 20-mile border zone will have to pass a pre-authority safety audit, Ferro said.

The standards include a criminal background check, a security check by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and a requirement to hold U.S. insurance. In addition, all Mexican fleets will face full safety inspections every time they cross the border when the program begins.

Full details of the program are expected to be available “in a matter of days,” she said, and will be followed by a 30-day public comment period.

Ferro acknowledged that the agency’s requirement to pay for electronic onboard recorders for Mexican trucks that operate in the United States was a “hot button,” saying, “I think we definitely hit a sensitive point.”

To further illustrate the cross-border program’s limited scope, Ferro said just $500,000 to $700,000 was proposed in the fiscal 2012 federal budget to pay for those devices. Some sources estimate a fully equipped recorder can cost $2,000 or more.

Ferro said she suspected that part of the reason for the controversy was the timing of the cross-border trucking program — soon after FMCSA’s proposal to mandate electronic devices for 500,000 fleets that would have to be purchased at the U.S. carriers’ expense.

She reiterated the importance of the agreement to open the border at the same time that Mexico gradually lifts tariffs that have cost U.S. businesses billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, Ferro also said more than 25,000 comments on the hours-of-service proposal were filed before the March 4 closing date, and most of them were from drivers and fleets that opposed the rule.

“We are neck-deep in comments,” she said. “We tried to solicit as much input as possible. We probably got more than we expected.”

Because FMCSA is still in the HOS rulemaking process, Ferro said she could not comment on whether the comments would have an effect on the final rule, which is expected to be issued in July.

She also urged brokers and shippers who use the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program’s Safety Measurement System to make “an informed risk assessment” and use a “broad-brush approach” to assess carrier safety.

That means they should use additional sources beyond the SMS and its percentile rankings on the Behavior Analysis & Safety Improvement Categories when they make carrier qualification decisions, she said.

“Many brokers will use it to make a [carrier] decision,” she said, though the fundamental purpose of SMS “is a database that we use to prioritize our work.”

“For shippers, the message is the same,” she said. “Make an informed risk assessment, not just a blanket assessment,” based on SMS scores.

Brokers and shippers “have to recognize that they have a role in the safety of the supply chain; it is not theoretical,” Ferro told TT.

She said the agency’s main goals of “raising the bar, staying safe and getting the bad guys off the road.”

The CSA program “is an example of the federal government doing it the right way,” she told TT. “There was a broad discussion” as the program was developed, with abundant information that is easily available on websites.

When asked about predictions by fleets and trade groups that CSA would worsen the driver shortage, Ferro said, “That has been an ongoing issue for a number of years. The industry will do well to hire safe drivers.”

In her remarks March 15 to TCA, Ferro said the agency will take the next step in the CSA process later this year by proposing requirements for safety fitness determinations to replace the current “satisfactory,” “conditionally satisfactory” and “unsatisfactory” labels.

That proposal will take the form of a rulemaking, which will give trucking “a grand opportunity for some very robust comment,” she said.