Editorial: Improving CSA

It appears that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is listening to trucking, at least somewhat.

With its recent announcement that the agency was going forward with changes to its Compliance, Safety, Accountability safety program, FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro noted some modifications that were made taking into account trucking’s responses to the original proposal.

The primary focus of the changes have to do with how the agency deals with hazardous materials shipments by fleets and a number of other things, including a perceived bias of the safety program against flatbed carriers.

Ferro said the new changes would cause only “modest” changes in most carriers’ safety percentile scores “but enough to sharpen our focus on the carriers that need to have our focus.”

ATA President Bill Graves replied that, “These changes, while appreciated, point to the issue ATA has been urging FMCSA to address for some time: CSA scores are not necessarily indicative of elevated crash risk. Several studies have told us this, and FMCSA’s changes indicate they believe it as well.”

Among other things, Ferro said hazmat-related safety scores will not be made public until December 2013, as FMCSA continues to make adjustments to the CSA regimen.

Several carrier executives have said they were shocked by the preliminary scores their fleets received under the proposed hazmat changes, and they registered their objections in formal filings with FMCSA. It was those concerns and others that the agency was responding to when it presented its modified changes late in August. (Details of the changes can be seen on p. 1 of this week’s issue.)

However, FMCSA said it disagreed with many of the comments, in maintaining much of its original proposal, to trucking’s dismay.

FMCSA did say that it would not subject carriers to more stringent oversight unless they have at least two hazmat vehicle inspections in the previous 24 months — including one in the past 12 months — and if at least 5% of the fleet’s total inspections involved placarded hazmat loads.

But the agency brushed aside carrier comments that many of the violations involved paperwork or placard violations, and thus didn’t have a direct impact on carriers’ safety performance.

The agency said such violations placed safety responders and others at risk and thus were serious enough to require stricter oversight.

In general, we’re glad that FMCSA is listening to us somewhat. But we’d like it a lot better if the agency was listening more closely.