FMCSA Official Defends CSA, New App; Truckers Express Concern, Frustration
This story appears in the April 6 print edition of Transport Topics.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A senior Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration official defended the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program and the recently unveiled smartphone app designed to facilitate access to the program’s ratings and performance data.
“The bottom line is, regardless of fault, past crashes are the greatest predictor of future crashes. That might not feel fair . . . but from a purely statistical, risk-management approach, it doesn’t matter. A crash is a crash is a crash, in terms of its predictive value,” Anne Collins, FMCSA’s associate administrator for field operations, said at a March 28 seminar at the Mid-America Trucking Show.
Collins encouraged drivers to download the recently introduced QCMobile app, saying that doing so would ultimately improve highway safety. The app, which was launched March 17, retrieves data from FMCSA’s network recorded in the CSA system.
“Having that information right at your fingertips is something that everybody can do,” Collins said. “It works pretty well.”
Parts of the CSA program have largely been unpopular with a number of drivers, several of whom expressed their concerns and frustration at the seminar.
Lamar Remizinski, a driver from Pennsylvania, told Transport Topics he would like to see the agency either block CSA scores from public view or do away with the system.
“I hear what [Collins] is saying, but if an accident is not your fault, then you should not be penalized. That seems very reasonable to me,” he said.
Other truck drivers echoed Remizinski’s sentiment.
“Look around, most of the drivers here are not young. We’re older, and we know what we’re doing. If [FMCSA] keeps doing this to us, they’re going to lose good drivers — really good drivers,” Pauly Stimsons, who said he operates heavy-duty vehicles throughout the Midwest, told TT.
None of the approximately 50 truck drivers who attended the workshop praised CSA.
The methodology behind the CSA system and new app has come under fire after a critical report was published March 4 by a federal government watchdog.
The Government Accountability Office concluded FMCSA had demonstrated challenges in its reliability of CSA’s safety measurement system in predicting carrier crashes as well as determining the prevalence of chameleon carriers — firms that dissolve and reform under a new name.
The report also determined the agency had not adopted a GAO recommendation that it revise aspects of the program’s methodology. Susan Fleming, GAO director of physical infrastructure issues and the report’s author, told TT last month that CSA scores are “probably fine for targeting enforcement efforts, but again, based on our analysis, we don’t feel they are reliable enough to compare safety performance across carriers.”
GAO’s findings also prompted a response from transportation leaders on Capitol Hill. Sen. John Thune
(R-S.D.), chairman of the influential Commerce Committee, has said he plans to introduce a bill that would overhaul CSA.
Likewise, Sen. Deb Fischer
(R-Neb.), who oversees the chamber’s trucking subpanel on the Commerce Committee, indicated that she is readying legislation that would take aim at FMCSA’s truck safety rules. She said at a hearing last week that the CSA “program is deeply flawed.”
The trucking industry also has raised concerns about CSA, largely because the agency is making carrier crash data publicly available without specifying who is at fault in a crash.
On March 25, American Trucking Associations leaders urged FMCSA to change CSA’s safety measurement system so that crashes, regardless of blame, are not posted on the list of carriers on the agency’s website.
“FMCSA’s failure to address this real flaw is especially egregious in light of its push to make CSA scores easier for the public to access and its encouragement that the public make decisions based on what they know to be faulty information,” ATA President Bill Graves said in a statement.
The federation also criticized QCMobile, calling on the agency to make the app unavailable to the public.
“It is wholly inappropriate for FMCSA to encourage and facilitate public access and use,” ATA spokesman Sean McNally said.
