The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will research how it could assign blame for truck crashes based on a carrier’s fault, and publish the results of its study in summer 2013, the agency said Monday.
FMCSA’s research plan also revealed that a 2010 agency study found police reports to be a reliable source for determining crash accountability
The agency will study whether police reports from crashes “are a sufficient, consistent and reliable source of information on which to base a weighted crash system,” it said in an outline of its plan and schedule for conducting the research, posted Monday on its website.
It will also study whether assigning crash accountability would allow it to predict a carrier’s risk of future crashes better than the current system, which assigns blame in the agency’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability program no matter the carrier’s fault, it said.
This research will also evaluate whether a crash fault system would be worth its cost.
The research will conclude in the summer of 2013, at which point FMCSA will release its findings and seek public input on its next steps.
The trucking industry has criticized FMCSA for assigning responsibility to carriers regardless of accountability. Criticisms have stepped up since March, when FMCSA said it would delay a crash accountability system indefinitely.
