FMCSA to Raise Hazmat Oversight

By Jonathan S. Reiskin and Eric Miller, Staff Reporters

This story appears in the March 26 print edition of Transport Topics.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has decided to raise the importance of hazmat handling under its new safety rating program, while it will reduce the emphasis on load securement.

Administrator Anne Ferro also told Transport Topics last week that the agency soon will reveal what it will do about criticism of its crash accountability standards and said she is likely to make future alterations in the program — called Compliance, Safety, Accountability — as necessary.

Speaking here during the Mid-America Trucking Show, Ferro said on March 22 she was making the change because hazmat accidents “can be so severe” when they occur. “If there’s not compliance [by carriers], it’s important to know.”

CSA, FMCSA’s primary safety enforcement program, includes seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories, or BASICs, under which motor carriers are judged.

The agency will elevate hazardous materials issues to its own category under CSA. Up to now, hazmat has fit under the cargo securement BASIC. The agency will move the other portions involving load securement to the vehicle maintenance BASIC.

During an interview here, Ferro said the change will be announced formally in the Federal Register during the week of March 26, and immediately afterward, FMCSA will post revised CSA scores.

Meanwhile, American Trucking Associations said last week that, despite recent improvements, trucking has concerns that the federal government’s CSA scoring system is not accurately predicting some carriers’ crash risk.

In a letter to Ferro last week, ATA President Bill Graves called on the agency to make changes to the program based on its “list of flaws.”

Graves said ATA “continues to be concerned with limitations in both the underlying data and methodology used to develop motor carriers’ CSA scores.”

ATA based its comments on advice from its CSA working group and a summary of an evaluation of FMCSA’s 2008-2010 operational model test of CSA in nine states, said Rob Abbott, ATA’s vice president of safety policy.

The CSA program, which went live in December 2010, was designed as a tool to help the agency and industry become more effective in reducing crashes. One of ATA’s biggest concerns has been the lack of a process that would accurately eliminate from a carrier and driver’s record a crash that could not be avoided or was not the driver’s fault.

Although CSA crash indicator scores are not publicly available, details of carrier-involved crashes are shown on a website, ATA said.

At MATS, Ferro advised carrier managers to inspect the revised BASIC scores immediately, during the preview stage, before the numbers go public.

Ferro said the scoring enhancements will not be infrequent and possibly could be made every six to 12 months.

On accountability, Ferro said she was close to releasing a proposal in the Federal Register until she read an advisory committee report in February that raised a number of questions. “Does this change end in a result that makes for a sharper tool? We have to test that premise,” she said.

Police accident reports are primary sources of data, but Ferro said she would like to find out how uniform they are across the nation.

With more than 100,000 crash reports per year, it will be a challenge to manage the reports and use them fairly. Using the reports for basic information is one thing, Ferro said, “but industry is asking for a different process. Making a determination based on the reports is very different.”

FMCSA is studying the issue internally and with help from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Right now, Ferro said, she does not know how long the process will take.

“Shippers/brokers often require carriers to reveal their private crash indicator scores as a condition of doing business and use them as a factor in selecting carriers,” ATA said.

Earlier this month, the agency said it had delayed its plans for the crash accountability process because several critical areas needed further review and study — including concerns expressed by some public interest groups over the reliability of police accident reports.

ATA also said FMCSA should erase from a carrier’s safety record a violation that was dismissed in court.

Similarly, CSA methodology applies the same severity weight to moving violations that result in warnings as those that result in citations, ATA said.

Although motor carriers can obtain a driver applicant’s history of roadside inspections and violations, they cannot obtain the scores that show how a driver performs in relation to the entire driving population, ATA said.

ATA also said many of the violation severity weights are inappropriate, given their relative relationship to crash risk.

For instance, within the placarding group are violations for “failing to placard” and “placard not mounted horizontally.” Violations in both categories carry the same penalty — 5 points.

“Naturally, if the regulations have little or no documented relationship to crash risk, the value of placing such emphasis on them is highly questionable,” ATA said.

ATA also said FMCSA should:

• Rename the CSA Fatigued Driving BASIC to the Hours of Service BASIC because most violations are for logbook “paperwork.”

• Redefine a hazardous materials carrier to one that has hauled placarded quantities in the prior 12 months.

• Develop a process to normalize violation data for states that issue a substantially disproportionate number of violations of a particular type, such as speeding.

• Revise severity weights to better reflect the relative risk of load securement violations to open deck vehicles.

• Mask the Driver Fitness BASIC from public view because scores in the category have a negative statistical correlation with crash rates.

• Improve the agency’s ineffective and slow DataQs process designed to help carriers correct erroneous data.