FMCSA Says It Can Improve Road Safety by Regulating Shippers, Freight Brokers

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said it wants to extend its regulatory reach over the next five years to include not only trucks and buses but also shippers, brokers and receivers.

The FMCSA’s proposed 2011-2016 strategic plan calls for the agency to identify gaps in current legislative and regulatory authorities that prevent it from reaching shippers, receivers, brokers and freight forwarders who “may have a deleterious effect on safety through their actions.”

The agency currently has authority to regulate truck and bus safety, but to extend its reach, it would have to seek new statutory authority from Congress, said Rob Abbott, vice president of safety policy for American Trucking Associations.

The proposal is a “good starting point” and marks the first time the agency has “indicated an interest” in safety authority over shippers and receivers, Abbott told Transport Topics.

“That is encouraging and responsive to our recommendation last fall that they do so,” Abbott said.

“I think the concern is that shippers could compel motor carriers to take loads that they shouldn’t — loads that are perhaps too heavy or take them on schedules that cannot be accomplished in a reasonable time frame within the hours-of-service limits,” Abbott added. “Not everyone in the supply chain will agree how we set those parameters and definitions. There could be some challenges.”

The plan calls for the agency to adopt a “commercial motor vehicle transportation life-cycle” concept that will enhance safety from “warehouse to boardroom.”

“The CMV transportation life-cycle concept encompasses the whole CMV transportation system, including all the entities that control or influence the operation of CMVs, and focuses on the specific responsibilities that all parties involved in the transport and logistics supply chain have for making improvements in any number of safety factors,” the FMCSA draft said.

“All entities in the CMV transportation life-cycle need to be aware of their impact on roadway safety and take responsibility for that impact,” the draft added.

The notion of holding shippers and receivers accountable for “unduly delaying” truckers was endorsed in April by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (4-25, p. 4).

In a letter to FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro, David Parker, chairman of the 19-member advisory panel, said the agency should seek legal authority to take action against entities other than motor carriers or drivers that cause or contribute to FMCSA safety violations.

Also, in February, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) introduced a bill that would require the Department of Transportation to establish a minimum number of hours that truckers may be detained at loading docks without being compensated. The bill has been referred to a House subcommittee (2-28, p. 28).

The draft strategic plan, published in the Federal Register on June 29, is shaped by three “core principles,” the agency said.

The three general principles include raising the bar to enter the motor carrier industry; maintaining standards to remain in the industry; and removing high-risk carriers, drivers and service providers from operation.

A spokesman for the National Retail Federation said last week that the group is still discussing the strategic plan with its members and has not yet taken a position on the document.

Peter Gatti, executive vice president of the National Industrial Transportation League, said the FMCSA strategic plan is a “conceptual document,” and doubted that it meant the agency would actually pursue additional statutory authority over shippers.

A shipper already would incur a liability if he asked a trucker to break the law or used a motor carrier with a bad safety record, Gatti said.

“I don’t read this as asking for expanded authority,” Gatti said. “But conceptually speaking, anything that goes to creating a safer operating environment is certainly something that this organization firmly supports.”

An FMCSA spokesman declined comment on the specifics of the proposal, saying the agency wanted first to hear from the public. The agency is accepting public comments on the long-term plan though July 29.

ATA is recommending that FMCSA use a “chain of responsibility” plan currently being used by Australia’s National Transport Commission as the basis for discussion.

First adopted in the 2004, the Australian plan is targeted to punish those who put drivers’ lives and other lives at risk or gain an unfair competitive advantage by breaking the law.

Abbott said ATA also was encouraged that the strategic plan also discussed the monitoring of high-risk drivers and setting up a drug clearinghouse to help employers keep track of drivers who have failed drug tests.

“Frankly, we were just a little disappointed that FMCSA didn’t adopt our suggestion to implement a more basic approach to identify the principal causes of crashes, then identify the most appropriate countermeasures and prioritize implementing those countermeasures,” Abbott said.