Government Studies Focusing on CSA, Effectiveness of FMCSA Safety Actions

This story appears in the Nov. 18 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Department of Transportation’s inspector general’s office and a congressional watchdog agency are examining how effective federal commercial vehicle regulators are at keeping bad operators off roads.

The IG plans to publish an audit early next year that looks at the effectiveness of enforcement actions taken by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration under the agency’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability program, agency spokesman David Wonnenberg confirmed last week.

The IG report was requested by congressional leaders on the House subcommittee on Highways and Transit, according to the spokesman.

In addition, the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency that reports to Congress, is reviewing the CSA program and how well it assesses the potential safety risk posed by motor carriers, GAO spokeswoman Jennifer Ashley said. The report is expected to be finished Jan. 14.

FMCSA already had to defend its record this month after the National Transportation Safety Board faulted investigators for missing “red flags” prior to four crashes this year that killed 25 people and injured 83. NTSB, which investigates deadly transportation accidents, recommended a government audit of FMCSA’s compliance review process.

Both audits already were under way when the NTSB published its report.

FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro declined to comment through a spokesman. The agency released a statement, however, saying it would review the NTSB’s findings.

FMCSA recently stated that it stepped up enforcement, shutting down 47 bus and truck companies last year for safety violations compared with 10 in 2011.

“We are continuously looking for new ways to make our investigation methods even more effective so we shut down unsafe companies before a crash occurs and will thoroughly review the NTSB’s findings,” the agency said, reiterating its original statement from Nov. 7.

FMCSA dramatically changed the way it conducts investigations in 2010 under the CSA program. The program’s goal was to enable FMCSA inspectors to better target higher-risk carriers based on crash data and safety records of the

500,000 companies they’re charged with overseeing. The data would allow them to zero in on specific safety violations and not have to waste resources on full-blown inspections of all aspects of a company that takes more time to complete. Thus, officials would be able to inspect more companies with the same resources.

But the NTSB, in a scathing report published Nov. 7, questioned whether the new strategy was causing inspectors to miss safety violations they might have seen had they cast a wider net.

About 63% of FMCSA’s compliance reviews were “focused” on 2013, meaning they were more limited in scope, compared with 38% in 2011. FMCSA conducted an estimated 12,366 reviews in 2012, according to the NTSB report.

“The FMCSA has repeatedly testified before Congress that [compliance reviews] are time-intensive and that its staff of a few hundred investigators can conduct [compliance reviews] on only approximately 3% of active motor carriers annually,” the NTSB said in its report. “Given the limited investigative resources available, ineffective use of those resources is troubling.”

In its report, NTSB cited four fatal collisions, two of them involving trucks. The agency blamed FMCSA for failing earlier this year to examine the hours-of-service records during a review of Troy, Mich.-based carrier Highway Star just days before one of the company’s drivers rear-ended a vehicle while traveling northbound on Interstate 65 in Elizabethtown, Ky., killing six people. After the crash, FMCSA ordered the company out of service.

It also said FMCSA was aware drivers for Louisville, Ky.-based H&O Transport had a history of violating HOS rules prior to a June accident that killed two and injured six in Murfreesboro, Tenn. After the crash, FMCSA rated the carrier as “conditional,” which allowed it to continue operating.

Many of the companies that FMCSA regulates are smaller companies for which the agency may not have a lot of data. FMCSA and state authorities are trying to do the best job they can with the resources they’ve been given, said former FMCSA administrator Annette Sandberg, who ran the agency from 2003 to 2006 and now is a consultant to the trucking industry.

“I think there is clearly room for improvement — I think that’s why the two audits are under way,” Sandberg said. “But I think it’s a little premature for the NTSB to call for an audit this early without seeing what the results from the GAO and IG would be.”