NTSB Urges Federal Audit of FMCSA Fleet Oversight

This story appears in the Nov. 11 print edition of Transport Topics.

The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended that the government audit the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration because recent accidents raise “serious questions about the oversight of motor carrier investigations.”

NTSB said it is concerned FMCSA missed “red flags” prior to four fatal collisions, two involving trucks and two involving buses. Together, the crashes resulted in 25 deaths and 83 injuries, the agency said.

NTSB questioned the quality of FMCSA’s compliance checks of the companies, as well as FMCSA’s “increasing reliance” on narrow reviews that examine only a “limited portion of the commercial operation.”

“While FMCSA deserves recognition for putting bad operators out of business, they need to crack down before crashes occur, not just after high-visibility events,” NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said in a statement. “Our investigators found that, in many cases, the poor performing company was on FMCSA’s radar for violations but was allowed to continue operating and was not scrutinized closely until they had deadly crashes.”

FMCSA defended its record, saying it has more than tripled the number of unsafe carriers and drivers it has ordered out of service.

In 2012, FMCSA closed 47 bus and truck companies, compared with 10 in 2011, according to the agency.

“We have also brought together key safety, industry and enforcement organizations to ask for their help and support our efforts,” FMCSA said in a statement. “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.”

NTSB’s 14-page document urged the Department of Transportation to audit FMCSA’s compliance review processes. NTSB specifically recommended examining “why inspectors are not identifying all violations of safety regulations by motor carriers undergoing review” and “why the FMCSA’s quality assurance efforts are not fully effective in assessing the accuracy and completeness of compliance reviews.”

American Trucking Associations said NTSB’s recommendations on safety “emphasize the need for the Obama administration to accelerate efforts to mandate electronic logging devices” in trucks and improve fleet safety monitoring and measurement systems.

“ATA is a strong believer that electronic logging would go a long way toward improving hours-of-service compliance,” ATA President Bill Graves said in a statement. “NTSB’s finding that a truck driver in a fatal crash, and many of his co-workers, routinely carried two logbooks is unacceptable and would have been prevented by the use of a mandatory electronic logging device.”

In its report, NTSB blamed FMCSA for failing earlier this year to examine the hours-of-service records during a review of Highway Star, a Michigan-based carrier, just days before one of the company’s drivers rear-ended a vehicle on Interstate 65 in Kentucky, killing six people. Following 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 Tennessee. After the crash, FMCSA rated the carrier as “conditional,” which allowed it to continue operating.

NTSB also cited two deadly bus crashes during the past 12 months, with one company based in Mexico and the other in Canada.

In each case, FMCSA previously rated the company “satisfactory.” However, NTSB said that with the advent of the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program in 2010, FMCSA has “an expanded set of interventions, including focused reviews that evaluate only an identified area of the carrier’s operation based on a data-driven analysis.”

ATA Chairman Philip Byrd Sr. said, “At issue here is how FMCSA uses its limited resources to focus on problem carriers. FMCSA must improve its CSA program to better identify carriers more likely to be involved in future crashes.”

“I think the question is whether these particular crashes that the NTSB studied are isolated, or is there a larger issue that the agency needs to investigate?” said Stephen Keppler, executive director of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.

Keppler added, “They were going down this path already. I’ve had several discussions with them. They’ve already revamped their investigative procedures for motor coach carriers, and they were in the process of taking a similar approach to move them into all their compliance reviews.”

The Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, which has pushed for a shorter driver day for commercial drivers, said in a statement the recommendations “emphasize the severe lack of oversight” of truck and bus operators that have poor safety records.

“The investigations point out that the FMCSA is allowing companies and drivers with poor safety records to operate on our highways, despite multiple violations and inadequate management,” Advocates President Jackie Gillan said in the statement.

Staff Reporter Michele Fuetsch contributed to this story.