Opinion: Please, DOT, Flip the Switch for PSP
By Boyd Stephenson
Manager, Security and Cross-Border Operations
American Trucking Associations
This Opinion piece appears in the July 4 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
When the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration finally launched its Pre-Employment Screening Program in May 2010, it represented a huge leap forward for improving the safety of America’s highways.
For the first time, motor carriers, with a signed consent form, could investigate years’ worth of a driver’s inspection and accident history stored in FMCSA’s online databases. ATA requested that the agency release this information almost a decade ago, but FMCSA had trouble warming to the idea of a searchable database of driver history.
Later, ATA’s advocacy brought the program into the 2005 highway reauthorization act. Although this program represents a significant step forward — 380,000 driver searches in its first year prove that — the program must expand if it is to achieve its full potential. PSP currently has issues both with access and pricing, and the two are closely intertwined. Expanding access and lowering prices will improve the program.
Presently, only motor carriers with a U.S. Department of Transportation number are eligible to enroll in PSP. This precaution, enacted to protect driver privacy, seems legitimate until one considers how most carriers perform due diligence on a prospective driver employee.
Carriers routinely use commercial vetting services. These third-party vetting services will compile comprehensive reports about the prospective employee’s motor vehicle records, drug and alcohol usage history, and creditworthiness in order to get a picture of the applicant. Unfortunately, motor carriers that want to take advantage of this information, in addition to utilizing their vetting service, must order a separate PSP report.
Several other actors with legitimate need for this information are currently restricted from accessing it, including intrastate trucking companies and driver staffing companies.
This expanded access is sometimes referred to as PSP 2.0. FMCSA’s contractor already has made the necessary changes to its software. Expanded access and the ability to integrate PSP data into larger reports could happen literally at the flip of a switch.
What’s holding the process up? No one’s really sure. The approval forms have been at DOT for almost a year now.
Linked with the related Compliance, Safety, Accountability program that scores motor carriers, PSP has potential to improve safety dramatically on America’s highways.
CSA, properly implemented, should target motor carriers with the weakest safety performance. Research tells us that a driver with a history of violations is most likely a driver with a future of violations. Although a driver’s offenses before being employed by a carrier do not affect the hiring carrier’s score, PSP allows carriers to spot risky drivers and avoid the likely violations that come with hiring them.
The second issue surrounding PSP is the price of a search. A carrier must pay $10 per search on top of a yearly subscription fee.
More than 99% of trucking companies qualify as small businesses. Ten dollars doesn’t seem like much, and it isn’t to a motor carrier with only a few trucks. But, as the volume of applicants increases, the cost of searching becomes prohibitive.
ATA surveyed its membership about plans for using PSP when hiring drivers. Among all carriers — but especially among small- and medium-size ones — the cost of a search was the number one reason for not participating in PSP. Without a lower price per search, PSP is not likely to achieve the industrywide reach necessary to achieve its full safety potential.
Although PSP is a government service, the searchable database is operated by a for-profit contractor working at FMCSA’s behest. It has stated that if prices are to fall, only increased volume will allow it to bring in the revenue necessary to operate the program. At 380,000 searches in the first year, that means the contractor already generated $3.8 million in search fees alone. To be fair, that company agreed to set up the online database at no cost to the government, and it has every right to recoup its sunken costs.
Now that the contractor has an idea of who will pay and where the price points fall, there is an opportunity to increase profits by lowering the price of a search while simultaneously expanding the pool of PSP searches.
Who are the natural constituencies to increase the number of searches and drive down the cost? I would suggest that intrastate trucking companies, background-screening companies and driver-staffing companies represent overlooked constituencies. Not coincidentally, these are the same populations that PSP 2.0 would add to the program. Adding these groups means more searches, and more searches mean that the price per search can fall, making PSP more accessible.
Every day that DOT delays approving the PSP 2.0 program is one when safety benefits are impeded. DOT should approve the PSP 2.0 program, allowing greater access to PSP information. More parties accessing PSP records means falling prices. Every PSP search that reveals an unsafe driver represents a victory for safety advocacy. For such a big win, it’s time for DOT to tell its contractor to flip that switch.
American Trucking Associations is a national trade federation for the trucking industry with headquarters in Arlington, Va., and affiliated associations in every state. ATA owns Transport Topics Publishing Group.
