Safety Board Takes FMCSA to Task Over Screening Unsafe Trucking Firms

img src="/sites/default/files/images/articles/printeditiontag_new.gif" width=120 align=right>WASHINGTON — The National Transportation Safety Board said the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration still lacks the ability to ensure unsafe trucking companies are not allowed to enter the business, despite new rules it put in place this January.

“As the system works now, anyone can become a motor carrier for at least 18 months,” said NTSB’s motor carrier accident investigator, Jim LeBerte, at a Feb. 26 hearing on a June 2002 accident in Texas involving a bus and a truck.

Following its investigation of that accident, NTSB called on FMCSA to tighten the process by which it grants operating authority to the 40,000 new fleets that start up each year.