Trucking Wary of ‘Beyond Compliance’

This story appears in the June 27 & July 4 print edition of Transport Topics.

The trucking industry generally supports the idea of a Beyond Compliance program that would give extra credit to motor carriers that improve safety programs or deploy safety technologies before they are required by regulation, but the process is still not without suspicion.

A sampling of written comments filed with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration last week revealed concern that such a program could give large carriers with greater resources an advantage over small, financially strapped carriers.

“Ultimately, the success of a Beyond Compliance initiative requires that it be widely accepted across the motor carrier industry,” the National Transportation Safety Board wrote. “Constrained by tight budgets, many carriers and owner-operators are reluctant to fund and implement nonmandatory safety initiatives.”

The initiative, a congressional mandate, is aiming to offer interstate motor carriers a reward and public recognition through the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program for voluntarily installing advanced safety equipment, enhancing driver fitness measures and implementing fleet safety ­management tools and technologies.

American Trucking Associations said that it supports the concept, but it does not believe FMCSA should create an eighth CSA rating category, or BASIC, nor does it support banning carriers with conditional or unsatisfactory ratings to participate.

“This program must not be seen or created as another punitive enforcement program,” ATA said. “It must not rate or compare motor carriers, as doing so would have a chilling effect on participation. Instead, it must be focused on rewarding carriers for a commitment to safety that surpasses minimum compliance.”

The Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety said it does support a new special rating category to reward forward-thinking carriers whose safety programs and technologies show results.

“Utilizing a scaled system to more accurately reflect the extent and breadth of actions undertaken by the carrier will provide a more effective incentive for carriers to realize the greatest safety improvements under the program,” the nonprofit safety group wrote. “Moreover, carriers that deploy programs and technologies with the most significant improvements should be given comparatively greater recognition than other carriers that just meet the bare mini- mum qualifications of the program.”

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association said its members are concerned that Beyond Compliance has the potential to give an advantage only to the small number of large motor carriers that can afford costly new technologies and business processes.

“If these larger motor carriers are rewarded with better public safety scores, then small-business motor carriers would likely see their scores downgraded without any actual change in their safety performance,” the organization said.

Truckload carrier Schneider said it envisions that a carrier can apply to be certified under the program, with each component that has been implemented listed on the certification, and then is issued credits.

“A carrier could then redeem the credits by selecting from different incentive options,” Schneider wrote. “This certification would remain in place as long as the carrier’s DOT recordable crash rates remain better than the national average.”

Data analysis firm Vigillo Inc. said the program should use a “clear, objectively measurable outcome . . . lower crash rates.”

“Who is to say whether one carrier finds great effectiveness in ELDs or speed limiters, while a second carrier has great success by retaining good drivers with more comfy mattresses in the sleeper and a third pays salaries and gets the driver home on weekends through better route planning,” Vigillo wrote. “It does not matter, and the FMCSA does not have to try and select technologies or services or programs that they imagine might work. Stop imagining and just measure the objective results.”

The Minnesota Trucking Association said it opposes the implementation of a Beyond Compliance program.

The trucking association said it believes FMCSA should work to improve CSA safety measurement system data to predict future crash risk before adding to its complexity with another BASIC rating category.

“MTA also believes that a Beyond Compliance program would put some carriers at a disadvantage, costing them business,” the association said.