U.S. Truckers, Regulators Look to Canada for Help With Crash Accountability Model

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

A truck-related crash accountability system in Canada that has been in place for decades is drawing the attention of U.S. regulators and trucking industry officials.

See this week’s related editorial: ‘Toward Crash Accountability’

A Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration spokeswoman confirmed that the agency is “examining Canada’s method of determining crash accountability,” which requires police accident reports to indicate in most cases whether a motor carrier in a truck-related crash was at fault, a determination that would be reflected in a carrier’s safety profiles.

“We think the Canadian system is very straightforward and intuitive in that it basically does not assign accountability unless there was some impropriety on the part of the truck driver,” said Rob Abbott, vice president of safety policy for American Trucking Associations. “It’s a good model for what could be done here.”

Some truckers and regulatory officials in Canada said they don’t really understand a recent decision by FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro to delay a highly anticipated crash accountability program because of questions related to the “uniformity and consistency” of police accident reports.

“We really have no fear of the information that we’re getting from the police agencies,” said Doug MacEwen, chairman of the Standing Committee on Compliance and Regulatory Affairs for the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, a quasi-governmental body that plays a role in setting national standards. “We trust our police to make that determination when they fill out the collision report form.”

Geoff Wood, vice president of operations and safety for the Ontario Trucking Association, said he, too, is baffled by how the reliability of police reports could be a point of contention.

“It’s not even an issue that’s on our radar screen,” Wood told Transport Topics. “It’s hard for us to take a step back, say 20 years, and try to wrap our heads around it.”

That’s at least how long Wood figures that Canada has had a system to clearly document when a trucker is not at fault in a crash.

“One, we do have a system for determining at fault,” Wood said. “Two, it works. And three, it’s really not that complicated.”

In Canada, if a motor carrier is involved in a crash, the carrier’s safety profile — Canada’s equivalent to FMCSA’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability safety measurement system — is “weighted,” depending on the severity of the accident and the carrier’s role. A carrier’s profile typically would receive two points for a property damage crash of $1,000 or more, four points for an injury accident and six points for a fatal crash.

“Collisions where no improprieties or vehicle defects are noted on the police report appear on the carrier’s Commercial Vehicle Operator’s Registration record but do not incur points,” said Bob Nichols, a spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.

By contrast, FMCSA’s CSA program lists a carrier’s accidents on its public profile, but does not provide information about whether the carrier could not have prevented the accident or was not at fault.

However, like CSA, in Canada, when a carrier exceeds a safety performance threshold, regulatory authorities in a province will intervene with a letter, phone call or visit.

A Canadian carrier’s safety rating is a combination of collisions, convictions and Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance inspections.

The police collision report form in Canada requires the collection of information regarding the drivers and vehicles involved, road conditions, major contributing factors, sequence of events, damage severity, injuries and vehicle positions, as well as many other facts associated with the event, MacEwen said.

While carrier safety profiles may vary slightly in format among Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories, the information that is entered on police collision reports is standardized nationwide, Nichols added.

“Basically, a collision shows up on the system as preventable or nonpreventable,” said Greg Woolman, safety and compliance manager for refrigerated carrier SM Freight, Blenheim, Ontario. “So we don’t get lumped into one big pile whether you’re at fault or not. Unfortunately, that’s the way it comes out when you look at a CSA report.”

Woolman’s company does extensive business in the United States, and he said he likes many aspects of CSA. But he thinks FMCSA should consider following Canada’s lead on the matter of crash accountability.

“There are pros and cons to both systems,” Woolman said. “But as far as the accountability for an accident, I will say the Canadian one is better because it point-blank says ‘fault’ or ‘no fault.’ ”

Garth Pitzel, director of safety and driver development for Bison Transport, Winnipeg, Manitoba, swears by the Canadian crash accountability program, but at the same time understands that it might be difficult for FMCSA to quickly integrate an identical program.

“There probably was a pretty hard start-up in Canada when they introduced this,” he said. “But now it’s a pretty well-oiled machine.”

Bison ranks No. 68 on the Transport Topics 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.

“We had an accident where the driver of a car fell asleep and two people got killed when the car came onto our side of the roadway,” Pitzel said. “That shows up a fatality, but yet it’s zero weighted. The zero means that it wasn’t our fault. If there was a score there, then some of it would have been our fault.”

Stephen Keppler, executive director of CVSA, said his organization has taken no position on crash accountability in Canada or the United States.

He does, however, think it is a good idea to look at Canada’s process.

“Clearly, from Canada’s perspective, it works well for them and it’s doing the things that they need it to do,” Keppler said.

“But people doing crash investigations in the U.S. are trained, and they know what they’re doing,” Keppler said. “I think that people are insinuating that the crash reports that are being done here in the U.S. are not good or not accurate or factual. That’s just not the case.”