Trucking and CSA Reform: The $64,000 Question
Photo: FMCSA
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Photo: FMCSA
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“That’s the $64,000 question,” Steve Bryan replied when I asked him the other day whether having a supposedly pro-business administration in place will ensure reform of the Compliance, Safety, Accountability enforcement regime laid out by a new National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report will ultimately be implemented by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
NAS last week publicly released its congressionally mandated report that provides a road map to reforming CSA. Boiled way down, the 132-page report calls for setting CSA scores via a methodology based on a wider pool of data (including driver compensation, vehicle miles traveled by state, and other factors) that would be phased in over two years to replace the current system.
By and large, trucking lobbyists swooned over the report— not surprising given the industry has long held that the existing Safety Measurement System used to ID commercial motor vehicle carriers at high risk for future crashes is highly defective. For example, American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear said the report “confirmed much of what we have said about the program for some time. The program, while a valuable enforcement tool, has significant shortcomings that must be addressed, and we look forward to working with FMCSA to strengthen the program.”
Likewise, David Heller, vice president of Government Affairs, for the Truckload Carriers Association said the study “reaffirms what our industry has been saying all along, that there are inconsistencies with the Safety Measurement System. Safety-minded, forward-thinking carriers like the members of TCA should be able to stand behind their safety accomplishments, and being judged on those achievements, in an equitable manner, should be the basis of what CSA is all about.”
Now, as explained in a blog post by Avery Vise, president of compliance consultancy TransComply, FMCSA has four months—120 days— …Read the rest of this story
