Claims that disclosure of data related to the Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 program will have disastrous consequences for many trucking companies fail to acknowledge that similar data has been available for more than a decade without causing such problems, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration told a federal appeals court Monday, Dec. 6. Moreover, various arguments that the new data is misleading and inaccurate “do not withstand scrutiny,” the agency said. FMCSA was responding to a motion for an emergency stay filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit last week by three trucking organizations.
The inability to show irreparable harm is one of three principal reasons FMCSA says that the groups haven’t met the criteria for justifying a stay. The agency said that it did not need to use notice-and-comment rulemaking because the actions in launching CSA does not establish or amend any law, standard or rule concerning the federal determination of whether a carrier is sufficiently safe to operate a motor vehicle. “It instead establishes a procedure for concentrating the agency’s limited enforcement resources where they are needed most.” And public interest weighs heavily against a stay because it “would deprive the entire industry of better information on safety performance and impair the Secretary’s ability to implement procedures proven to be successful in targeting enforcement resources where they are needed most,” FMCSA said.
Although CSA’s Safety Measurement System looks at inspection and crash data in a different way than SafeStat, the type of information available to the public is the same, FMCSA said. Even the percentile rankings that have generated the most concerns with CSA are available for safety evaluation areas within SafeStat. And as with SafeStat, the data alone will not be used — at least not now — to establish a safety fitness determination, the agency said.
“The safety measurement system will compile safety data,” FMCSA told the court. “But it does not establish or modify any federal safety standard. And though the system will rank carriers’ safety performance, the percentile rankings merely reflect a carrier’s performance relative to other carriers and emphatically do not reflect a federal determination as to whether the carrier is safe enough to operate a commercial motor vehicle.”
The groups suing FMCSA are particularly concerned about the financial consequences to low-ranking carriers as shippers and freight brokers take their business elsewhere for fear of incurring vicarious liability in the event of an accident. “This contention premises a claim of harm on mere speculation as to the voluntary actions of third parties and is at odds with the historical record,” FMCSA said. “The Secretary has made similar information available to the public for more than a decade without causing the disastrous economic consequences feared by petitioners.”
In addition, FMCSA has “taken great care to bar public disclosure of data that is not fairly indicative of a carrier’s safety performance.” As with SafeStat, the public won’t have access to accident data “because such information, in its current form, does not indicate whether the carrier should be accountable for a particular crash.” And in response to concerns raised by public comment, the agency barred public access to the percentile rankings in the cargo-related data category because it may be skewed against certain industry segments.
FMCSA argued that the groups’ request would require it to choose among unacceptable options — forgoing the safety enforcement enhancements of the new system; operating a two-tiered information system bound to create public confusion; or removing all public access to safety performance data, “thus crippling the industry’s ability to use safety performance data to make important business decisions.”
The groups challenging CSA – National Association of Small Trucking Companies, The Expedite Alliance of North America and the Air & Expedited Motor Carriers Association – are set to file their reply to FMCSA this morning.
Also of Interest »
We likewise are an Indiana based carrier that have scored as "Unsafe Driving Practices". We have multiple speeding violations in the DOT inspection category that are not proven out with Uniform Traffic Citations issued by the representive law enforcement agency. Unfortunately, the USDOT funds Indiana State Police with overtime funding under the MCSAP program for supplemental commercial vehicle enforcement pay for Indiana State Troopers. The specially trained officers in this program are only authorized to perform level 2 or 3 inspections. The easy pick is to stop a truck and inform the driver he was speeding and issue an inspection for speeding and inform the driver he just needs to turn in the inspection and have the company sign off on the paper and send it in to the state. The result is the trooper gets #'s for overtime pay, the state meets its requirements for extra $'s from the Federal funding, the driver feels like he just got a pass because he did not receive a speeding ticket, and no harm was done. But now unfortunately, the drivers employer, the trucking company is branded as a motor carrier allowing unsafe driving practices. It appears to be ironic when a carrier has a safe stat score of 57 and a CSA2010 score of 80!! We have GPS tracking on our equipment that utilizes government regulated UTC time and GPS location stamps every 5 minutes that does not support the government enforcement action for speeding! I can assure you that a DataQ action is filed in each case. Unfortunately, the same enforcement agency that hires the officer will be the judge and jury for the outcome of any DataQ action! I think most of us know where the outcome of those decisions will land. Many of us remember the struggles our industry went thru with inspections and all the troubles we incurred with Tennessee several years ago. I believe the formation of CVSA and an increased involvement of the industry have helped, but CSA2010 needs equal non bias industry involvement in it to fix and improve the system to be fair to all.
We have had our driver's pulled over in Indiana as well with no real reason. Our driver's were also told that they would be hitting heavy in their state by the officer's.
We have had officers state our truck was speeding over the governed limit on our tractors or our driver will have his cruse control set at a certain speed so he knows what speed he was going when pulled over. Our companies are basically in the hands of the officers that pull us over and inspect us out there on the road and at scale houses. Over the years the safety of the trucks has improved. I do feel that when CSA 2010 is released there are going to be many trucking companies that are deficient in several areas and those numbers maybe skewed by the officers issuing citations and inspections that are not truthful just to get their numbers up.
Welcome to the Canadian way of doing things. CSA 2010 is really not a whole lot different than Ontario's CVOR system other than this ... each violation costs you points, but you don't get any marks for good inspections.
One major advantage to CSA 2010 over CVOR is that you have the opportunity to defend yourself. Under CVOR you don't get that opportunity until you are invited to sit before a board and explain yourself, and regardless of your evidence and explanations, your guilt is a foregone conclusion.
It seems, to me anyways, that the idea behind these safety initiatives, flawed though they may appear to be, is to take commercial trucks out of the accident equation. Once that is done, you can expect, in a fair and equal environment, for the safety administrations to take on the general motoring public. None of us will likely live that long, but there it is anyways.
Michael.
This is another case of bureaucrats that have no responsibility to any one dreaming up new ways to hamper industry. It is all under the guise of safety when in fact it is their aim to be in control without having to answer for anything.
Government is like a giant leach. Once it get a hold on you, it's tentacles just go deeper and deeper and always with the idea that they are really trying to help. I wish I could laugh but it just is not funny.
The driver and the company are wrong...that is FMCSA's first assumption. The driver and the carrier are guilty until they prove themselves innocent, but by the time they can prove innocense the company is out of business or for the driver out of a job because no carrier will hire them.
Think that can't happen? Remember Valu Jet several years ago. They were wiped out by well meaning bureaucrats after a crash. Remember the outcome? It wasn't their fault, it was the fault of a shipper. That was a nice conclusion for a company that was now bankrupt.
Frankly FMCSA, we have had enough of bureaucrats who have no responsibility but a lot of unwarranted authority.
Everyone sees it, Nick. It's a flawed system. FMCSA is disingenuous in saying "it's the same as SafeStat". It's some of the same information, but they're skewing it in a whole new direction, especially with the Moving Violations category that they choose to call "Unsafe Driving". This is a huge red flag to the public, and it presumes all drivers guilty of every violation listed - including warnings. Carriers that run regularly in reasonable cause states are getting warnings for speeding because the cop needs some excuse to pull the truck over. Might not even be true, but it flies right on out to 2010 as fact. Indiana is a prime example. We have trucks getting pulled over there where the cop says "In my opinion you were speeding". No radar, no Lidar, not even pacing the driver. Just "In my opinion you were speeding". Then when they can't find any other violation, the cop issues an inspection with a speed warning, which makes the driver think he's had a great day. In reality, both the company and driver have a black mark on the 2010 profile. It's a hugely flawed system that needs a lot of fine tuning and further input from the stakeholders before it goes public and gets used to rate carriers.
Its different because under SAFESTAT my company is fine, but CSA already has me listed as deficient. We area small company, and when one Inspection results in a marker light out. and a scuffed airline, neither of which are OOS DOT treats them now like they are. And those are 2 violations....But If I get a good inspection, it only counts as 1 goodone. Doesnt anyone else see that???
I wonder if the railroads fall under the same scrutiny as our industry,with all the laws, regulations and penalties that we battle through each day? No they have been pampered through their entire existence and even moreso as they government has taken over the reins of how they should operate. As long as the RR does what they are told they will be fine. The feds idea of better trucking is to make it bow to them as all the other industries have had to do, by making it impossible to do business without them. Just look at what they have changed in our industry in the past year, more controls on our powerless engines,newer controls on engines,hours of service changes,CSA stranglehold and the list continues!
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