In an April 19 subcommittee hearing, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., took the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to task for “ineffective” carrier compliance reviews.
“The National Transportation Safety Board has determined that the FMCSA’s compliance review process is – in their words – ‘ineffective,'” said Murray, chair of the Senate transportation appropriations subcommittee. “I also suspect it explains why the NTSB has determined that the FMCSA responses to its recommendations in this area have been ‘unacceptable.'”
She cited Washington Post coverage of a trucker with traffic citations in seven states – including, in one state, seven license suspensions in 11 years – who was driving on a suspended license when he crashed into a vehicle on the Capital Beltway in March, killing a 33-year-old father of two.
The truck driver, who was cited for reckless driving, worked for BK Trucking of Newfield, N.J., which Murray said was on an FMCSA watch list “because of an unusually high number of accidents and deficient inspections.” The Post reported that BK Trucking, a 160-vehicle fleet, had been involved in 23 crashes since 2004. The company did not respond to eTrucker’s request for comment.
A little more than three weeks before the Beltway accident, the FMCSA did a full-scale compliance review of BK Trucking, Murray said. Inspectors found a few problems, mostly with logbooks, but found no “critical” or “acute” violations, Murray said.
Only three days after the accident, Murray said, the agency returned to the company and discovered improper lease agreements, lack of compliance with drug and alcohol testing procedures, drivers with suspended commercial driver’s licenses, failure to maintain records of state inspections, maintenance of false logbooks, failure to turn in logbooks, and failure to prepare driver inspection reports.
“So just one month after the FMCSA conducted a compliance review and found only minimal problems, the agency did another compliance review and found multiple violations and wrote up fines totaling $77,000,” Murray said.
