WASHINGTON — Federal regulators are asking for public feedback on finding a new way to determine whether motor carriers are safe to operate on the nation’s roads.
In an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published on Monday, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration stated that it is not yet making specific proposals but wants input on potentially using its safety management system (SMS) methodology to issue safety fitness determinations (SFDs).
“The Agency’s current SFD process is resource-intensive and reaches only a small percentage of motor carriers,” FMCSA stated. “A successful SFD methodology may: target metrics that are most directly connected to safety outcomes, provide for accurate identification of unsafe motor carriers, and incentivize the adoption of safety-improving practices.”
With crashes involving large trucks increasing over the past decade — up over 40% between 2013 and 2022, according to government data — FMCSA has been under pressure to get better at identifying unsafe carriers, and the rules FMCSA uses to identify them have a direct effect on carriers’ ability to stay in business as well as on their hiring of commercial truck drivers.
FMCSA currently uses a three-tiered comprehensive review (CR) process that may result in a “satisfactory,” “conditional” or “unsatisfactory” safety rating.
Of the CRs conducted in FY 2019 (the last year before the pandemic limited the number of CRs conducted due to safety concerns), 306 resulted in a final safety rating of unsatisfactory, 1,842 in a final safety rating of conditional and 2,701 in a final safety rating of satisfactory.
“Only a small percentage of carriers with safety management control deficiencies are required to submit corrective action to continue operating and avoid a final unfit determination based on an unsatisfactory rating,” according to FMCSA.
In the proposed rulemaking, FMCSA seeks comment on a list of 12 questions, including whether it should retain this three-tier rating system or — as it asked in a similar Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued in 2016 that was never acted upon — replace it with a single rating of “unfit” for those carriers that did not successfully complete a safety review.
“Under such a structure, carriers that completed safety fitness reviews successfully would continue operating and not appear different, in terms of their SFD, from carriers that had not yet been reviewed,” FMCSA states. “Would this approach be sufficient to ensure safety?”
The agency also notes in the current proposed rulemaking that the existing SFD does not use all available safety data, such as all inspection-based data. It requests input, therefore, on whether its SMS methodology should be used to issue SFDs in a manner similar to what was noted in the 2016 proposed rulemaking.
“If so, what adjustments, if any, should be made to that proposal?” FMCSA asks.
“If not, should the agency include more safety data in the SFD process in other ways and, if so, how? The Agency is interested in comments specifically on whether the integration of on-road safety data into the SFD process would improve the assessment of motor carriers’ safety posture and the identification of unfit motor carriers.”
Other questions FMCSA is asking for comment on include:
- Should motor carriers of passengers be subject to higher standards than other motor carriers in terms of safety fitness rating methodology?
- How will states be affected if the agency changes the SFD? What resources might be needed to accommodate any changes, and how long would it take to incorporate proposed changes?
- Given the importance of driver behavior in preventing crashes, how should the agency incorporate driver behavior data into the SFD? What data should the agency use? How should this methodology distinguish between data resulting in a conviction and data without a conviction?
- Should SFD consider motor carriers’ adoption and use of safety technologies in a carrier’s rating? How should this fit into the SFD methodology?
- Given that unsafe driving behaviors, such as speeding and texting while driving, are highly correlated with crash risk, should the safety fitness rating methodology give more weight to [such] unsafe driving violations?
Lewis H. Stafford , Sr.
If according to the fmcsa stats, 56 % of car/truck crashes are caused by cars, why is all of the safety issues directed towards trucks. Yes, there are some unqualified drivers in the big trucks but also in cars. If you are serious about reducing crashes and death on our highways you need to look at all that use our nation’s highways . Kids that get their drivers license today get their training in good weather usually driving a compact car at school. Maybe you should crack down on these schools and require extensive training in snow, ice ,and foggy conditions. Expensive yes, but what is a life worth . As a commercial vehicle operator I’m expected to drive my vehicle and someone else’s and don’t get paid enough for either
Paul Nelson
Scores should carry a different level based on the number of trucks a carrier has the way it is now inspection can wipe out a small carrier but a large carrier spreads that out lowering the inspection out in turn lowering the bad percentage
Chad
How about the FMCSA leave the trucking industry alone for a while. All they want to do keep making rules that hinder truck drivers. It seems to me that it’s the cars and pickups that are more dangerous than semis. Try enforcing driving laws like following too close or cutting off truck drivers. Teach car drivers how to merge into traffic. Better yet, spend all that and money to build semi truck only highways. Do something other than continued harassment on semi drivers.
It’s hard enough out here on the road with the long hours, the deadlines, dealing with shipper/receivers and detentions, traffic, current safety rules, lack of adequate rest and LOW PAY.
You want to make it safer…EDUCATE and ENFORCE current LAWS! Stop blaming semis for all the issues.
Alex Hudson
Dot needs to start pulling over more trucks with obvious issues. If a truck has a tail light out, a missing or broken mud flap, taped mirror, covered drivers window etc they need to be inspected.
I see it every day.
All the governed trucks speed through lower speed zones because it’s the only way to make up time.
Also Reading and writing English needs to be Mandatory to drive in the US. To many new foreign drivers can’t read write or speak English so they can’t read construction zone signs, like All trucks use left lane, and you see all foreigners still in the right lane.
Nothing against foreigners but they need to follow the same rules as the rest of us.
I am an owner operator and some of the things I see everyday are despicable!
Dave
If our government , ATA and large carriers would stop making it easier to obtain a CDL and actually put new drivers through stricter training maybe we wouldn’t be having these conversations. It’s also way to easy to start a trucking company. Then you have class C drivers who have no training on how to act around trucks on our roads. Everything comes down to training for both cars and trucks. As far as making companies safer it should start with their hiring process and their insurance companies. Now you say safety has gotten worse between 2013 and now? That’s about when they started pushing Automatic trucks and making it easier to start driving. That’s when we started seeing less training time for new drivers. Then we had the ELD mandate in those years. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that our government needs to get out of trucking. Every mandate they have made has made our roads more unsafe and it shows if you look at when and what they mandate.
Manuel Calderon
They have this one size fits all rule… a truck driver should be allowed to sleep at any time and for any reason without time being counted against the 11 hr driving time.. this elog only forces people to drive tire… also there is no parking available just about nowhere.. tired truck drivers should be allowed to rest at ramps as long as is safe to do so… receivers should also allow drivers to rest on site.. this would decrease accidents by A LOT….
Douglas P Lehmier
Yes, I agree. You should regulate cell phone use while in a motor vehicle. But the biggest problems I find on your major interstates and highways are the trucks that are governed. The speed limiters are causing big packs to run in a group when one truck is trying to pass another truck going half a mile faster than the other one. I’ve seen it time and time again. You cannot have the slow moving trucks on your major highways. Running 60 mph in a 70 mile. An hour zone is a major hazard. That’s why in the winter and heavy rainstorms you see so many accidents because everybody’s all bottled up together and can’t get through because of too slow moving heavy vehicles.
Kevin
As a professional driver for over 30yrs the truth is I see maybe 1 in 25 truck drivers actually holding a phone compared to 8 out of 10 automobile drivers that I see. They’re too busy texting and facebooking to look in their mirrors or use turn signals. I get cut off at least 5 times a day which by the way causes my automatic braking safety feature to slam my brakes on unexpectedly. Nobody wants to actually look into the true problem and pass responsibility to everyone.