Guardian_Vol21_Issue1_R4_Final_GuardianMagazine 3/5/14 12:07 PM Page 9
CO V E R S T O R Y
T
his year alone, under “Operation Quick Strike,” the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) shut down 52 bus companies and placed 340 operators out of service. Inspectors targeted these carriers for investigation using the CSA prioritization protocols. Even with such large-scale efforts, approximately 4,000 people were killed and another 79,000 injured in large truck and bus crashes in 2012. We can and must do more.
CSA Reaches More Carriers, Earlier CSA is helping us do just that. The program enables FMCSA and our State Partners to better leverage resources to reach carriers with the highest safety risk earlier and to address problems before crashes occur. With CSA, we have expanded the types and number of interventions used to reach greater numbers of at-risk operators. CSA interventions range from warning letters for carriers with emerging problems to Onsite Comprehensive Investigations for carriers with serious compliance issues. In this way, we are reaching more carriers than ever before. In fact, since CSA rolled out, FMCSA has sent warning letters to more than 86,000 carriers, alerting them to safety performance problems. Each year, we conduct more than 20,000 investigations. CSA intervention tools enhance this process, enabling Safety Investigators, or SIs, to move beyond fact-finding and verification of violations to a deeper understanding of why the violations occurred and how to correct them. To support our SIs, motor carriers, and drivers in that process, we developed the Safety Management Cycle, along with training for our SIs and informational materials, now available for industry use on the CSA website, csa.fmcsa.dot.gov. Motor carrier awareness is at an all-time high with 68 million visits to the CSA’s Safety Measurement System (SMS) site – 20 million over the year before and twice the number of visits two years ago. A robust system, the SMS regularly evaluates carrier safety and compliance performance using data from all roadside inspections and State-reported crashes. That means each year roadside inspection and crash data from at least 3.5 million inspections and 130,000 Police Accident Reports feed into the SMS to identify noncompliant and at-risk carriers. Proving the point that “what gets measured gets done,” the SMS helps FMCSA better identify high-risk carriers and prioritize them for interventions. The SMS covers safety
behavior categories, such as vehicle maintenance and unsafe driving, which we call BASICs for short. We have sufficient data to assess approximately 200,000 carriers, which account for 80 percent of commercial motor vehicles, yet are involved in 92 percent of reportable crashes. The SMS also helps motor carriers regularly monitor their safety and compliance records dating as far as two years back, and to pinpoint areas for improvement.
FMCSA Is listening: Collaborative, Research-Based Development FMCSA designed the SMS to improve over time as new user input, better data and technology, and additional analysis became available. FMCSA enhanced the SMS following the CSA Operational Model Test in 2010, and again following the SMS Package 1 Preview in 2012. The SMS Package 1 changes came about, in part, from stakeholder input following a preview period during which 19,000 carriers and 2,900 enforcement personnel reviewed SMS data. SMS Package 1 included 11 improvements. One improvement, for example, was to put load securement violations into the Vehicle Maintenance BASIC and eliminate the CargoRelated BASIC to better identify any carrier with load securement or vehicle maintenance issues. In our latest outreach effort, FMCSA invited carriers, industry, and the public to consider changes to the display of information on the SMS website. The Agency requested comments on these display changes in a Federal Register notice published November 5, 2013. The comment period closed on Jan. 21, 2014. FMCSA continues to review and consider comments received through the Federal Register notice and will provide a formal response later this year. We have scheduled the proposed display changes for implementation this summer. The proposed display changes will advance the Agency’s safety mission by providing easier, more intuitive navigation and user-friendly features to clarify the SMS’s role as a prioritization tool for CSA interventions. Although the latest proposed display changes would not change the SMS methodology, the Agency is considering making changes to the methodology in the future, including addressing the utilization factor, severity weights, the HM Compliance BASIC, and safety event groups. FMCSA is currently conducting two CSA effectiveness studies, both of which will undergo peer review. One study looks at whether the SMS is effectively prioritizing the carriers that pose the highest risk to safety. A second, broader study focuses on the overall CSA Program and includes an assessment of the new enforcement
6. Meaningful Action START
1. Policies and Procedures
5. Monitoring and Tracking Safety Management Cycle
2. Roles and Responsibilities
4. Training and Communication 3. Qualification and Hiring
interventions. We expect to release the SMS effectiveness study in early 2014, followed by the CSA effectiveness study later in the year. In other news, we also expect to publish the Safety Fitness Determination (SFD) Rule component of the CSA program for notice and comment this year. SFD will allow FMCSA to identify and remove more unsafe carriers and drivers from our nation’s roads. These are all part of FMCSA’s dedication to collaborative, transparent, and research-based development of CSA. You can continue to expect field-testing, peer-reviewed research, listening sessions, interactive webinars, and previews of program changes to gain input from enforcement, industry, and other safety stakeholders ahead of implementation.
CSA Builds a National Safety Culture Safety compliance is saving lives every day. With 5 million truck and bus drivers sharing the road with more than 250 million motorists, the stakes are high, so FMCSA is launching “Get Road Smart,” a new CSA communication campaign to build a national culture of safety. We depend on you, our field staff and State Partners who serve on the front lines, to spread the word about CSA and Get Road Smart, helping America’s motor carriers and commercial drivers keep their focus on safety. Learn more about Get Road Smart on the CSA website, where we will have regular updates and a new Driver Safety Education Center. At FMCSA, safety is “Job #1,” and everything we do is safety focused. We are committed to CSA and to our collaborative work with all commercial motor vehicle safety stakeholders to continuously improve our programs, sharpen our focus on unsafe carriers, and improve the safety of America’s large truck and bus industry. Lives depend on it and the public deserves no less. Your work to support safer roads truly matters. Thank you for helping us to keep the nation’s highways safer for everyone. n
FIRST QUARTER 2014
9