FMCSA announces final changes to CSA program

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has announced several changes to its Compliance Safety Accountability (CSA) enforcement program, which are designed more quickly identify and address high-risk truck and bus companies with compliance concerns.

"Good data plays a key role in keeping our nation's roads safe," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "These improvements will enable us to better identify and address unsafe truck and bus companies before tragedies occur."

Officials say the final CSA changes will provide FMCSA with more precise information when assessing a company’s over-the-road safety performance. The changes will be implemented in December and include:

• Changing the Cargo-Related BASIC (Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category) to the Hazardous Materials (HM) Compliance BASIC to better identify HM safety and compliance problems. FMCSA says its analysis shows that this change will identify more carriers with HM concerns (33.8% versus 29.1%).

• Changing the Fatigued Driving BASIC to the more specific Hours-of-Service (HOS) Compliance BASIC to more accurately reflect violations in this area; and weighting HoS paper and electronic logbook violations equally.

• Strengthening the Vehicle Maintenance BASIC by including cargo/load securement violations from today's Cargo-Related BASIC.

• Including intermodal equipment violations that should be found during drivers’ pre-trip inspections.

• Removing 1 to 5 mph speeding violations to ensure citations are consistent with current speedometer regulations.

• Ensuring all recorded violations accurately reflect the inspection type (i.e., only driver violations will be recorded under driver inspections).

"CSA is raising the bar for truck and bus safety. Our preliminary data shows that fatalities involving commercial vehicles dropped 4.7% last year compared to 2010," said FMCSA Administrator Ferro. "Still, on average, nearly 4,000 people die in large truck and bus crashes each year. That is why we are implementing these important changes to make CSA even more effective."

The American Trucking Associations praised the FMCSA’s changes, saying, “It is refreshing when a regulatory agency listens to the concerns of those most impacted by their actions, so we should take time to praise FMCSA for taking steps to address issues ATA has raised,” said ATA president and CEO Bill Graves. “In looking more closely at violation severity weights, for instance, FMCSA is taking some steps to make sure CSA achieves its stated goal of targeting carriers with increased crash risk.”

However, ATA urged the agency to continue to address serious shortcomings in the program and make badly needed improvements.

“These changes, while appreciated, point to the issue ATA has been urging FMCSA to address for some time: CSA scores are not necessarily indicative of elevated crash risk,” Graves said. “Several studies have told us this, and FMCSA’s changes indicate they believe it as well.

“ATA supports CSA’s original goal of reducing crashes by targeting unsafe carriers, but too often, the system highlights violations that bear little direct – or even indirect – relationship to crash risk. FMCSA must continue to hold true to CSA’s original goal and make changes to the program as necessary to do so.”

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) said the FMCSA’s announced changes “shows that the agency is listening to what truckers have been saying…(h)owever, impatience from truckers should not be unexpected when a program has real-life consequences on professionals that know of no other way to do business but safely.”  

 OOIDA officials also pointed out that there is an inherent lack of fairness or accuracy in the system, and that the FMCSA has failed to account for whether a truck driver is actually at fault for the accidents reported.

 “The onus is on FMCSA to show their program actually can identify carriers that really are likely to be involved in at-fault crashes as opposed to just running up numbers on the ‘alphabet soup’ of regulations they have on their books. The system operates from the premise that every trucker is the bad guy and this is a flawed approach for creating legitimate safety statistics or improving safety,” said Todd Spencer, executive vice-president of OOIDA.

“We are still reviewing the new changes and believe revising certain severity weightings are a step in the right direction, but we believe that FMCSA is still glossing over the lack of attribution of fault into the system.” 

“FMCSA is boasting that millions of people are now checking the CSA Web site. It is clear the impact that this program is having on the trucking and shipping industry, and ultimately on people’s livelihoods. Therefore, it is imperative that FMCSA fix the flaws,” said Spencer.

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Port of Virginia Signs Up Drivers for Chassis Rental Program

The Port of Virginia is signing up truck drivers for an online chassis rental program as ocean carriers move away from providing the equipment.

The voluntary program will be fully operational in October, according to the Port of Virginia and the site will manage chassis rental functions and integrate with an insurance compliance clearinghouse.

Currently ship lines are the only providers of chassis, the program is designed to transition away from that model towards third-party ownership.

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Teamsters Sue to Block Cross-Border Mexican Trucks Program

The Teamsters union has filed suit in an attempt to block the Department of Transportation from opening the U.S. border to what it termed “dangerous” Mexican trucks through DOT’s cross-border pilot program.

“Congress has repeatedly and overwhelmingly set tough safety conditions for any cross-border trucking program, and this one clearly doesn’t meet those conditions,” Teamsters General President James Hoffa said in a statement.

Although the program has cleared the first Mexican carrier to come into the United States, Transportes Olympic, some Mexican trucking companies are waiting for more certainty for opportunities under the program, Bloomberg reported earlier this month.

The Teamsters, along with the groups Public Citizen and the Sierra Club, challenged the program in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

It claimed that the pilot program set by DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration:

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Mexican Trucking Companies Waiting for Certainty in Cross-Border Program

Most Mexican trucking companies are not willing to make the long-term investments to participate in the latest cross-border pilot program with the United States, in part because of uncertainties over the program’s future, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

Companies are reluctant to invest in technology to meet tougher U.S. pollution controls, Jose Refugio Munoz, CEO of the Mexican trucking association Camara Nacional del Autotransporte de Carga, known as or Canacar, told Bloomberg.

The current 18-month pilot program followed a prior similar pilot program, which wan 2007 to 2009 before it was canceled after President Obama took office.

The Transportation Department’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration resumed the program after Mexico said it would put more than $2 billion in tariffs on U.S. goods in protest of the suspended program, first outlined under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.

FMCSA last month issued the first permit to a Mexican trucking company, Transportes Olympic, and a lone truck from that carrier remains the only cleared truck for U.S. entry under the program.

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SelecTrucks, Transrep partner to create fleet purchase program

CALEDONIA, Ont. -- SelecTrucks of Toronto and Transrep have partnered to create a new fleet purchase program.

Nevio Turchet, used truck manager at SelecTrucks, says he helped create the Transrep Fleet Purchase Program to ensure the availability of good quality used equipment for SelecTrucks' clients. "There is no doubt this industry is built and maintained on relationships. We have decided to utilize Transrep's services because of the long term commitment and positive reputation of the Transrep executive," he said.

Officials say the program will allow fleets to move equipment to SelecTrucks in a "seamless transition" anywhere in North America.

"We are excited to be working alongside of SelecTrucks of Toronto," said Transrep partner Ray Haight. "We have been familiar with the way they do business through the Power to Drive program and have always been impressed with their integrity and dedication to customer service."

Turchet says he believes the new Transrep Fleet Purchase Program will help companies turn their trucks into cash, get into better financial deals with newer equipment, take advantage of advanced technology through newer equipment, and lower maintenance costs.

"There is a large number of fleets underutilizing their equipment or could do better deals right now financing newer equipment or companies are looking to turn equipment into cash to reinvest or get rid of some debt," program officials said in a release. "The Fleet Purchase Program can help in many ways."

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Trucking incentives program gets GrEEEn light to continue

WINNIPEG, Man. -- A Manitoba-based trucking incentive program has been given the "GrEEEn" light to continue. Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation (MIT), together with the University of Manitoba Transport Institute and the Manitoba Trucking Association (MTA) have reintroduced the GrEEEn (Economically and Environmentally Efficient) program this fall.

The program offers incentives to companies and owner/operators to install various technological improvements that work to reduce vehicle emissions and fuel consumption. The announcement was made yesterday by Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Steve Ashton.

"We are pleased to continue to partner with the Manitoba government and appreciate the new support that will bring fuel-efficient options to more of the trucking industry," said Bob Dolyniuk, executive director of the Manitoba Trucking Association. "The GrEEEn Trucking program has been a success in supporting our industry's objective to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and this benefits not only the trucking industry, but also the community at large."

The key objectives of the GrEEEn Trucking program are to further demonstrate provincial commitment to promoting technology and innovation as a way to reduce GHG emissions from the freight transportation sector and help the private sector, through financial incentives, implement GHG emission reduction technologies. Last year, $225,000 in funding leveraged $13 million in upgrades by local transportation companies.

Companies are eligible for rebates of up to 25%, to a maximum of $2,500 per tractor or trailer. Eligible upgrades include aerodynamics for tractor and trailer units such as side skirts and front fairings, low-rolling resistance tires, automatic tire-inflation devices and anti-idling technologies.

For more information on the program, visit www.gov.mb.ca/mit or www.greeentrucking.ca.

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