ATA calls on feds to fix CSA flaw
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Trucking Associations (ATA) says it wants to see a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) study that examines the reliability of police reports in determining crash accountability.
The request stems from a flawed policy under FMCSA’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) regime, that assigns fault to the motor carrier even in accidents they did not cause and in some cases could not avoid.
“FMCSA continues to use crashes that motor carriers did not cause nor could have prevented in measuring motor carrier safety performance,” ATA president and CEO Bill Graves said yesterday. “Several weeks ago, the agency indefinitely placed on hold a process to correct this fundamental flaw in the system, citing, in part, concerns with the reliability and usefulness of police accident reports. To better understand FMCSA’s reluctance to act, the public should see the results of the study the agency promised almost two years ago.”
CSA currently ranks carriers based on all truck-involved crashes, even if they were not at fault. FMCSA has already conducted a study of the feasibility of using police reports to determine fault, however ATA says the results have not been made public.
The association was alarmed when the FMCSA backtracked on a promise to incorporate police reports into crash accountability decisions. Now, it wants to see the results of the study.
“To live up to its goal to be open and transparent, FMCSA should release the results of its study, identify the specific concerns that caused it to place the planned solution on hold, and commit to a timeline for addressing this issue,” said Graves.
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I think this could be somewhat of a holy grail for truckers as perhaps it shows what truckers, especially Canadian truckers, already know. For someone from out of state, particularly if they are driving a tractor-trailer it’s pretty difficult to get an officer at any level to go against a four-wheeler, especially if it’s local or at least in state. This has long been a bias that officers (not all but lets face it, most) have and I’ve seen cases that prove just that. I’ve been involved in the investigation of crashes where an accident reconstruction engineer has proven beyond a doubt that the tractor-trailer was not at fault yet it has been written by the investigating officer as the tractor-trailer driver being at fault.
I can’t wait to see what FMCSA’s response to this is as I’m betting that they have discovered just what most of us in the trucking industry have known all along. We don’t get given a level playing field when there is a crash, despite the fact that most auto vs. truck crashes are caused by the auto.