ARLINGTON, Va. – The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) will be launching a pilot program to allow carriers to have non-preventable crashes removed from their record, a move praised by the American Trucking Associations (ATA).

“Since FMCSA began using crash history to rate motor carriers’ safety, ATA has argued that crashes a driver could not have prevented shouldn’t be counted on a carrier’s safety record,” said ATA president and CEO Bill Graves. “Today’s announced pilot project is a step toward that goal and we appreciate FMCSA adopting ATA’s call to provide a way for carriers to strike these tragic, but non-preventable crashes from their record.”

The FMCSA proposal would mean carriers could challenge certain collisions where it was evident the commercial vehicle was not at fault, such as opposing motorists driving under the influence of alcohol, driving in the wrong direction, rear-endings, animal collisions, suicide or infrastructure failure.

The agency proposes to accept requests for data reviews (RDR) that seek to establish the non-preventability of certain crashes through its national data correction system known as DataQs.

The FMCSA suggests the agency would accept a RDR in the event of a commercial carrier was involved in a non-preventable crash for a minimum period of 24 months.

“ATA hopes this demonstration project is a step toward a more robust and complete system for carriers to dispute and ultimately strike crashes that were not the fault of the commercial driver,” Graves said. “We look forward to monitoring FMCSA’s progress as they advance this important program. By improving crash accountability and data, FMCSA can improve the performance and accuracy of the CSA monitoring system – a goal ATA wholeheartedly supports.”