cross-border

A CSA Fix is in the Wind

There's hope these days that one of the worst examples of safety legislation ever devised in the U.S. will get a makeover in the next year or so. That may be optimistic, but with a multi-year highway bill now almost through the Washington meat grinder, the Compliance, Safety and Accountability (CSA) program looks bound to change. One of the bill's many aims is one that would require the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to rework its mighty flawed reporting regime. Common sense, that oh-so-rare feature of regulatory reality, may yet prevail. And that would be a boon to the thousands of Canadian carriers, drivers, and owner-operators who use American highways. Like their south-of-the-border counterparts, they might just see an end to what can frequently be wildly unfair safety assessments based on flawed principles and weird math. If you don't want to wait, and I sure wouldn't, there's help at hand. It comes from Vigillo LLC, a data-mining company that offers fleet subscribers a rather sophisticated CSA analytics service. It's designed to aggregate, organize, and deliver complex carrier safety data in a scorecard format. More particularly, the help comes from a new and additional service called JUST, which will properly examine an accident submitted for review by subscriber carriers.

The Impact of Truck Driver Wellness Programs

It's logical to think that helping drivers improve their physical health and general well-being will make a dent in the runaway turnover rates now endemic at many motor carriers. Yet when executives at several large and respected long-haul fleets talk about why they rolled out driver health and wellness programs and why they keep investing in those initiatives, it's apparent they seek to achieve something more altruistic than merely quelling driver churn.