A New Truck, Bus Safety Rating Proposal Likely This Year

In the past year, the truck and bus industries have seen quite a number of new requirements, including alterations to existing rules directed by Congress. 2015 will see a continuation of this trend especially as the Obama Administration prepares to finish out its agenda before the 2016 election year, which traditionally has been a conservative “do nothing” period so as not to jeopardize upsetting an electorate so close to casting its votes for the next President.

While many of the rules have already been floated as proposals such as electronic logging and increases to the minimum insurance levels, one major new offering to expect this year will aim to bolster the CSA enforcement program by establishing a new way to assign official safety ratings to companies based on their CSA safety performance. Currently, the only way companies earn safety rating labels is when government agents perform an onsite full compliance review. This results in few ratings and explains the government’s interest in finding a better way to assign some overall description of carriers’ safety condition.

Since CSA was rolled out in December 2010, the government has signaled its plan to put in place the next significant cornerstone of CSA—the safety fitness determination finding. Simply put, the government will translate the 7 current measures of CSA into an overall performance score which will equate to an adjectival descriptor.

While not finalized, the rating system is likely to be 3 tiered with some version characterizing the relative safety condition of carriers based on the results of roadside inspections, investigation results and crash history:
1) no major safety issues,
2) some safety issues but not serious enough to warrant shutting the carrier down and,
3) serious issues that place the carrier as a high risk operator needing significant improvement or intervention.

The proposed rule will likely lay out the consequences for carriers falling into the third category. As the CSA program was envisioned, each carrier will be accountable for the safety “report card” it has earned on the basis of its record similar to the current way CSA scores are displayed on the FMCSA website. The difference, though, is likely to include a reform this year of the crash BASIC which may more accurately portray those crashes considered to be the fault of the carrier, as well as the other measure of hazardous material compliance which, like the Crash BASIC, is not currently posted for public viewing.

So, what does this mean for the thousands of carriers listed in FMCSA’s registration records? Well, the good news is that major rules like this one typically take 24-36 months to move from proposed to final rule—plenty of time to prepare for it. But bear in mind, the data in the Safety Measurement System reflects a carrier’s past 24 month violations, crashes, reviews, etc., so this older data will form the basis of the initial safety rating.

If carriers have not been motivated in the past to clean up their operations to improve their current CSA scores, perhaps the notion of a safety rating that assigns a label to a company, a label capable of conveying more clearly a company’s safety condition, might be greater incentive to act.

Taking steps now to correct an inaccurate record through the DataQ system, address their overall safety system to deal with serious defects, and install measures to monitor and correct them, will prepare companies to earn the highest safety rating. This new rule will serve as both carrot and stick. The wise carriers will get their house in order sooner rather than later.