WASHINGTON — Federal regulators are providing a rare glimpse into information they may consider for a significant rule affecting how carriers are considered fit to be operating.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration published on Friday a “notice of data availability” — or “NODA” — to alert the public about a set of studies it could rely on to develop a proposed or final rule that will be used to determine a carrier’s safety fitness rating.
“This NODA is necessary to disclose such possible reliance and to provide the interested public an opportunity to comment on the accuracy and relevance of the information,” FMCSA stated.
P. Sean Garney, a motor carrier regulations expert and co-director of Scopelitis Transportation Consulting, pointed out that it’s the first such notice to be published by the agency since its inception more than 20 years ago, based on a search of Federal Register documents.
“What’s more interesting to me are the research titles listed and what they could mean for rulemaking,” Garney told FreightWaves. He noted that of six reports listed in Friday’s Federal Register notice, three are related to the effectiveness of driver-assist types of technology. A fourth study that is not listed in the Federal Register but has been added to the rulemaking docket relates to the effectiveness of front-crash prevention systems in reducing large truck crash rates.
All four cited a positive correlation between technology and safety.
“Could FMCSA be suggesting they’re considering crediting carriers who go beyond compliance by adopting safety technology?” Garney asked.
FMCSA posed that question — whether its current safety fitness determination (SFD) regulations consider motor carriers’ adoption and use of safety technologies in a carrier’s safety rating — in an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) issued last year.
The OOIDA Foundation, an affiliate of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, is reviewing the studies mentioned in the notice, an OOIDA spokesman told FreightWaves.
In comments filed on the ANPRM, OOIDA, which represents small-business truckers, maintained that installing safety technologies does not ensure improved safety.
“We believe rewarding carriers that simply adopt safety technologies without improving actual safety performance would only benefit motor carriers who can afford costly new technologies,” OOIDA stated. “If these motor carriers are rewarded with better safety ratings, then smaller carriers would likely see their safety rating downgraded without any actual change in their safety performance.
“We would also note that CMVs equipped with safety technologies today still end up in crashes. Driver training, experience, and safety performance must still be valued … over the mere installation of safety technologies.”
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) sided with OOIDA in opposing FMCSA formulating a rule that would consider a carrier’s use of safety technology into the SFD.
In comments filed on the ANPRM, CVSA asserted that if a motor carrier that proactively deploys safety technology intended to prevent or mitigate the severity of crashes ends up receiving an “unfit” designation from FMCSA, the technology is not having its intended benefit.
“Either the technology has been purchased but is not being used properly, or the motor carrier’s other safety management processes are so insufficient that their poor performance offsets the safety benefit of the technology,” CVSA stated.
“Either way, the end result is that the SFD methodology has identified patterns of unsafe behavior that could, if deemed accurate, justify removing the motor carrier from operations. That determination should not be masked by adjustments to the SFD methodology in an attempt to reward carriers for deploying safety technology unsuccessfully.”
Reports and studies that FMCSA may consider in formulating a new safety rule:
- Bell, Jennifer L., et al. (2017). “Evaluation of an in-vehicle monitoring system (IVMS) to reduce risky driving behaviors in commercial drivers: Comparison of in-cab warning lights and supervisory coaching with videos of driving behavior.” Journal of Safety Research.
- Cicchino, Jessica B. (2017). “Effectiveness of forward collision warning and autonomous emergency braking systems in reducing front-to-rear crash rates.” Accident Analysis & Prevention.
- Lotan, Tsippy and Toledo, Tomer (2006). “In-vehicle data recorder for evaluation of driving behavior and safety.” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board.
- Cai, Maio, et al. (2021). “The association between crashes and safety-critical events: Synthesized evidence from crash reports and naturalistic driving data among commercial truck drivers.” Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies.
- Chen, Guang Xiang (2008). “Impact of federal compliance reviews of trucking companies in reducing highway truck crashes.” Accident Analysis & Prevention.
- NHTSA (2023). 2021 FARS/CRSS coding and validation manual.
- Teoh, Eric R. (2021) “Effectiveness of front crash prevention systems in reducing large truck real-world crash rates.” Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
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Bryan Berg
You need to leave us alone this new technology your pushing is dangerous on ice roads because causes hard breaking which cause sliding and jacknifing of coarse good drivers are already slowed down in such conditions but like a lot of your tech doesn’t take in that there isn’t anything that actually helps a good driver more of hindering their abilities to drive safely
ERIC CHAPMAN
I’m a 1 truck operation with my own authority. 33 years without a accident. Only work part-time.
Have a Glider. Without any of the knew technology this article is suggesting i should have according to the fmcsa. I pass almost on a daily basis company trucks that have all this equipment involved in accident. What am i missing ?? Could it just be about a corrupt government making money from these tech companies pushing this stuff that clearly isn’t making the roads any safer.Was hoping for atleast 15 more years ( that will make me 70 years old ) I enjoy what i do and take a lot of pride in doing it safely.
Robert
The quality of drivers are being overlooked and is the biggest problem that no one want to admit the training of drivers are teaching them the basics of operating a truck just enough to.pass the test.They are just a steering wheel holder can’t drive no respect for themselves or anyone example driver’s comes off the emergency lane with no signal or gain speed before merging there are SO!!!!!! PROBLEMS with driver training every safety device can’t make a good safe driver only hands on line in the past until you go back to one on one driver training and the trainer signs their name taking responsibility saying the trainee is road ready you will continue to have a warm body in the seat not a truck driver also your ELD’S have caused SO much unsafe driving trying to beat the clock I would love to meet with the rocket scientist that think all this technology will help driving is a hands on job not sitting I’m an office pushing buttons the FEDS has created the perfect storm and people are loosing their lives because the new technology drivers are to much in a hurry also states turning a blind eye to 4 wheelers driving like idiots cutting trucks off and your lane restrictions needs to be looked at until you get feed back from a truck driver not freight companies you will continue to have more problems and deaths on the road that you tried to help but have created more accidents remember technology can’t replace common sense respect or integrity that can only be taught by humans get your head out of the computer and listen and look at the real problems
Donna johnson
Ok first of all I don’t care how many new laws the government comes up with we have jimmy carter to thank for giving the government full control of the trucking industry the second problem is these companies are making drivers with only 2-6 weeks of driving experience to be come a driver trainer there’s your problem if you were a driver would let this driver train you???? Third when a new breed as we call them they automatically know more than us old schoolers when the day you know it all hang it up because you’re gonna learn something new every day
leonard sorrels
Ok I have kept my mouth shut and my thoughts to myself long enough now I am going to tell you and everyone else out there the truth and the way I look at this for one the government can’t even do the job they are hired to do and every time they have put there 2 cents in the transportation system they have literally screwed it up look at back when they got into the bus system Trailways was actually smart by getting out of it but poor Greyhounds stuck around they’re making a lot of money now because you’re the only bus line out there then look at when the government got in with JB Hunt and the railroad JB Hunt ended up with 51% of the railroad which made him the controller of it but hauling freight out of Canada for 50 cent a mile and the Canadians shut down the border to all JB Hunt trucks then JB hunt ran out of money and couldn’t buy fuel for his trucks so he had to sell the railroad back percentage of the railroad so he could put fuel in his trucks and that’s for all the driving schools got started was with JB hunting the government now you got drivers out here the speed limits are 75 and 80 miles an hour they won’t even do 65 on the interstate or 55 they won’t to stay in the Middle Lane and talk about bad about the trucks that are doing the speed limit but actually they are more dangerous because they’re holding up traffic you get them into a city or into a residential place or into a parking lot and they want to drive 50 miles an hour when the speed limit should be 15 or 20 or even 10 or 5 so you’re telling me that it is safe to haul ass where you got people walking kids walking and all that but out on an open interstate where there’s nobody around you should drive slow so the way I look at it people need to wake up and smell the coffee and get some common sense and these damn log books need to be thrown out the window yes we need to sleep we don’t need to run 24 hours a day but with an 80 and 90 year old man can take a RV or a pickup truck with a travel trailer and drive for as long as he wants to that’s okay but if we try to do that it’s not okay and then you got this new thing here to where I used to we could drive 4 hours take a couple hour nap get up drive 4 hours you know and we would stay rested now they want you to drive your 11 hours within 14 hours and if you don’t feel good or you get tired because you were not tired when they said you should be then guess what you are more dangerous because you are going to fall asleep especially if you are driving a truck that only runs 65 I don’t care what you say but the fact is if you drive faster than your normal speed when you get a little tired it builds up your adrenaline and it wakes you up and then you can slow back down and drive normal that’s just facts and common Sense so like I said people wake up and smell the coffee now it says my peace God bless and bring God back into our country so we can be a rich country again
J Petty
I’m a trucking compliance agency, I have been doing this for about ten years now, we have seen a lot of new rules that the FMCSA has put on these truckers in the past few years, it’s really getting ridiculous for them to afford to be on the road. You won’t to put more rules and regulations out there, but you don’t in force the ones you already have. Your just trying to make more money off of them, that they can barely afford as it is, we have a lot of clients that struggle with what’s already out there. Maybe some put some driving safety training class out there and the FMCSA/ GOV needs to pay for it.
LB
They’re becoming more and more nosey with all these regulations and stuff. They want to know all your business. Enough is enough.