CSA Absolute Measure Scores Coming Back!

In a confounding move, FMCSA headlines freight news this week. FMCSA is preparing to repost its “absolute measure” CSA scores, weeks after the FAST Act required FMCSA to remove from public view CSA’s alert symbol; each of the five relative BASIC scores; and the intervention threshold for each score. While it is not illegal for FMCSA to post these absolute scores, doing so represents an affront to the intent of Congress, in passing the FAST Act, and reintroduces the uncertainty about the use or non use of these scores in play. This harms safety, and isn’t in the public interest.

FMCSA defends its move, pointing to this paragraph in the FAST Act -- Sec. 5223 (c) CONTINUED PUBLIC AVAILABILITY OF DATA.— “Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, inspection and violation information submitted to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration by commercial motor vehicle inspectors and qualified law enforcement officials, out-of-service rates, and absolute measures shall remain available to the public.”  FMCSA interprets “shall” as “must” regarding these scores. Our trade association representatives in Washington have spoken with relevant Congressional leaders this week, who disagree with FMCSA’s interpretation, but neither are they surprised.

CSA’s BASIC scores, their weighting and their methodology have proven to be unsound and in need of extensive review. It took years and an act of Congress for FMCSA to remove the scores from public view, so that shippers, brokers and the public don’t rely upon them to make commercial carrier selection decisions. By publicly posting absolute measures instead of relative measures, FMCSA is intentionally muddying the waters--again.

Congress’ intent in hiding CSA BASIC scores is clear—it’s to stop the public from relying upon CSA scores for commercial carrier selection purposes, and to send the BASICs back for increased study. The parties who introduced and pushed the FAST Act language did so for exactly this reason. Congress passed the law for this reason. It appears once again, the only fix to FMCSA’s continued muddying of the waters is to seek a Congressional mandate, by hitting Capital Hill again.

Tucker’s position is that FMCSA’s “absolute measures” are absolutely useless to the public, for any purpose. Meanwhile, FMCSA is busy at work on a new Safety Fitness Determination (SFD) which will apply an algorithm to all 7 BASICs (even the 2 the public can’t see), to determine “unfit” carriers. The fact that their algorithm isn’t final, and the public won’t ever be able to apply a final algorithm (because 2/7 of the scores are hidden), and accidents will not be predicted, is further evidence that the scores are useless. If FMCSA’s decisions and reactions to criticism weren’t so harmful to public safety, they could be the stuff of a sitcom. Stay tuned.

CSA Scores Removed from View

On December 4, 2015, President Obama signed into law the FAST Act, the first multi-year surface transportation highway bill in a decade.  It’s a five-year authorization to fund federal surface transportation programs, like the repairing and building of highways, bridges roads, etc.  States can now proceed with projects, with some certainty that funds will be available. 

Specific to shippers, brokers and carriers, the FAST Act also corrected FMCSA, the administration within USDOT charged with truck and bus safety.  As required by the FAST Act, FMCSA removed from public view much of the data generated by the CSA program, including: analysis of violations, crashes where the motor carrier or driver is not at fault, CSA alert symbols, and the relative percentiles for each BASIC score. 

Tucker Company Worldwide, and its affiliate QualifiedCarriers.com, have both consistently advocated for years that publicly facing CSA data is flawed and conveys unintended, unreliable information that shippers and brokers should not use as part of their carrier selection criteria. Congress and the President finally agreed! This represents a big win for shippers, brokers, carriers, and the motoring public.

TIA Industry Professionals Advising the FMCSA

Darin Day, General Counsel at Tucker Company Worldwide, has replaced Tucker’s CEO, Jeff Tucker, as TIA’s only Broker Representative on the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC). Darin recently spoke about the importance of industry professionals advising the FMCSA.

“This is the one place…the most effective place…where the industry can have an impact on the rules that are being proposed by the FMCSA and the way that the CSA program is developing,” he said.

Darin’s presence on the TIA Committee helps to bring some balance to the table in Washington – the perspective of a 3PL Provider who is also a TIA member – which enables all parties involved to accomplish their respective goals.

“We all care about safety,” he continued. “Everybody wants as few accidents, incidents, deaths of course, on the highways as possible. But at the same time, the whole point of the transportation industry is to get important goods to people on time, efficiently, and in a way that doesn’t slow down commerce.”

Learn more and watch the full feature on TIA TV here.

Jeff Tucker Among Industry Stakeholders To Commend GAO Report

Jeff Tucker and other industry stakeholders recently endorsed the Government Accountability Office's (GAO) recommendations for "vigorous changes" to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to improve the Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program.

Read Tucker's recommendations in the full article by Logistics Management:

Industry Stakeholders Commend GAO Report on CSA Scoring System

FMCSA ADMINISTRATOR FERRO NAMES TUCKER TO CSA SUBCOMMITTEE, SUBCOMMITTEE MAKES RECOMMENDATIONS TO FMCSA

Administrator Ferro named Jeff Tucker to the CSA Subcommittee of the Agency’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC). Tucker was selected from many applicants, due in part to his work with the TIA Carrier Selection Framework and many years serving as an advocate and educator in the area of motor carrier safety and shipper and broker liability.

There have been four meetings of the MCSAC subcommittee since October 2012. The subcommittee is comprised of bus operators, state police officials, a truck insurance firm, a large motor carrier, a bus operator, a bus driver union representative, a representative from an owner operator’s group, and two professional safety advocates. Senior FMCSA officials attend and participate in the meetings. 

      On April 9, 2013, the MCSAC agreed to pass to FMCSA the CSA Subcommittee’s recommendations for improvement to the CSA system.  Tucker remains baffled that the agency didn’t recognize and act on the obvious need for these changes long ago, but we believe certain elements within FMCSA have internal agendas that outweigh reason and due process. Those elements seem to be ruling the day.  We hope this partial list of recommendations will begin to turn the tide: 

1. For a carrier’s Crash BASIC, exclude crashes where there is a clear determination that the carrier was not at fault or (in the language of the regulations), the crash was non-preventable. (e.g., don’t penalize the carrier when a car runs into it while the truck was stopped at a red light) 
2. Evaluate changing the definition of reportable DOT crash for purposes of CSA to include only fatalities or injuries (e.g., exclude deer kills where no cars or people were involved).
3. Remove CSA scores from public view (their purpose is exclusively law enforcement) or, at a minimum, remove the Controlled Substance/Alcohol and Driver Fitness BASICs. (Carriers with higher scores in two (2) BASICs are involved in fewer accidents than carriers with lower scores!). 
4. FMCSA should standardize the data it gathers from the individual 50 states. 
5. FMCSA should not encourage non-law enforcement personnel (e.g., shippers, brokers, insurance companies, etc.) to use CSA data for carrier selection, and should not provide “guidance” on using CSA data to determine a carrier’s “qualification” for use.  The purpose of SMS is exclusively for internal law enforcement prioritization.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JEFFREY TUCKER APPOINTED TO FMCSA SUBCOMMITTEE

Cherry Hill, NJ USA, February 15, 2013

Jeffrey Tucker, CEO of Tucker Company Worldwide (www.tuckerco.com ) was appointed to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC) CSA Subcommittee.  Mr. Tucker was appointed by FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro.  CSA “Compliance, Safety, Accountability” is FMCSA’s initiative to improve large truck and bus safety and ultimately reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities related to commercial motor vehicles.

The CSA subcommittee is a panel of 19 subject matter experts including motor carriers, bus companies, safety advocate groups and trade associations. These industry officials, as members of the MCSAC CSA Subcommittee provide counsel to FMCSA on a variety of issues relating to the design, implementation and efficacy of the CSA program.

CSA introduces a new enforcement and compliance model that allows FMCSA and its State partners to identify and contact a larger number of motor carriers who may need to address compliance and/or safety concerns.

Jeff is the CEO of Tucker Company Worldwide, Inc.; CEO & Co-Founder of Qualifiedcarriers.com, and has chaired the TIA Carrier Selection Framework Committee since 2006. Jeff has testified on CSA before Congress.

Tucker Company Worldwide, Inc. is America’s oldest privately held freight broker, and is based in Cherry Hill, NJ. Tucker specializes in arranging shipments of high value, high security, climate controlled and otherwise sensitive materials for some of the world’s best known brands. Tucker is active in its trade association and serves on a select committee reviewing motor carrier safety for the U. S. Department of Transportation. Tucker has been a first responder supporting the government with trucking of relief supplies for most of the nation’s natural and manmade disasters in the last 30 years.

Contact: Jeff Tucker, CEO; jefft@tuckerco.com ; 856-317-9600 ext. 122; mobile: 856-498-5361 ###