FMCSA Mulls Fleet Credits For Informal CSA Inspections

This story appears in the Oct. 8 print edition of Transport Topics.

PORTLAND, Maine — Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration officials are exploring ways for motor carriers to begin getting credit for “good” inspector screenings and violation-free wireless inspections, a top agency official said.

FMCSA is well aware of carrier concerns that when drivers are screened but not given a formal inspection, neither they nor their carrier receives credit in the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program for no violations, said Bill Quade, the agency’s associate administrator.

The same is true for wireless inspections, Quade added, during his talk at the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s annual conference here.

“Because it’s like an inspection, it’s a snapshot of key elements of your compliance,” Quade said of wireless inspections. “The screening can be seen the same way. Capturing it is a challenge, but it’s a challenge that we should be willing to undertake.”

“If I drive by a wireless inspection eight times, 10 times, and there’s nothing on the infrared screen that says my brakes are bad, do I deserve a little credit for this? Probably. How much? When? How do we mark that? How do we note it? We are willing to look at those types of issues, and say eventually, yes.”

However, Quade cautioned that carriers should not expect any formal actions in the next round of CSA changes expected early next year.

In meetings here late last month, truckers said it’s a common practice for inspectors to do spot checks of drivers’ licenses, registrations, medical cards and maybe even browse through their log books — and then send drivers on their way without doing any paperwork.

“It is a legitimate issue and it’s very significant,” said Rob Abbott, vice president of safety policy for American Trucking Associations. “The reason it’s significant is that CSA scores are comparative, based on measures that are basically a ratio of the number of violations to the number of inspections.”

Before the advent of the CSA program in 2010, such brief screenings were not regarded as a significant concern, several carriers said.

But with carriers now closely watching their CSA safety scores, every good inspection can mean the difference between an overall good safety rating and an unwelcome letter or visit from FMCSA auditors. The issue is especially significant for small truckers.

“There is no opportunity to have clean inspections in the same proportion as we have bad inspections,” Woody Chambers, general vice president for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, told Transport Topics. “What we’ve tried to establish, literally for a couple of years, and certainly since the advent of CSA 2010, was to figure a way that carriers could accumulate clean inspections to balance the tickets.”

In response to trucker concerns, CVSA last year appointed a working group to study “alternative compliance,” or ways that carriers and drivers could get extra credit for actions ranging from installing safety technologies on their fleets to voluntarily implementing company hair testing for drugs. 

Stephen Keppler, CVSA’s executive director, said he understands that the screenings are a concern to drivers and carriers, but that inspectors need flexibility in their efforts to enforce regulations.

Last year, a proposal to have FMCSA give credit for screenings was presented to CVSA’s executive committee, but after a two-hour discussion, was unanimously rejected, Keppler said.

“We said, ‘Look, we understand your concerns, but we shouldn’t be compromising the inspection process because of how the results are being dealt with,’ ” Keppler told TT. “Just because CSA is treating it differently, an inspection is an inspection. We’ve been doing it this way for 30 years based on critical items.”

“It’s enforcement’s job that in order to be efficient they need to be able to have that flexibility in the field — and it’s not always an inspection. They’re not checking the brakes. They’re not checking the tires. They’re not doing the full inspection.”

Gerald Krisa, vice president of safety for R&L Carriers, Wilmington, Ohio, and chairman of CVSA’s alternative compliance workgroup, said the organization needs to be careful to not favor large carriers, which have the resources to deploy costly safety technologies.

“It can’t be a program for the rich,” Krisa said. “It has to be an opportunity for not only the large motor carriers or motor coaches, but also the small carriers.”

At the CVSA conference, Krisa’s working group had a lively debate about how to balance the interests of small and large carriers in moving forward with an alternative compliance program, but did not come up with any specific recommendations to give to CVSA’s executive committee.

“I hope to provide an update, hopefully in early December, and have something a little bit more concrete at the spring workshop in Louisville,” Krisa said.

Meanwhile, in written follow-up testimony to a Sept. 13 congressional hearing on CSA, CVSA said the program now offers few mechanisms for fleets to improve their scores.

“We believe it is appropriate for FMCSA to further explore this alternative compliance concept by instituting a pilot program that would investigate the feasibility of a system that provides motor carriers CSA ‘credits’ in exchange for adoption of certain alternative compliance solutions, in essence improving their score(s) due to their voluntary investment in these life-saving technologies,” CVSA said.