FMCSA Says Carriers Can Cut Accidents by Using Its Pre-Employment Screening

This story appears in the Nov. 25 print edition of Transport Topics.

Fleets that use the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Pre-Employment Screening Program to check driver safety records had 8% fewer crashes than carriers that don’t use the system, according to a recent FMCSA study.

In addition, companies using the program also experienced 17% fewer driver-related out-of-service orders than carriers not using the screening system, according to the FMCSA study, which analyzed two years’ of data to measure the program’s effect on industry safety.

“Mostly, the motor carriers questioned believe that using PSP will help them hire the best drivers available and will improve their overall safety ratings,” FMCSA researchers wrote in an October report.

“Motor carriers responding to FMCSA’s questions indicated that drivers with good safety records were, by far, in higher demand and that they potentially could command better compensation and benefits,” the report stated.

Both prescreened carrier groups and those that were not saw crash reductions that aligned with a downtrend in commercial vehicle crashes during the time period measured by the study (between 2010 and 2012, when traffic volumes were lower due to the recession). But prescreened groups saw greater decreases in crash rates and driver violations, according to the study.

The program, launched in May 2010 as required by the prior federal transportation authorization bill, enabled motor carriers to screen driver applicants through a database for the most recent five years of crash records and three years of roadside inspection data from FMCSA’s Motor Carrier Management Information System.

Records are available electronically online for a fee, and they must be obtained with the driver’s consent. Use of the database is voluntary. Drivers also can use the system to purchase a copy of their records.

The study compared crash rates and driver-related out-of-service orders for the 5,476 motor carriers that used the database, looking at safety records from the 12-month period prior to the start of the pre-screening program and the 12-month period after. The information then was compared with the 424,943 carriers that had not yet requested information from the program.

The data were broken down into four size classes: Carriers with one to five drivers; those with six to 20 drivers; those with 21 to 100 drivers; and companies with more than 100, according to the study.

Midsize carriers — companies with between six and 20 drivers and between 21 and 100 drivers — had the most success with crash reduction rates of 20% and 12%, respectively, over similar-size carriers not using the prescreening program, according to the study.

There was not a “statistically significant” change when looking specifically at crash rates for small and larger carriers in the study, according to the FMCSA report.

The study does not account for other factors that could have affected crash rates, such as whether companies took other safety measures.

Carriers of all sizes using the prescreening program saw a 17% greater reduction overall in out-of-service orders, according to the study.

The system fields about 70,000 requests per month, and trucking companies make up about 97% of those requests, according to FMCSA.

The system is a “little deeper dive on driver safety history” than previously existed and shows how the trucking industry is taking advantage of technology, said David Heller, director of safety and policy for the Truckload Carriers Association, a national trade group.

It also adds more legitimacy to the typical screening process that includes compiling a drivers’ “Compliance, Safety, Accountability” score, drug test and background screening, he said.

“I think carriers view the PSP as a steppingstone in that process,” Heller said. “Carriers taking advantage of the PSP are inherently exhausting all efforts to be safe, and that is a good thing.”

The system contains 3,473,286 driver records, which varies as records are updated, according to FMCSA.

The cost to carriers for reports is a subscription fee of $25 to $100, plus $10 per record.