Opinion: Compliance Efforts Really Do Save Lives

This equates to 595 lives saved and 9,513 injuries avoided in 1998.

CVSA has completed an additional analysis using Office of Management and Budget figures on the societal costs associated with lives and injuries that helps to put these numbers into perspective. Once again, the results are impressive.

li> Roadside inspections — $1,126.93 million in lives saved and $905.57 million in injuries avoided;

li> Traffic enforcement — $449.04 million in lives saved and $360.16 million in injuries avoided.

The total dollar value of the benefits derived from these three programs in 1998 was $3.11 billion in terms of lives saved and injuries avoided.

Looking even further into the numbers, we find that compliance reviews had a benefit value of $3,016.01 per review. Roadside inspections had a benefit value of $1,324.80 per inspection.

In 1998, $78 million of federal money was distributed to the states under the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program to deliver on these three programs, among other things. Taking into account the 20% state match on the federal money, for every dollar spent in 1998, $32 worth of benefits was realized. I would say that this is a very good indication that taxpayers’ money is being put to good use.

I believe the message from these studies is that, without any doubt, as we approach the upcoming reauthorization process to take place in Congress during 2003, the roadside inspection program must remain the underpinning, or the base, from which we build and expand our motor carrier safety programs.

Also, compliance reviews, the safety audits of Mexican carriers and new entrants to the trucking industry in this country, increased deployment of technology and new approaches to achieving more traffic enforcement are programs that must be strengthened in the reauthorization bill. During the process, we must look for ways to improve how the above programs are implemented. We also must add a program on commercial driver licensing so it can keep unsafe drivers off the highways.

What might be some ways to accomplish this? Certainly technology, which means the full implementation of the Commercial Vehicle Information Systems and Networks, is one way. This will make important carrier, vehicle and driver safety and credential information readily available to roadside inspectors. It also means encouraging and training additional law enforcement agencies to perform more commercial vehicle and noncommercial vehicle traffic enforcement in the areas where it is most needed.

The Volpe studies showed that the three major enforcement programs carried out by federal and state enforcement personnel bring a significant return on their investment — both in human and financial terms. It is difficult — and, in many people’s belief, insensitive — to put a dollar value on a human life. Any one life is priceless to at least a few others. However, in order to do our jobs as enforcement officers, we need to understand how effective our actions are so we can continue to improve on them and justify our need for more resources.

Without a doubt, there will much discussion and debate of these issues in the coming months. But let us not lose sight of the basic programs that CVSA and its member jurisdictions, in partnership with FMCSA and the truck and bus industries, have developed and shaped since the day CVSA was organized. This is very important. As the Volpe studies show, these programs play a critical role in reducing crashes and injuries and in saving lives.

Members of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance are officers of state, provincial and local agencies responsible for motor carrier safety in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The writer was a Louisiana state trooper 17 years before joining American Trucking Associations in 1987, serving first as a hazardous materials specialist and later as director of safety and then vice president of safety. He has been with CVSA since 1999.

This article appears in the Jan. 20 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.