Oak Ridge Study Criticizes Crash Data

ost of the trucking fleets that get an “at-risk” safety rating based on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s data-analysis system did not actually have a high crash risk, according to an outside evaluation of the agency’s SafeStat program.

A report of the evaluation, carried out at FMCSA’s request, said most of the carriers identified as “at-risk” got the designation because of variations in data that led to inaccurate scores.

“About 90% of the carriers identified as at-risk . . . did not have a high crash risk in the post-selection period,” said the report by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Center for Transportation Analysis.