Crash determination program comments due Oct. 4.

October 2, 2019

Mark Schremmer

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The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is accepting comments until Oct. 4 on a proposal to make its crash preventability determination program permanent.

FMCSA published the proposal in the Federal Register on Aug. 5.

The agency started the program in August 2017, reviewing more than 5,600 crashes submitted by truck and bus companies to determine if a crash could have been prevented by a motor carrier. According to the agency, 94% of the crashes were found to be unpreventable by the motor carrier or commercial driver.

“After 18 months of operating the program, FMCSA has decided to operate a crash preventability determination program using a streamlined process and proposes to modify the Safety Measurement System to remove crashes found to be not preventable from the prioritization algorithm and noting the not preventable determinations in the pre-employment screening program,” the notice stated.

As of Oct. 2, the proposal had received about 75 comments to the Regulations.gov website.

“Penalizing a carrier for a nonpreventable incident is nonsensical,” Shannon Stone wrote. “If the crash is deemed to be non-preventable then, clearly, it could not have been prevented. The carrier has done everything its power to operate in a safe manner and, as a result, should not have any points assessed against it.”

OOIDA supports the proposal.

“OOIDA supports the permanent establishment of the crash preventability determination program,” said Jay Grimes, OOIDA’s director of federal affairs. “For far too long, these nonpreventable crashes have unnecessarily discredited safety ratings for drivers and motor carriers. We also applaud FMCSA for expanding the types of crashes that can be reviewed and for removing nonpreventable crashes from the SMS crash indicator BASIC.”

Under the proposal, the 15 crash types would be:

  • Struck in rear.
  • Legally stopped or parked.
  • Suicides or suicide attempts.
  • Wrong direction.
  • Animal strikes.
  • Individuals under the influence.
  • Infrastructure failure or struck by cargo, equipment or debris.
  • Struck on the side in the rear.
  • Commercial motor vehicle struck by vehicle that did not stop or slow in traffic.
  • CMV struck by vehicle that failed to stop at a traffic control device.
  • CMV struck by vehicle making U-turn or illegal turn.
  • CMV struck by driver who experiences medical issue.
  • CMV struck by driver who admits falling asleep or to distracted driving.
  • When crash involves an individual under the influence even if the CMV was struck by another vehicle involved in the crash.
  • When crash involves a driver operating in wrong direction even if CMV was struck by another vehicle involved in the crash.

Comments may be made at the Regulations.gov website by entering docket number FMCSA-2014-0177.