FMCSA calls for renewed safety push at forum

With fatality crash stats headed in the wrong direction, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is asking all stakeholders to do their part in improving highway safety.

As part of the agency’s Analysis, Research and Technology Forum on Wednesday, April 12, FMCSA leaders focused on efforts to lower the number of fatality crashes.

“FMCSA and our safety partners have made significant strides over the last 30 years to reduce large truck and bus fatalities,” said Tom Keane, FMCSA associate administrator. “However, during the last 10 years that trend has begun to reverse itself, with large truck and bus fatalities increasing. So, whether you are a state or local partner, a nonprofit safety organization, a motor carrier, a commercial driver, an association, or even a third-party service provider, I ask you at this time to take an introspective look at your current programs to determine what is working to improve safety and what is not and to make any appropriate adjustments.

“Each life lost on our highways is a tragedy, and we all must ask ourselves what we can be doing.”

Many of FMCSA’s efforts in recent years to improve safety have involved technology. The mandate of electronic logging devices to ensure compliance with hours-of-service regulations began full enforcement in 2018. Several rulemakings in the pipeline – including speed limiters, automatic emergency brakes and the safe integration of automated driving systems – look toward technology as the solution.

“Technology has a potential to improve people’s lives and to save lives on our roadways and to the degree it can do that, we should be ready to use it in the safest way possible,” FMCSA Administrator Robin Hutcheson said. “Nowhere is this more apparent than in the incremental transition to the way drivers are assisted with technology when they are driving. In the national conversation about automation, we have to be highly informed.

“Humans are fallible, and we need a safe system in order to counteract the human condition of being fallible.”

Kim Lambert, acting director for the Office of Strategic Planning and Regulations, provided a brief overview of some of the rulemakings FMCSA is working on.

Safety Measurement System

In February, FMCSA published a notice that proposed significant changes to its Safety Measurement System. The changes include reorganized safety categories, simplified severity weights for safety violations and a greater focus on recent violations.

FMCSA’s proposal is open to public comment through May 16. To comment, go to the Regulations.gov website and enter Docket No. FMCSA-2022-0066.

Speed limiters

Last year, FMCSA issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking that considers requiring most commercial motor vehicles with a gross vehicle weight of 26,001 pounds or more to be equipped with speed-limiting devices. A top speed was not determined in the advance notice, but previous proposals floated the possibilities of 60, 65 and 68 miles per hour.

FMCSA received more than 15,000 comments with the majority coming from truck drivers opposed to a mandate. However, the agency appears poised to move forward with a notice of proposed rulemaking. Lambert said the proposed to speed will be included in the forthcoming notice.

Previous regulatory agendas have targeted June for the notice’s release, but Lambert didn’t provide any updates to the timeline.

Automatic emergency braking systems

FMCSA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are expected to issue a joint proposal regarding automatic emergency braking systems in the coming months.

The agencies will seek comments on a proposal to require and/or standardize equipment performance for automatic emergency braking systems on heavy trucks.

The rulemaking is expected to propose performance standards and motor carrier maintenance requirements for automatic emergency brakes on heavy trucks and accompanying test procedures for measuring performance.

FMCSA and NHTSA are issuing the automatic emergency braking rulemaking as required by the 2021 infrastructure law.

Automated driving systems

In February, FMCSA issued a supplemental advance notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the safe integration of automated driving systems on commercial motor vehicles.

FMCSA’s supplemental notice, which accepted comments through March 20, asked the public to provide feedback in three areas:

• Notification by motor carriers operating Level 4 or 5 automated driving system-equipped commercial motor vehicles.
• Oversight for remote assistants.
• Vehicle inspection and maintenance.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association told the agency that autonomous vehicles is not a cure-all.

“Despite the various claims that autonomous vehicles will lead to zero deaths, there continue to be real-world situations in which automation has devastatingly failed,” OOIDA wrote in comments to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. “While autonomous vehicles might improve safety under certain conditions, they create new risks with dangerous outcomes.”

Other ART Forum presentations

FMCSA’s ART Forum was scheduled to continue through 5 p.m. Eastern on April 12.

Studies involving driver compensation, detention time and crash causal factors were among the presentations scheduled for the rest of the forum. LL