Safety fitness rulemaking could be influenced by several reports

Last year, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration gave the public about three months to provide comments about potential changes to how a motor carrier’s safety fitness is determined. Now, the agency is giving the public another 30 days to comment on several reports that could inform a potential rulemaking.

FMCSA published a notice of data availability in the Federal Register on Friday, Jan. 12. The notice includes reports on in-vehicle monitoring systems, the association between crashes and safety-critical events, the impact of federal compliance reviews, the effectiveness of safety technology and recent fatality crash data. The public will have through Feb. 12 to provide feedback.

“This (notice) identifies information the agency has become aware of and provides an opportunity for public comment,” FMCSA wrote. “The agency may consider this information in preparation for further regulatory action following an advance notice of proposed rulemaking.”

FMCSA published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on Aug. 29 that asked for feedback on whether the process to determine a motor carrier’s safety fitness needs to be revised. Comments were accepted through Nov. 29.

Safety fitness determination currently is based on an analysis of existing motor carrier data and data collected during a compliance review. The process uses six factors – general, driver, operational, vehicle, hazardous materials and crashes – to assign a motor carrier’s safety fitness rating.

The current system provides carriers an overall safety rating of either satisfactory, conditional or unsatisfactory.

Comments on advance notice

FMCSA received 176 comments from the advance notice, according to the Regulations.gov website.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which represents small-business truckers, told FMCSA that any changes to the safety fitness determination process should not penalize motor carriers that do not receive a rating.

“The FMCSA safety fitness determination process has a direct effect on motor carriers’ ability to stay in business,” OOIDA wrote in its comments. “Historically, the safety fitness determination structure has not been proven as a reliable methodology to properly determine a motor carrier’s fitness to operate. Most of the (program’s) shortcomings relate to the inaccuracy and inconsistency of the data that is collected and analyzed during a safety investigation.”

The OOIDA Foundation is in the process of analyzing the reports released by FMCSA.

How to comment on new notice

FMCSA is giving the public a month to comment on several reports it believes could be relevant to how it moves forward.

To do so, click here or go to the Regulations.gov website and enter FMCSA-2022-0003.

FMCSA then will review all of the comments to determine whether to move forward with a formal proposal. LL