Page 20 - ATR 5 2012 web 2

investments into alternative safety fatalities more dramatically. riers’ voluntary use of effective safety
tools have increased over the last sev- On-going research on alterna- solutions. A system that incentivizes
eral years, predicated on the notion tive compliance has been based on the and rewards companies for doing so
that non-traditional ‘Alternative grounds that the traditional strategy would yield significant widespread
Compliance’ (AC) tools can help to to determine carriers’ safety assess- adoption of these life-saving technolo-
reduce truck involved crashes, injuries ments may not work for such a diverse gies and practices.
and fatalities.” industry. Be it through CSA or ISS scor-
Further, it states “there are a vari- Regardless of which approach to ing, the adaptation of voluntary safety
ety of alternative safety-related strate- implement the concept is taken, the alternatives shifts the burden of safety
gies being used by carriers that appear core of alternative compliance schemes management from enforcement to the
promising for reducing crashes and is to encourage and reward motor car- carriers themselves. Keppler believes
“people who care about safety and
want to go the extra mile will do it and
30 years of balance. those that don’t will have a brighter
spot light on them, allowing enforce-
ment to focus activities on the bad
actors.”
CVSA is currently working with
a number of organizations to pro-
mote the concept and explore options
available to facilitate a pilot program.
Keppler explained that because alterna-
tive compliance is such an innovative
concept he is working to socialize the
idea among stakeholders. So far, he has
found that there is much support for
the idea, but that “the devil is in the
details.”
CVSA has a taskforce looking at
options for a pilot program and on how
to educate the industry on the concept.
Additionally, the enforcement alliance
is in communications with Austria and
Alberta where alternative compliance
programs have been implemented and
created significant impacts on improv-
ing safety culture.
In order to continue to work
toward addressing a plateau of national
safety statistics, innovative and effec-
tive approaches must be vetted, devel-
oped and integrated into the safety
assessment and compliance enforce-
ment equations.
Executing an industry driven sys-
tem that would incentivize companies
to voluntarily implement non-regulated
safety solutions and reward them for
doing so essentially raises the bar for
the industry and by doing so creates a
sustained progression of the industry’s
safety culture. An alternative compli-
ance program would do just that.
(501) 753-9700 • www.bellandcompany.net

20 arkansas truCking rePort | issue 5 2012