Page 11 - ATR 2 2012 web 2

NEWS IN brIEf

agency’s data shows “a very clear and
strong correlation” between past and
future crashes regardless of who was at
fault.

arkaNSaS HIgHWay
CommISSIoNErS To STUdy
TollINg I-40
The Arkansas highway commission
announced it will study the feasibility
of tolling I-40 between Little Rock and
Memphis, one of the heaviest stretches of
truck freight volume in the United States.

CSa raTINg WIll faCTor all to be the fault of the carrier. Yet FMCSA
aCCIdENTS—for NoW uses all crashes, regardless of fault, in
Fault doesn’t matter in accidents assessing a safety rating.
involving a tractor trailer rig: It will go The FMCSA acknowledged improve-
on the trucking company’s safety rating ments in the process were justified,
anyway. That is the sentiment trucking but the agency isn’t ready to say what
observed with the announcement the changes are forthcoming. FMCSA
Federal Motor Safety Administration Administrator Anne Ferro said, “It was
(FMCSA) will not pursue a change in the just too early out of the box in this pro-
way it reports crashes involving tractor posal, quite frankly, so I pulled it back.”
trailers. The agency was close to propos- Rob Abbott, vice president of safety Commissioners denied there was
ing a way for carriers to get an assess- at American Trucking Associations (ATA), any correlation between the tolling
ment of fault in the crashes before the underscored the industry’s continuing study and a statement released the same
accident could be used in factoring their concern about the fairness of the current day denouncing the Arkansas General
overall safety rating. system. Assembly for failing to repeal a full sales
The carrier safety ratings are part of “With respect to all of the crashes tax exemption on the purchase price of
the Compliance-Safety-Accountability that clearly are not the driver’s fault, it’s trucks and semitrailers.
program (CSA) that provides the public, an error to include every one of those in “The highway commission’s tolling
shippers and others a quick view of a the database,” he said. “What ATA wants study is nothing more than a retaliatory
trucking company’s relative safety perfor- is to make the crash indicator a better slam at the trucking industry for it get-
mance. indicator of carrier performance.” ting a sales tax exemption on its equip-
The trucking industry has com- Steve Owings is co-founder and ment,” said Lane Kidd, president of the
plained that most accidents involving president of Road Safe America, one of
tractor trailers are eventually deemed not the advocacy groups involved, said the 

ArkAnSAS trucking report | issue 2 2012 11