Page 33 - ATR 3 2016 web

SFD Proposal Fails to Deliver

Vigillo’s Steve Bryan comments on FMCSA’s recent
Safety Fitness Determination proposal

By Steve Bryan Steve Bryan speaks at the ATA Annual Conference

Guest Writer
Editor’s note: the author was a presenter
at ATA’s recent Annual Business
Conference in Little Rock. This article
is largely a written narrative of his
presentation.
In December 2010, after two
years of testing in selected pilot states,
the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration began using the
Compliance, Safety and Accountability
(CSA) program as its new tool for
identifying unsafe motor carriers. It
also made public a motor carrier’s CSA
scores – a percentile view of how well
the carrier “performed” against others
of similar characteristics.
CSA was designed to be a data-
driven system enabling law enforcement
to more precisely identify motor car-
riers who present a higher crash risk,
and then prioritize them for height-
ened scrutiny. With approximately
1,100 FMCSA employees and 15,000
contracted law enforcement person-
nel tasked with regulatory oversight of PHOTO: Jon D. Kennedy
over 500,000 motor carriers, CSA was
intended to focus those limited resourc-
es where the greatest safety impact
could be realized. SOME MIGHT HAVE ASSUMED THAT FMCSA WOULD
While the strategy of CSA was HOLD OFF ON ISSUING THE PROPOSED SFD RULE
noble, and initially had the support of
a broad swath of the trucking industry, UNTIL THOSE DEFECTS WERE ADDRESSED. THOSE
the execution left much to be desired PEOPLE WOULD HAVE BEEN WRONG.
among many of those early supporters.
Concerns were raised, early and —STEVE BRYAN, CEO OF VIGILLO
often, regarding CSA’s accuracy in indi-
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ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT | Issue 3 2016 33