Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/993011
10 commercial carrier journal | june 2018 JOURNAL NEWS CVSA committee to address CSA crash data uniformity T he Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance of commeri- cial vehicle law enforcement and industry partici- pants last month organized a new working committee to tackle the issue of lack of uniform crash data for truck- involved crashes and the issue of crash accountability within the Compliance Safety Accountability program. The Crash Data and Investigative Standards Committee's ultimate goal is to address the CSA program's lack of any reliably significant account- ing for crash responsibility in the data collected on most crashes. CVSA committees establish policies and procedures as they relate to commer- cial motor vehicle enforcement in North America, with a goal toward achieving as much uniformity across jurisdictions as possible and to share information about best practices. Scott Hernandez, CVSA's director of crash standards and analysis, said the crash committee's goal is to work toward uniform reporting and investigative practices to "basically establish a standard protocol and reporting system" for crashes and to "help everyone with better data" for them "to do better investigations and to be more consistent" in all facets of crash investigation and reporting. "We need to step up and take a lead on this issue," Hernandez said. "This is something that we should strive to do, but we have to start with the basics. We'll start with the training [among state jurisdictions on crashes] being consistent." – Todd Dills INBRIEF 6/18 • U.S. Xpress (CCJ Top 250, No. 11) filed initial paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to become a publicly traded company for the second time. The Chattanooga, Tenn.- based truckload carrier said it hopes to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering, the date for which has not been set. U.S. Xpress, founded in 1986, first began public trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1994 and ceased trading in 2007. • The Federal Highway Administration plans to sur- vey truck stop operators, state Department of Transportation officials and enforcement person- nel about inadequacies in available truck parking. The research was set in motion by 2012's MAP-21 high- way funding law, which called for FWHA to complete studies around the lack of truck parking. FHWA last month filed a request with the White House to approve the survey. To view comments, go to Regulations.gov and search Docket No. FHWA-2018-0027-0001. • A new Rhode Island law bans drivers from using handheld wire- less communication devices while driving. The use of headphones or accessories that cover both ears also is not allowed under the dis- tracted driving law that went into effect June 1. Drivers may use in-car or hands-free systems or accesso- ries that commonly use Bluetooth technology. Fines of up to $100 may be waived for first-time offenders who can provide proof of purchase of a compliant hands-free device. • Preliminary numbers from the National Safety Council indicate U.S. motor vehicle deaths in 2017 claimed 40,100 lives, down slightly from 40,327 in 2016. NSC cau- tioned, however, that the slight dip could be just a leveling off after the steepest two-year increase in high- way deaths in more than 50 years. The estimated 2017 number is still 6 percent higher than the number of highway deaths in 2015, NSC reported. ELD violations added to CSA HOS BASIC N ew violations associated with the Fed- eral Motor Carrier Safety Administra- tion's electronic logging device mandate now are associated with the House of Service Compliance BASIC category in the Compliance Safety Accountability pro- gram's Safety Measurement System. "These violations are not being applied retroactively; violations recorded prior to April 1, 2018, will not be counted in SMS," the agency noted. However, carriers having received a violation for not having an ELD on board and in use should pay attention to the code used on the inspection report. If issued before April 1 with a code that is something other than 395.22(a), such carriers may have grounds for a DataQs-system challenge to have the code changed to remove the violation (often encoded under 395.8 or 395.15 sections) from scoring in the system. Motor carriers that have received ELD-related violations post-April 1 started "to see them reflected in their HOS Compliance BASIC in early May 2018 when the next monthly SMS results were released," FMCSA says. – Todd Dills CSA's Crash Indicator BASIC has not been made availabile for public viewing for three years. The Hours performance measure in the CSA SMS will be impacted by new ELD-related violations for carriers.