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Fed ‘red list’ tracks troublesome drivers, eyes employers

WASHINGTON — A former top trucking regulator says that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has a roster of truck drivers who’ve committed serious offenses, and carriers would be inviting scrutiny by hiring them.

“I can tell you that I recently found out that FMCSA does keep what they call a ‘red list’ of drivers. They consider them the worst drivers in the country and they carefully monitor what companies have hired those drivers,” former FMCSA Administrator Annette Sandberg said Wednesday. “So it really is incumbent on carriers to want to pay attention to the data in the system on drivers, and particularly as the driver pool tightens, not just hire any driver that walks in the door. Because FMCSA is monitoring these quote, ‘red-listed drivers,’ to see where they end up.”

Sandberg was featured in an online presentation of the government’s new carrier safety analysis system, CSA 2010, organized by the Transportation Intermediaries Association for the benefit of its members. The remarks came during a discussion of whether drivers would have individual safety scores, and whether the DOT could automatically disqualify them.

Speaking afterward with The Trucker, Sandberg explained that driver tracking is “woven into” CSA 2010’s driver measurement system.

“You just have to read between the lines,” she said. “Evidently what they do is they’ve gathered all that data over time, and out of all that they’ve come up with what they deem as the worst drivers. They actually monitor the drivers themselves.”

For example, she explained, if a driver with an exceptionally high score leaves one carrier and goes to work for another, and even though that driver’s past violations will stay with the first carrier, FMCSA “is going to be watching [the driver] closely” at his new carrier.

“The idea is that the most unsafe drivers, they’re trying to drive out of the system,” she said, adding that FMCSA also may take enforcement action against such drivers. “They’re doing more and more of that.”

In her current job as an industry consultant, Sandberg said she had worked with a company undergoing a review because of Hours of Service violations, and the FMCSA investigation revealed that 40 percent of the carrier’s violations could be attributed to just two drivers. FMCSA filed cases against the drivers individually, as well as the company, for falsifying logs, she said.

“They’ve always had the ability to take enforcement action against individual drivers, they just didn’t very often,” Sandberg said. “The CSA 2010 data is more refined.”

Specifically, the Driver Safety Measurement System allows investigators to know which drivers are creating problems, and will “look at them first” in a carrier intervention.

“I’ve never actually seen the list, but what I understand is it’s the worst of the worst,” she said. “I’ve just worked with carriers who were going through compliance reviews, and had problems. They were told by their investigator that they had drivers on this red list, and ‘you need to get rid of them.’”

In a follow-up conversation, Sandburg said that her source’s use of “red list” could refer to the agency database’s “red flags” — and while she stands by her account, she’d been unable to get an immediate clarification from the FMCSA regarding either the master list of drivers or the targeting of carriers that hire them.

She emphasized that “there is a lot of consternation out there about CSA 2010” without more misinformation being spread.

“I talk to drivers all the time. Ninety-five percent have nothing to worry about,” Sandberg said. “But those others probably shouldn’t be driving anyway.”

When asked about Sandberg's comments, FMCSA responded with a brief statement that the agency does not have a “red list” of commercial truck and bus drivers.

“The CSA 2010 program includes a list of specific safety violations that are referred to as ‘red flag’ violations,” the statement said. “When a safety investigator conducts a compliance review and other type of safety intervention, the CSA 2010 system informs the investigator if any of the drivers employed by the carrier have received one of the ‘red flag’ violations. Investigators are then required to look further into the violation.”

American Trucking Associations Vice President of Safety Policy Rob Abbott, who led the TIA presentation, further explained that FMCSA does indeed have the ability to “red flag” drivers for serious violations such as defying out of service orders, drug and alcohol use, and CDL issues. He was not aware, however, that FMCSA would target carriers based on hiring these drivers. Rather, and as Sandberg explained, those drivers’ records would be targeted if a carrier warranted an intervention because of driver-related high scores under CSA 2010.

“The intent of the Driver SMS is to track driver violations from carrier to carrier, wherever they work,” Abbott told The Trucker.

When FMCSA investigators find 10 percent or more of a carrier’s driver records contain Hours of Service violations, for instance, that carrier is found to be in violation. So, Abbott continued, with investigators pulling the files of drivers known to have a history of HOS violations, “it’s more likely a carrier will be found in violation” — even if the sample might not be representative of the fleet overall.

Complicating the matter, carriers who hired drivers before the Pre-Employment Screening Program (PSP) reports became available earlier this year have no way of knowing if a driver’s previous history contains any red-flag violations.

ATA likewise is pushing FMCSA to give carriers access to the Driver SMS, that is, to see the comparative driver scores — rather than simply the raw driver history data — used by roadside inspectors to target enforcement.

“Even though a driver’s points will not be adopted by a carrier at the time of hire, carriers will look at records to determine if a driver has a pattern of behavior that will likely repeat itself and negatively impact the carrier’s score,” Abbott said. “As a result, drivers who have a pattern of such violations may find themselves unemployable. Drivers should work very carefully to protect their own records and their own scores in the system.”

Former FMCSA Administrator John Hill said he was not aware of an official list of bad drivers, but drivers with repeated violations will receive a “designation of a red flag” in the computer system.

“It just means you’re going to be subject to more scrutiny in a compliance review. It helps investigators identify where the weak parts are in a carrier’s performance,” Hill said. “As far as I know, there isn’t any red-flag list that abides in a vault somewhere that they pull out when they go talk to a carrier.”

A list of the FMCSA red-flag violations is available here.

Kevin Jones of The Trucker staff can be reached for comment at [email protected] .

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