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House hearing to focus on effectiveness of CSA
WASHINGTON — The Subcommittee on Highways and Transit of the House Transportation and Infrastructure will hold a public hearing Thursday on “Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Department of Transportation’s Truck and Bus Safety Program.â€
While the title may be broad, the focus is not.
According to the briefing memorandum sent to members of the subcommittee, the hearing will focus on a review of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program and identify issues related to the program’s implementation.
Among those scheduled to testify are FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro; Steve Owings, co-founder of Road Safe America; David Palmer, assistant chief of the Texas Department of Public Safety, and Bill Gentry, president of Gentry Trailways.
A likely topic of questioning, based on the briefing memorandum, will be whether CSA scores have any correlation to crash risk, which has been controversial subject among trucking industry stakeholders.
The briefing memo notes that a University of Transportation Research Institute study of the Operational Test Model of CSA found that motor carriers that exceeded the Safety Management System thresholds in the Unsafe Driving, Fatigued Driver and Controlled Substance and Alcohol categories have a higher crash risk than motor carriers not exceeding the thresholds.
“The study concluded that a carrier’s BASICs are significantly related to that carrier’s safety and future crash risk,†the memo said.
Conversely, the memo notes, a study by Wells Fargo found no correlation between a carrier’s actual accident incidence and the scores for Unsafe Driving, Fatigued Driving or Driver Fitness BASICs.
“The study suggests that interested parties should not rely exclusively on a carrier’s composite BASIC scores to assess overall risk,†the memo said.
The hearing begins at 10 a.m. EDT.
Kevin Jones of
The Trucker staff can be reached for comment at [email protected].
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