PMAA joined other associations in a letter to appropriators to support a provision for inclusion in the FY 2017 Department of Transportation Appropriations bill to stop the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) from proceeding the Safety Fitness Determination rulemaking until all reforms related to the Compliance, Safety and Accountability/Safety Measurement System (CSA/SMS) programs mandated by the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act) are completed.
The FMCSA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: “Carrier Safety Fitness Determination” on January 21, 2016. The current safety fitness rating system ranks carriers as Satisfactory, Conditional or Unsatisfactory based on a comprehensive safety compliance review. The rule proposes to radically modify the Safety Fitness rating system in which carriers are evaluated for both the enforcement community and the general public. The new methodology would be based on on-road safety data using five of the Agency’s seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs); an investigation, which will consider all seven BASICs, or a combination of on-road safety data and investigation information. The proposed new system would remove all of the existing ratings and create only one rating: “Unfit”.
PMAA’s major concern with the proposal is that the new proposed methodology utilizes flawed CSA/SMS data and scores, which pursuant to the FAST Act, Congress has directed the agency to completely overhaul just two months ago. FMCSA should complete the reforms to the CSA/SMS system before proceeding to a new method of evaluating safety fitness of carriers. In the meantime, the current safety fitness rating system available to customers would remain in place.
Meanwhile Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) is circulating a “Dear Colleague” asking his colleagues to sign the letter that will also urge appropriators to include language in the FY 17 THUD bill to slow down the agency’s rulemaking.
