The Arkansas Trucking Association wants federal safety rankings to remain in public view while flaws in the program are addressed, taking a position opposite of its national affiliate.
The association's board of trustees met earlier in the week and offered its support for keeping the Compliance, Safety, Accountability scores available in hopes of pressing the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to resolve the issues. The American Trucking Associations, which is the largest national trade association in the trucking industry, has been vocal in its call for the scores to be removed until the problems with the program are resolved.
Shannon Newton, president of the Arkansas Trucking Association, said both groups are in favor of overhauling a program under heavy scrutiny because of concerns about its reliability in identifying companies with severe safety problems. But Newton added that the Arkansas association believes removing scores from public view could be counterproductive to fixing the flaws in an expedited manner.
"The argument was, let's keep it public and put pressure on FMCSA to fix it," Newton said. "And that if you take that away, maybe the urgency or the immediate need to fix it is somehow diminished or it buys them more time if it's not being used inappropriately as we would argue that it is today.
"Everybody wants CSA and everybody wants it to be right. The discrepancy is really over the value of having it available now."
Compliance, Safety, Accountability scores, while serving a valuable purpose in regard to safety in the industry, have been a hot-button topic since research by the Government Accountability Office uncovered flaws in the system last year. The study concluded information intended to identify problematic companies was insufficient and unreliable. It suggested that revising the methodology would "help FMCSA better focus intervention resources where they can have the greatest impact on achieving" its safety goals.
One of the most common complaints concerns information on accidents involving a carrier. The program does not include data on whether the carrier was at fault, leaving companies to believe they're being penalized for accidents they did not cause.
U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., introduced a bill this week that would order the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to stop publishing motor carrier scores until the system has been improved.
Earlier this month, Sen. Deb Fisher, R-Neb., criticized the carrier safety administration for not addressing the concerns raised by research from the Government Accountability Office study. Bill Graves, president of the American Trucking Associations, also criticized the federal agency a day later and called for the problems to be addressed with "real action."
The American Trucking Associations has been vocal about the safety rating issues, pressing the federal agency numerous times. The national group was part of a coalition that expressed its concerns to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx in August, calling for the scores to be removed.
"There is a broad agreement in the truck and bus industries, within law enforcement, and even at the FMCSA that the CSA system needs improvement," Sean McNally, a spokesman with the national trucking group, said in a statement. "This need was confirmed last year by the Government Accountability Office's finding that CSA scores are often unreliable and imprecise, due to data sufficiency and methodology problems. To this end, a large coalition of trade groups recently called for the scores to be pulled down while improvements are being made, but to restore them when they are reliable and accurate."
McNally acknowledged the difference in the Arkansas Trucking Association's position and said neither group opposes the ultimate goal of change. He said the "only area lacking consensus is on the availability of carriers' performance metrics while FMCSA improves their reliability."
The Trucking Alliance, which is a safety coalition that includes Arkansas trucking companies such as J.B. Hunt and Maverick, shares the same view as the Arkansas Trucking Association. Lane Kidd, who is the managing director of the Trucking Alliance, agreed the scores should remain public.
"We feel it's simply contradictory for any industry organization, because there are some problems with the rating system itself, that the whole system should be taken down," Kidd said.
Newton said the Arkansas Trucking Association tries not to "make it a habit of disagreeing" with the American Trucking Associations, which states its mission is to "serve and represent the trucking industry with a single, united voice." But the state association believes it is taking an appropriate position.
"I think that we agree on more than we disagree," Newton said. "Why we have CSA, the good things that it's done and the attention it has brought to safety by all participants in the logistics arena."
Business on 03/21/2015