Cherry Hill, NJ USA, May 28, 2013 - Current standards in carrier crash reporting are unfair, misleading, and may a have negative impact on carrier selection according to Jeff Tucker, CEO of Tucker Company Worldwide, and the MCSAC CSA Subcommittee on which he serves. On April 9, 2013, the MCSAC passed to FMCSA the CSA Subcommittee's recommendations for improvement to the CSA system.
Tucker remains baffled that the agency didn't recognize and act on the obvious need for these changes long ago. He believes certain elements within FMCSA have internal agendas that outweigh reason and due process, and those elements seem to be ruling the day. He hopes this partial list of recommendations will begin to turn the tide:
For a carrier's Crash BASIC, exclude crashes where there is a clear determination that the carrier was not at fault or (in the language of the regulations), the crash was non-preventable. (E.g., don't penalize the carrier when a car runs into it while the truck was stopped at a red light).
Evaluate changing the definition of reportable DOT crash for purposes of CSA to include only fatalities or injuries (e.g., exclude deer kills where no cars or people were involved). FMCSA should standardize the data it gathers from the individual 50 states.
Until these reforms can be enacted, responsible carriers will continue to be misrepresented under the current carrier selection framework.
Tucker Company Worldwide, Inc. is America's oldest privately held operating freight broker and is based in Cherry Hill, NJ. Tucker specializes in arranging shipments of high value, high security, climate controlled and otherwise sensitive materials for some of the world's best known brands. Tucker is active in its trade association and serves on a select committee reviewing motor carrier safety for the U. S. Department of Transportation. Tucker has been a first responder supporting the government with trucking of relief supplies for most of the nation's natural and man-made disasters in the last 30 years.
