The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) has launched its second annual motor carrier survey this week, designed to identify the impact of the Comprehensive Safety Analysis regulations introduced by the US Department of Transport's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in 2010.
The regulations are designed to improve large truck and bus safety and have brought in a new enforcement and compliance model that allows FMCSA and its state partners to contact a larger number of carriers more frequently to address safety problems.
The ATRI survey is designed to gauge the impact of the rules on trucking operations, as well as carrier perceptions and attitudes toward the regulatory programme. The results will be compared with last year's first ATRI study, which involved responses from a representative sample of around 700 carriers.
Amongst last year's ATRI findings, trucking companies were reported to have raised their hiring standards since the introduction of the new rules but some companies reported problems with recruitment because of the increased scrutiny now required.
The report also revealed that just under 80% of carriers reported that positive safety behaviour had increased among drivers as a result of CSA, thanks largely to the increase in driver training, education and financial safety incentives including such schemes as a clean roadside inspection reward system offering a cash bonus (read more here )
The latest online survey asks carriers for information on how their perceptions of CSA have changed or been affected as it continues into its second full year of measuring motor carrier and commercial driver safety performance. The survey also seeks to capture attitudes toward the programme and general understanding of its key components.
Carriers are encouraged to provide confidential input on CSA through ATRI's survey, available online at www.atri-online.org. The results of the survey will be available later this year, accompanied by findings from ATRI's surveys of other stakeholder groups impacted by CSA, including thousands of commercial drivers, shippers and the enforcement community.
Back in January this year the FMCSA released a new Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category (BASIC) factsheet series on the CSA Outreach Website. The factsheets are targeted for motor carriers and commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers who want to learn more about the agency's seven BASICs, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) upon which they are based, and how to ensure they comply with those regulations.
The BASICs cover unsafe driving, fatigued driving (hours-of-service), driver fitness, controlled substances/alcohol, vehicle maintenance, cargo-related, and crash indicator. As these factsheets outline, the BASICs are safety categories in the CSA programme's Safety Measurement System (SMS). Motor carriers can see where they stand in each BASIC by logging into the SMS online (http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/sms/).
