US Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration implements 11 improvements to its Safety Measurement System that will help agency identify, take action against trucks over safety, compliance concerns
Cindy Allen
WASHINGTON
,
December 4, 2012
(press release)
–
The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) today implemented 11 new improvements to its Safety Measurement System (SMS). The changes, developed over several months with feedback from the public and stakeholders throughout the industry, will enhance the agency’s ability to identify and take action against trucks and buses with safety and compliance concerns.
The SMS uses all available inspection and crash data to prioritize carriers for interventions. SMS quantifies on-road safety performance of carriers to identify the specific safety problems the carrier exhibits and to monitor whether performance is improving or worsening. SMS helps FMCSA more efficiently apply its resources and bring carriers and drivers into compliance with Federal safety regulations in order to prevent crashes and save lives.
"Safety is our number one priority,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “These improvements will enable us to more accurately identify unsafe truck and bus companies and intervene before tragedies occur.”
The SMS improvements will give FMCSA more precise information to assess a company’s on-the-road safety performance. The enhancements implemented today include:
FMCSA provided a four-month preview period to give the public and industry ample opportunity to review and comment on the proposed changes to FMCSA's SMS. Overall, more than 19,000 companies and 2,900 law enforcement personnel participated in the public preview.
“These SMS enhancements reflect FMCSA’s commitment to listening to our stakeholders and researching and analyzing enhancements in the name of safety,” said FMCSA Administrator Anne S. Ferro. “By strengthening our cornerstone enforcement program, we are continuing to raise the bar for truck and bus safety.”
Motor carriers are encouraged to check their safety data at http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/sms to see how the SMS changes may have affected their SMS results.
For complete details on the new SMS improvements, visit the Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) web site at http://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/.
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