Update in the World of DOT Regulations
I admit, I have not kept my blog as current as I should have. Nevertheless, here is what is new at the FMCSA.
1) They are just about to name a deadline for installing the electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs or ‘black boxes’) in your trucks. The date will be November 30, 2017, give or take a few days. It is possible that date could be delayed, however, I think that would be a good benchmark to mark on your calendar. Installing the EOBRs, training your drivers, working out the bugs, is not something which can be done in a week. So don’t wait until November 29, 2017 to start buying the EOBRs. In case you think this will somehow be halted, or stopped by someone; it won’t. It’s the law; it would take an extraordinary event to happen to stop this from happening at this point. It’s going to happen.
2) The CSA scores are probably going to be removed from the Internet. The CSA system has come to be roundly hated by just about everyone, except the drones at FMCSA. A source at FMCSA indicated to me that even the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) has now quietly come out against the CSA scores. CVSA is a lobbying group representing the various State Polices, Highway Patrols, and other State groups who get Federal tax dollars. Apparently, these agencies have wearied of the incessant DataQ challenges they are getting to their inspections. The highway reauthorization act working its way through Congress currently has language in it which would strip the CSA scores from the Internet. FMCSA, almost certainly, will still use these scores internally to determine who it will audit. However, they will not be as readily available to brokers, insurance companies, and the public.
3) FMCSA has completed its study of the crash-reducing benefits of the 1am – 5am and 168 hour provisions of their 70 hour rule. To refresh your memory, late last year, the Congress forced FMCSA to suspend their new 70 hour rule reset provisions, pending a study of those provisions. That study is now finished. I suspect in the next few months, FMCSA will report that the 1am – 5am, and 168 hour provisions will save countless lives, cure cancer, and make you taller and better looking. At that point, frankly, I am not sure what happens next. These provisions are also roundly hated by the industry, so at that point the ball will probably go back into the Congress’ court.
4) FMCSA continues its enforcement rampage unabated. This is the most vicious, aggressive DOT I have ever seen in my 25 years of experience. Don’t take my word for it, look at the statistics. These are taken from FMCSA’s website. In FY 2013, FMCSA issued a fine at the conclusion of an audit 28.74% of the time. In FY 2015, that number has climbed to 33.65%.
Furthermore, not only are they assessing penalties more frequently, when they assess them, they are higher. According to FMCSA’s website, in FY 2013, they settled fines totaling $27,881,994. In FY 2015, through June, 2015, FMCSA has already settled fines totaling $33,751,234. That’s just through June. If you extrapolate that out for the entire fiscal year of 2015, it will be around $45,000,000, which is roughly a 66% increase in fines, in just two years! The rules have not significantly changed. FMCSA simply believes the way to reduce crashes is to pound the regulated industry with increasingly draconian audits and penalties. Frankly, I find it obscene, especially considering they are not achieving huge accident reductions, but then FMCSA did not ask for my opinion.
If you have been served a Notice of Claim by the FMCSA, by all means, email or call me! Very often, FMCSA’s ridiculous fines can be reduced significantly if you fight them, and you know what you’re doing. I know what I’m doing. At a minimum, I can review the Notice of Claim for free, and give you some options. Usually I can help you, and my charges are more than made up in the dollars I save you off the fine. Occasionally, I can’t help you. If I can’t, I will tell you that, and why. I hate doing work for customers which provides no value, so I avoid that as much as I can.
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Eric Arnold is a Former Enforcement Manager with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and a leading expert on USDOT compliance for small businesses. Do you have a question for Eric Arnold? Email him at [email protected].
Learn more about Arnold Safety compliance consulting services at ArnoldSafety.Com.
My trip to England
I swore I would keep the website up to date, and I guess I have not been doing a very good job of that. Well, there are only so many hours in the day. To all the people who asked questions, which I answered late: my apologies. If you really want a question answered, it is best to email it to me at [email protected]. The ones on the website I only get when I update the website which is not that often. The email I get every day.
I went on vacation several weeks ago for 8 days. It was the first week long vacation I had taken in 8 years. I have been trying to catch up with work ever since. I went to England. I have been there before, but this was the first time I drove a car over there. My wife and I covered a good deal of territory, too. I’ll be honest, it was harder than I thought it would be. The steering wheel is on the right side of the car (although the pedals are the same). You drive on the left side of the road.
The left side of the road-thing probably isn’t the hardest part. The hard part is the roads are much narrower than American roads. What I would consider a back road here in Pennsylvania is a major “A”-road over there. An “A” road generally equates to a US or State road here. The American Interstates are about the same as the British “M” roads.
You will be driving on one of these narrow, two lane, “A” roads, and traffic is whizzing past you going 50-60 mph. It takes some adjusting. Plus, none of these roads are straight. Twisting, turning, very narrow. I paid for the talking GPS unit, which was invaluable. Without “Jane” the talking computer, I’d probably still be trying to find the airport.
After a week, I had pretty much gotten the hang of it, although I still didn’t drive in London. When I got home, I looked up British fatality rates on the Internet. According to Wikipedia, there are 4.3 road fatalities per billion vehicle-kilometers, in the United Kingdom. It also says there are 7.6 road fatalities per billion vehicle-kilometers, in the United States. I do not know what time period this covers, as Wikipedia is vague on that, but let’s assume it’s apples to apples. 4.3 vs. 7.6 is a pretty big difference. What you are basically saying is you are almost twice as likely to get killed in a vehicle in America as in England.
There may be some reasons for this. One thing which probably is not a factor is speed. They drive fast as hell over there. Furthermore, they really don’t have police officers. What they do have are speed cameras, but then, it seems they have big signs telling you where the cameras are. On those “M” roads, it was nothing to see people routinely driving 80 – 100 mph. I guess people slow down approaching the cameras, and then hammer it in between the cameras. Even on the “A” roads people would be routinely getting up over 80 mph.
One thing they have over there, which we absolutely do not have here is lane discipline. The slow lane is for driving. The passing lane is for passing. You do not hang out in the passing lane. You pass, and then you move back into the slow lane. You do not pass on the left (or through the slow lane). They even have terms for it. Passing is “overtaking”, which is acceptable behavior. Passing via the slow or left lane is called “undertaking”, and that is very much frowned upon. In the week I was over there, I might have seen 5-6 undertaking passes.
Of course over here, we see that all the time. I can get in my car, get on US 422, and see 5 undertaking passes before I get to the mall. It is simply acceptable behavior to hang out and block traffic in the passing (or left) lane. Cars and trucks do it every day, and don’t even recognize what they’re doing is impolite, irritating, or dangerous. A line of traffic piles up behind the vehicle impeding traffic, and within moments, cars are moving past the blocker vehicle in the right lane. It happens all the time. I believe this is one of the reasons we have a much higher fatality rate.
Another difference is the roundabout. They don’t have the American, perpendicular traffic lights over there. They have traffic circles where the roads intersect. Occasionally these are controlled with traffic lights, but often they are not. They take some getting used to. However, there probably are not a lot of fatalities in the roundabouts, as no matter what, you have to slow down to get around the circle. At the American, perpendicular intersections, everything works great until somebody misses a red light. Then you have one vehicle going 50 mph, with another traveling in a perpendicular direction also going 50 mph, which leads to a high-speed, high impact crash.
They have smaller vehicles over there. They have plenty of tractor-trailers. They call them lorries. They have lots of cars. They do not have giant SUVs or pickup trucks. They won’t fit on their narrow roads. This is probably a factor in fewer people getting killed, as there aren’t any giant SUV versus small car crashes over there.
It was an adventure. A little nerve-wracking, but I’m glad I did it.
