Last November, the National Association of Small Trucking Companies, the Expedite Alliance of North America and 
the Air & Expedited Motor Carriers Association filed a suit against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in an attempt to postpone certain CSA 2010 data from going public.
According to the carrier groups, CSA 2010’s safety ratings system were inaccurate and placing the system into effect before concerns are taken care of would result in harm to carriers who are given poor scores and forever tarnish their reputations.
As CCJ Digital notes, the suit accused the FMCSA of not responding appropriately to “due process concerns,” in which once cited, the carrier will not be able to challenge the citation in an effective manner, “peer grouping,” with concerns that carriers are being unfairly compared with other carriers that do not have the same requirements, “data inequality,” and “unexplained methodology changes.”
Soon afterwards, on December 10th, the federal appeals court denied the carrier groups’ request, allowing the FMCSA to make SMS data available to the public. The FMCSA had until yesterday (March 9th) to respond to a briefing that took place on February 7th.
As the March 9th deadline came, the FMCSA struck a compromise with the carrier groups that deemed satisfactory. If the carrier groups agreed to drop their suit against them, the FMCSA would make the following changes:
Whereas the carrier groups feared that the word “alert” next to a carrier’s name would deem the carrier unsafe, the FMCSA has decided to “replace the orange “ALERT” symbol on its website with an exclamation mark inside a yellow triangle,” and will explain “that the symbol does not imply a specific safety rating,” todaystrucking.com notes.
In addition, the FMCSA will include a statement that says, “Readers should not draw conclusions about a carrier’s overall safety condition simply based on the data displayed in this system” (http://www.todaystrucking.com/news.cfm?intDocID=25854).
Road Scholar Transport is a safe LTL and TL carrier, conducting daily inspections of equipment to ensure that only the safest trucks are on the road, maintains less than a 0.0005% damage rate, and follows all policies and procedures. Check out our safety certificate at http://www.roadscholar.com/library.php.
On a scale of 1 to 5, how important is it for you to choose a carrier with a good safety rating?
Administration (FMCSA) is expected to be reached by the end of this week.
Trucking Companies, The Expedite Alliance of North America, and the Air & Expedited Motor Carriers Association) has filed a suit to block the CSA (Comprehensive Safety Analysis) 2010 “or at least to prohibit the public release of certain CSA data until the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration completes a rulemaking on the program that complies with the Administrative Procedures Act” (
