 |
PAST NEWS 2007
From June 5-7, 7,708 Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Certified Inspectors at 1,449 locations across North America performed 62,370 truck and bus inspections – the highest number of inspections ever conducted in the 20 years of the International Roadcheck event. Equally as impressive was a record number of the most comprehensive roadside inspections conducted, the North American Standard Level I – 49,454 of the total. Driver results for the vehicle types were as follows:
The bulk of the drivers placed out of service (65.9 percent of the total) were done so for hours of service violations. This compares with 57.1 percent in 2006. Falsification of records of duty status was second in line, comprising 11.4 percent of the total – 12.4 percent was the 2006 number. The number of drivers discovered operating while disqualified this year was the highest in six years, comprising 3.6 percent of the total driver out of service violations. Drivers operating while suspended comprised 3.9 percent of the driver out of service violations, up from 3.3 percent last year. One other piece of driver data worth noting is that drug and alcohol out of service violations represented 1.5 percent of the total driver out of service violations, up from 0.9 percent last year. Hours of service out of service violations continues its upward trend, with 4.9 percent of all inspections resulting in a driver being placed out of service for hours of service, up from 4.5 percent last year, 3.5 percent in 2005 and 3.4 percent in 2004. The Level III (Driver/Credential) inspections saw a large spike in driver out of service rates from last year’s results, going from 7.6 percent in 2006 to 11.9 percent this year. Brakes continue to be the dominating vehicle out of service defect, comprising 54.0 percent of the total vehicle defects, which was noticeably lower than the 56.6 percent in 2006. The vehicle related out of service defects this year saw increases in the distribution of lighting (11.6 percent in 2006 to 14.1 percent in 2007), load securement (8.6 percent to 10.4 percent) and tires/wheels (8.7 percent to 9.1 percent). “We continue to target our resources at areas that deserve attention,” said CVSA executive director Stephen F. Campbell. “In the last several years our members have spent extra time and emphasis on training their inspectors in the areas of driver interviews, hours of service, cargo securement, motorcoach inspections and safety belt enforcement. It is not a surprise to us that we are seeing these results. It means we are working smarter and are using our tools more effectively to identify and take action on those who are in need of our attention.” “The strength of Roadcheck is in its partnerships,” said John Hill, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. “We are pleased to see a growing number of municipalities throughout North America participating in Roadcheck. Car drivers, however, must continue to do their part in helping to keep roads safe by driving carefully at all times – particularly near or around large commercial vehicles.” CVSA sponsors the annual Roadcheck with participation by FMCSA, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, Transport Canada, and the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (Mexico).
CVSA is an international not-for-profit organization comprised of local, state, provincial, territorial and federal motor carrier safety officials and industry representatives from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Our mission is to promote commercial motor vehicle safety and security by providing leadership to enforcement, industry and policy makers. In addition, CVSA has several hundred associate members who are committed to helping the Alliance achieve its goals; uniformity, compatibility and reciprocity of commercial vehicle inspections, and enforcement activities throughout North America by individuals dedicated to highway safety and security. For more on CVSA visit www.cvsa.org.
Starting June 5, approximately 10,000 specially-trained and certified officers will blanket North America’s roadways to prevent truck and bus crashes and save lives. For the past 20 years, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s (CVSA) annual Roadcheck event dispatches federal, state, provincial and local inspectors to conduct North American Standard Inspections around the clock for 72 hours from June 5 - 7. These inspections involve a comprehensive 37-step procedure which includes items related to vehicle, driver and cargo safety. Inspectors also hand out educational materials to drivers on various aspects of commercial vehicle, driver and hazardous materials safety. This year, CVSA is launching a new podcast focusing on educating the commercial vehicle driver on safety and security measures. The new podcast series, called Inside the Safety Lane with CVSA, will include discussions with FMCSA Administrator John Hill, Rick Holcomb, American Trucking Associations’ General Counsel and Sr. VP for Law & Regulatory Affairs, Norm Littler, Vice President - Regulatory & Industry Affairs, Executive Director, Bus Industry Safety Council, American Bus Association, and CVSA President Captain John Harrison. The podcast will air the week of Roadcheck 2007 and can be downloaded from www.cvsa.org/podcast. “Placing emphasis on drivers is a key component to enhancing safety on our highways, and concentrated enforcement programs like Roadcheck give us the data we need to target our efforts. Enforcement sends a message that we will put you out of service if you are violating the law or driving an unsafe commercial vehicle.” said Stephen Campbell, executive director of CVSA. Although the latest FMCSA statistics indicate an increase in use of safety belts from 48 to 59 percent, this number is still far too low. In comparison, the use rate among automobile drivers is 82 percent. During Roadcheck 2006, 1,223 safety belt violations were documented during the 3-day event, versus 1,150 in 2005. In all of 2006, 63,846 safety belt violations were recorded against commercial drivers, up from 57,510 in 2005.. More than three million North American Standard roadside inspections are conducted annually. “Studies have shown that drivers – of both large trucks and passenger vehicles – are 10 times more likely to be the cause of a fatal crash involving a large truck than factors such as weather, road conditions and vehicle performance,” FMCSA Administrator John Hill said. “Everyone can help save lives and make the roads safer by checking their vehicles, learning and obeying the laws and wearing their safety belts.”
CVSA is an international not-for-profit organization comprised of local, state, provincial, territorial and federal motor carrier safety officials and
industry representatives from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Our mission is to promote commercial motor vehicle safety and security by providing
leadership to enforcement, industry and policy makers. In addition, CVSA has several hundred associate members who are committed to helping the Alliance
achieve its goals; uniformity, compatibility and reciprocity of commercial vehicle inspections, and enforcement activities throughout North America by
individuals dedicated to highway safety and security. For more on CVSA visit www.cvsa.org.
To enable significant positive changes to commercial vehicle drivers’ hours of service (HOS) compliance, CVSA is advocating universal adoption of electronic on board recorder (EOBR) technology. Captain John E. Harrison, President of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), outlined before a Senate subcommittee how EOBR technology could help solve problems as well as making recommendations on the current Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) EOBR Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. “Compliance with the HOS regulations continues to be a significant problem encountered by law enforcement, both at roadside and in the motor carrier’s place of business,” said Harrison to the subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation United States Senate on EOBRs and Truck Driver Fatigue Reduction. Unfortunately, drivers operating in excess of drivers’ HOS limits and falsified driver logs continue to represent a significant risk to safety. In 2006, HOS violations were represented in seven of the “Top 20” driver violations discovered during roadside inspections, representing 34.2 percent of the total. Of those, 78.8 percent were for HOS. During compliance reviews, five of the “Top 12” critical violations cited were HOS related, or 34.6 percent of the total. The results from the 2006 Large Truck Crash Causation Study indicated that fatigue was reported as an associated factor in 13 percent of all large truck crashes. “We believe EOBRs hold great promise and is one of a number of tools for helping improve compliance with HOS regulations and providing a positive impact on safety and crashes related to driver fatigue. EOBR technology is proven--more than 50 countries have mandated electronic data recorders for driving and standby time recording and/or speed and distance recording.” said Harrison. “We also believe that wide-scale adoption of EOBRs will help curb the challenges with limited resources available at the state and federal levels for overseeing the motor carrier industry.”
CVSA is an international not-for-profit organization comprised of local, state, provincial, territorial and federal motor carrier safety officials and
industry representatives from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Our mission is to promote commercial motor vehicle safety and security by providing
leadership to enforcement, industry and policy makers. In addition, CVSA has several hundred associate members who are committed to helping the Alliance
achieve its goals; uniformity, compatibility and reciprocity of commercial vehicle inspections, and enforcement activities throughout North America by
individuals dedicated to highway safety and security. For more on CVSA visit www.cvsa.org.
For the first time, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) will hold the CVSA Annual Conference together with the FMCSA Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) Leadership Conference to provide a collective forum to discuss timely issues pertinent to commercial motor vehicle (CMV) safety. The conference will be held on March 24-30, 2007 in Atlanta. “Coordinating our conferences sends a clear message to the CMV community that our organizations are committed to work more closely to improve state, provincial and federal efforts to save lives on our highways, as well as to create the best opportunity for returning on the investments granted by the U.S. Congress and state and provincial legislatures for the best use of our tax dollars,” said CVSA’s Executive Director Stephen F. Campbell. Some of the subjects to be discussed include:
“We intend to discuss the NAFTA Demonstration Project and hope it will spur constructive dialogue between all three countries to share best practices that will further improve safety, security, and regulatory harmonization,” said Campbell. “We cannot emphasize enough the importance and necessity of coordination and training in the preparation for the demonstration project and for the opening of the border. The key to smooth, successful and uniform NAFTA implementation will be in the delivery of a comprehensive operations plan that includes federal, state and provincial partners in all three countries.”
CVSA is an international not-for-profit organization comprised of local, state, provincial, territorial and federal motor carrier safety officials and industry representatives from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Our mission is to promote commercial motor vehicle safety and security by providing leadership to enforcement, industry and policy makers. In addition, CVSA has several hundred associate members who are committed to helping the Alliance achieve its goals; uniformity, compatibility and reciprocity of commercial vehicle inspections, and enforcement activities throughout North America by individuals dedicated to highway safety and security. For more on CVSA visit www.cvsa.org.
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), in association with Zurich Services Corporation and Interactive Driving Systems, has completed the development of an online airbrake training program to enhance commercial motor vehicle safety across North America. The online training program, called Virtual Risk Manager – Airbrakes, responds to the recommendations identified in a March 2006 U.S. government study that found brake deficiencies are a factor in nearly 30 percent of all serious truck crashes that involve a fatality or injury. According to CVSA, the findings show that brake training is essential to increase drivers, mechanics and roadside safety enforcement officer’s knowledge of airbrake systems. “Drivers, inspectors and mechanics require reliable and readily available information to assist in developing proficiency and skills,” said Collin Mooney, CVSA, Director of Enforcement Programs. “When it comes to these systems, we need to increase awareness of the unique and special characteristics of airbrake systems.” The online training program leverages the use of multimedia technology to help drivers, mechanics and safety enforcement officers understand the workings of airbrake systems. The program delivers virtual training based on recognized sources from industry experts, and contains the recommendations made in the February 2006 National Transportation Safety Board report on the adjustment of automatic slack adjusters. The program is an interactive experience with instructional animations and a narrator to guide users through the program. At every step throughout the program, users will have access to interactive exercises to help them master the concepts and practicalities of working with airbrake technology and is structured to cater to all levels of experience and education. Users begin with a ‘Training Needs Analysis’ designed to identify strengths and weaknesses in the users’ knowledge. As a result, individual training programs are automatically assembled to help the user focus on their weaknesses before taking the final assessment. In the final assessment, every user takes a 50-question knowledge check that confirms their mastery of the entire subject and generates a certificate of completion for their employers training records. Additionally, individual users will also receive a full color presentation certificate and a glove box resource guide to better ensure they have key information available to them away from the computer, including CVSA guidance on what to expect during a roadside inspection. “We are very pleased to work with CVSA and Interactive Driving Systems to make available training that we hope will reduce serious truck accidents,” said Armand Fernandez, Vice President, Zurich Services Corporation. “We are always looking for opportunities to proactively stop accidents from occurring in the first place.” “A huge amount of work has gone in to creating Virtual Risk Manager – Airbrakes, that takes full advantage of the technology available to us today,” said Ed Dubens, Interactive Driving Systems. “Every user of this program has an opportunity to create their own training course targeted towards their individual strengths and weaknesses.” For more information, visit www.virtualriskmanager.net/airbrakes and enjoy free access to the Airbrake Challenge to determine if your drivers, mechanics or enforcement officers would benefit from the program.
CVSA is an international not-for-profit organization comprised of local, state, provincial, territorial and federal motor carrier safety officials and industry representatives from the United States, Canada and Mexico. Our mission is to promote commercial motor vehicle safety and security by providing leadership to enforcement, industry and policy makers. In addition, CVSA has several hundred associate members who are committed to helping the Alliance achieve its goals; uniformity, compatibility and reciprocity of commercial vehicle inspections, and enforcement activities throughout North America by individuals dedicated to highway safety and security. For more on CVSA visit www.cvsa.org.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters announced today that Rose A. McMurray has been appointed Chief Safety Officer and Assistant Administrator for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). McMurray has been FMCSA’s Associate Administrator for Policy and Program Development since 2003. McMurray has more than 30 years of experience at the U.S. Department of Transportation, serving in a variety of Associate Administrator and other senior leadership roles in several operating administrations, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, when that agency was responsible for commercial motor vehicle safety, and the former Research and Special Programs Administration, where she served as Acting Administrator for one year. “Rose has dedicated her entire career to transportation safety. Her numerous highway safety positions and solid results bring an impressive safety background to her new appointment. She has the experience we need to succeed in our effort to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving large trucks and buses,” said Peters. FMCSA was established as a separate administration within the U.S. Department of Transportation on January 1, 2000. It employs more than 1,000 individuals, in all 50 States and the District of Columbia, dedicated to improving bus and truck safety and saving lives. Appointed to the Senior Executive Service in 1989, McMurray has been recognized with numerous honors throughout her career, including the Senior Executive Service Presidential Rank Award, the Secretary of Transportation’s Meritorious Achievement Award, and the Secretary’s Gold Medal for Leading DOT Efforts during the Midwest Floods. She has served on the Board of Advisors for the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Currently, and for the second time in her career, she is a member of the Board of Advisors for the National Safety Council.
|
 |
|