SafeStat: In Search Of Fairness
Serious flaws in the accident reporting system could benefit unsafe carriers. Can the feds fix it?
An audit of SafeStat, the federal online database that ranks safety records of interstate motor carriers against each other, has found serious flaws in the system.
The DOT's Office of Inspector General's report, issued in late February, verifies what a lot of people suspected: Many states and many motor carriers are not properly reporting accidents and other safety-related information to SafeStat.
Some of the audit's findings:
• Six jurisdictions failed to report any accidents between July and December 2002. The six were the District of Columbia, Florida, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
• Auditors estimate that at least 60% of large truck-involved accidents were not being reported by nine jurisdictions: Arkansas, D.C., Florida, Georgia, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia.
• Even when reports were submitted, auditors found errors or omissions that could influence safety ratings.
• As of January 2003, some 272,000 motor carriers — nearly half of the entire database — had not updated their census data (number of trucks and drivers). Federal law requires these updates every two years. Included were 23,919 carriers with no update since coming on file in 1974.
• Approximately 71,000 carriers were on record as having no power units. Another 98,000 were listed as having no drivers.
Question: If one of your non-existent trucks and non-existent drivers has an accident, how is it reported in the database? Answer: Apparently it isn't.
Since carriers are ranked against each other, a fleet whose accidents are reported can show up as a higher risk than one whose accidents aren't in the database.
That would be bad enough if the system were only used by the feds to target carriers for compliance reviews. But the SafeStat database is public. Anyone — like a shipper — can access it and check your safety record before deciding whether to do business with you.
The audit report says the SafeStat site is accessed as much as 80,000 times per month. Do you think you're not being checked out by potential customers (and by competitors who might use your posted record to sell against you?)
In short, failure of states or other motor carriers to report accidents to the system has probably cost some good carriers some good hauls. What to do?
The Office of Inspector General says that in its present state, SafeStat is OK for internal use by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration — but not for public dissemination. But it doesn't call for taking it out of the public domain.
OIG is calling for "prompt corrective action" to require carriers to report. That means enforcing the fine structure (up to $500 per offense), which FMCSA has not been doing. For states, OIG recommends the carrot-and-stick approach: Give them incentives to assure they submit accurate reports, but withhold safety grant money if they don't.
This all sounds very noble, but is it workable? Only time will tell if SafeStat can be made fair to all parties. But it's not going away.
Doug Condra
President
E-mail Doug Condra at dcondra@truckinginfo.com or write PO Box W, Newport Beach, Calif. 92656.
