FMCSA Turns Teacher With New Webinar Series
Oliver B. Patton
Washington Editor
Everybody knows that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration writes and enforces all the safety rules. It's the top cop when it comes to such regs. But the agency has added a new job title to its repertoire: teacher.
And now it's setting up web-based seminars so carriers that are using cutting-edge safety devices can tell other carriers about their experience.
Last month, in the first of a series of "webinars," the agency brought together representatives of two fleets, Maverick Transportation and Cargo Transporters, to talk about lane departure warning systems. Both have the devices installed in most of their trucks and were eager to relate their experience to an audience of more than 180, including about 150 trucking executives.
"This is a new approach (from FMCSA)," said Dan Murray, vice president of research for the American Transportation Research Institute, which is helping the agency produce the webinars. ATRI is the research arm of the American Trucking Associations.
FMCSA has always been an agency that tries to regulate through cooperation as well as enforcement, but the idea of promoting safety technologies through webinars is new. It arises from a conviction among the agency's top officials that systems such as lane departure warning, collision avoidance with adaptive cruise control and rollover stability can take the industry to a new level of safety.
Such devices give drivers an edge in controlling the truck by helping them compensate for errors or inattention, says agency Administrator John Hill.
Maverick and Cargo Transporters are representative of a cadre of trucking companies that have decided to invest in innovative technologies to improve both safety and their bottom lines. The webinars are an attempt to bring these carriers together with their peers to spread information about these technologies.
Murray said that the webinar planners give great deference to vendors, but they believe the message packs more of a punch when it's delivered by carriers that are actually using the devices. That seemed to be the case when Dean Newell of Maverick Transportation and Jerry Waddell of Cargo Transporters described their experiences with the Iteris lane departure warning system.
Both are sold on the system. Newell has it on 1,200 of Maverick's trucks and is adding it to another 200. Waddell has it on 386 trucks – 90 percent of Cargo Transporters' fleet – and has been using it for more than a million miles.
As the name suggests, the system alerts the driver when he's accidentally crossing out of his lane. It does not go off at speeds less than 35 mph, or when the turn signal is activated. A video camera attached to the windshield watches the road and feeds the information to a computer that interprets position, velocity and heading to determine if the truck is where it belongs.
The technology addresses a significant safety problem, according to Amy Houser, the FMCSA engineer in charge of the webinar program. Accidents arising from lane departures are numerous and serious. Houser said there are some 18,000 single-vehicle roadway departure accidents each year. This kind of incident can easily lead to a rollover, which puts both the driver and the cargo at great risk.
Newell and Waddell were in accord on the key points. Driver reaction has been positive; the device does not intrude except when there is problem, and it requires no action other than a correction. Both companies introduce their drivers to the device with a road test and demonstration. Between the two companies there has been only one instance of a driver tampering with the device.
Cargo Transporters has the device installed as standard equipment by the truck manufacturer. Maverick retrofits the devices – a process that takes about 90 minutes, said Newell. Maintenance is minimal, both said, although Newell noted he's had a few problems with the system's settings.
Both men started off thinking that the system would protect drivers from mistakes caused by fatigue, but they have since decided that the real issue is distraction. Waddell cautioned listeners to take fatigue out of the message to drivers – it sends the wrong signal, he said.
The payoff on the devices, which cost between $750 and $1,450 per unit, is hard to quantify because it can only be described as the absence of an accident that may have happened. Both Newell and Waddell are convinced of the benefit, however.
Asked by a participant for a return-on-investment analysis, Newell said that although he could come up with one, he has not done so because the investment is "essentially a gut-check: It's worked for me."
Waddell said his fleet has experienced only two runoff accidents since the system was installed. In one instance, he said, the device probably saved his driver's life because the truck was drifting onto the shoulder where another truck was parked.
For both companies, the purchasing decision was as much about ethics as it was about money. Newell described taking the issue to the Maverick board and being asked, "Is this the right thing to do for safety?"
Waddell's perspective is that off-road accidents, in particular, are "an overall nightmare." They create a bad perception for the industry and the company – a truck has gone out of control. Also, they are especially costly due to the danger to the driver and others, loss of equipment, towing and cleanup charges and high exposure if you have to go to court.
Waddell said it is astounding to him that anyone would question the investment. "Ask yourself how long it would take to pay for a $100,000 loss when your margin is 10 cents a mile."
He reversed the cost-benefit question: "Can you defend your decision not to use a lane departure warning system?"
On a larger scale than the experience of these two fleets, there are data indicating that the device is effective. An FMCSA field test has demonstrated up to a 23 percent reduction in roadway departure accidents for trucks using the devices, Houser said.
That data is not strong enough to make an industry-wide conclusion, however, Murray said. He described that test as more controlled than naturalistic, and said the devices need to be tested across a broad spectrum of conditions and operations before a definitive assessment can be made. The agency is studying the design of such a test, he said.
The industry's growing interest in these technologies is motivated in part by changes in the insurance market. Rates went up sharply after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Murray said that ATA's insurance survey showed 40 percent to 50 percent increases in insurance premiums for good carriers. Rates have since stabilized, but to offset the increases, more carriers have switched to self insurance or high-deductible coverage.
The average cost of lane departure accidents falls within the range of these carriers' new, higher deductibles, Murray said. And when the cost of an accident is out-of-pocket, rather than part of a complex insurance equation, the benefit of a new safety technology is plain to see, he said.
"So given that environment, it does make these devices much more palatable in terms of out-of-pocket costs," Murray said.
The question of whether insurance companies should grant credits to fleets that use these devices is more complex, Murray said. The insurance companies say they need three to five years of actuarial data, which does not yet exist, to separate the effectiveness of the device from, say driver performance, he said.
Meanwhile, FMCSA Administrator Hill wants to see incentives of another sort. "We need a national policy of incentives that really would provide carriers the opportunity to benefit from and really be drawn into the productive safety investment of these technologies," he said.
He envisions two types of incentives: first, some sort of credit for making the investment, and second, some relief from agency regulations for carriers that do.
The safety agency has scheduled two more webinars. One on stability control systems was scheduled for May 14; another on forward collision warning systems will be held in July. For more information contact Amy Houser at amy.houser@dot.gov.
For more information on lane departure warning systems and other safety technologies, go to the FMCSA web site: www.fmcsa.gov. Click on Facts & Research, then on Product Guides under Office of Research and Analysis.
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