U.S. Legislative Issues

On March 4, 2015, Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE), Subcommittee Chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security, held an oversight hearing entitled, "Surface Transportation Reauthorization – Oversight and Reform of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). The hearing was the first in a series of hearings aimed at examining the reauthorization of highway safety programs and FMSCA regulations. Testifying at the hearing were Scott Darling, FMCSA Acting Administrator; Christopher Hart, Acting Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB); Joseph Comé, Deputy Principal Assistant Inspector General for Auditing and Evaluation at the Office of Inspector General (OIG); and Susan Fleming, Director of the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The hearing was contentious, with Senator Fischer quick to challenge the FMCSA on the changes to the 34-hour restart rule the agency implemented without a congressionally-mandated study. She reminded attendees that when a study was finally released, it was conducted using an inadequate sample size of motor carriers.

Joined by the OIG and GAO, Senator Fischer was especially critical of the FMCSA’s Compliance, Safety and Accountability (CSA) Program, stating, "Inaccurate CSA scores, publicly available online, have cost companies contracts and raised insurance rates. All of this has occurred without a clear correlation to increasing highway safety." The Senator said she intends to author legislation to reform FMCSA and to ensure the regulatory process is more inclusive to Congress and stakeholders. Susan Fleming, GAO Director, told the subcommittee that, "challenges raise questions about whether FMCSA is able to identify and target the carriers at highest risk for crashing in the future."


According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report issued on March 6, 2015, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is revising the way in which it analyzes U.S. vehicle crash data. The report states that NHTSA has dramatically reduced the number of crashes it reviews annually as part of the national Automotive Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDC), which is a nationally representative sample of police-reported motor-vehicle traffic crashes. Dating back to 1988, NHTSA averaged a review of approximately 4,700 crashes annually as part of this effort. Due to budget cutbacks, however, the number of crashes reviewed in 2013 fell to roughly 3,400.

In January 2015, NHTSA announced its plan to replace NASS-CDS with a new sample, called the Crash Investigation Sampling System (CISS). NHTSA contends that its decision to collect data from newly selected sites increases its ability to generate more precise estimates. According to NHTSA, these sites, or "primary sampling units," better represent the current population and distribution of motor vehicle crashes nationwide.

GAO found NHTSA’s approach to redesigning the sample "reasonable," but criticized the agency for not meeting a congressional deadline to report on the benefits of increasing the size of the NASS-CDS sample. NHTSA issued its overdue report in January 2015, noting that increasing the size of the NASS-CDS sample would help meet the evolving needs of NASS users. It also stated that there was no precise answer to what an optimal sample size for NASS-CDS would be. Additional planned improvements to NASS-CDS include new technologies that allow for safer and more accurate measurements of accident scenes and vehicles involved in crashes.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a report outlining new statistics and recommendations regarding truck crashes in the U.S. According to the report, more than 1 in 3 truck drivers have had a serious truck crash during their career, and 1 in 8 has had two or more. Unfortunately, the report also found that 1 in 6 drivers of large trucks don’t use their seat belts and that more than 1 in 3 truck drivers who died in crashes in 2012 were not wearing their seat belts. The CDC estimates that seat belt use could have prevented up to forty percent of these deaths.

Among the recommendations for employers, the report suggests:

• Establishing and enforcing company safety policies, including seat belt use requirements for truck drivers and passengers, as well as banning text messaging and use of handheld cell phones
• Educating drivers on seat belt use and ways to avoid drowsy or distracted driving
• Working with dispatchers, shippers, and receivers to set delivery schedules that do not require drivers to break speed limits or regulations for maximum hours of driving