Regulators have announced that truck crashes that are deemed to have been non-preventable will no longer count against a carrier’s safety rating. Even some non-preventable crashes that have already occurred can be eligible for review. But the line between what regulators consider ‘preventable’ and ‘non-preventable’ is hazy.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has announced that non-preventable crashes will no longer count against a carrier’s BASIC score in the Safety Measurement System (SMS). The Crash Indicator Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category (BASIC) is part of the Compliance, Safety and Accountability (CSA) program that the FMCSA uses to rate carriers.
Until now, all accidents involving a truck would count against the carrier’s safety rating. But now carriers will be able to submit a request for an accident to be reviewed by the FMCSA. If the FMCSA finds that the accident meets certain criteria, it will still be listed in the company’s profile, but will not count against a carrier’s score.
Only truck accidents that occurred on or after August 1st, 2019 are eligible for review.
In order to determine whether a crash can count as not-preventable, you can refer to the FMCSA’s Eligibility Guide. The document gets incredibly specific about what sorts of crashes are and are not eligible. For example, if your truck is hit head-on by a car that is fully in your lane, it’s non-preventable. But if your truck is hit head on by a car that has not fully crossed over the center line, it’s considered preventable, and will impact your CSA score.
Source: truckinginfo, fleetowner, fmcsa
It is apparent that these FMCSA idiot’s have never drove a truck on back country roads, if they even drove a truck at all. So if your on a back country road and someone crosses over the center line only partially they considered it preventable because you could have driven off the road into the woods or off the side of the mountain to prevent it? Too many truckers have lost their lives out there doing just that but it had nothing to do with preserving a CSA score, it had to do with preserving the life of others.
Too many of these types of head on crashes and side swipes are impossible for an investigation to say for certain who was where at the moment of impact and it becomes a matter of he said she said. Where one has moved over more fully into oncoming lane, then it becomes more obvious who is most culpable.
Unless I had read this wrong, they gave this example, ” But if your truck is hit head on by a car that has not fully crossed over the center line, it’s considered preventable, and will impact your CSA score” I fail to see how it would be difficult to figure out who is at fault if that person even partially crosses over the center line and collides with you head on. You will be in your lane, your skid marks will be in your lane while that other person’ will have skid marks crossing over the center line or have none at all. Skid Mark’s tell a lot of the story, often contradicting or collaborating what the drivers tell the investigating officers.
Bull. They can tell by the tread marks who was where. And what if the line cross is fully visible on my dash cam video?
In the age of cameras being everywhere, this is no longer a valid argument, as if, when in doubt, blame the truck should have ever been valid. While there is the occasional undetermined cause accident, the vast majority can be determined provided a competent police officer takes the time to conduct a proper investigation. Point of impact in a head on collision is not hard to establish, the damage and debris of a crash usually tell the story.
It’s hilarious that the first comment out of the gate is the real issue. They literally believe it’s acceptable to kill ourselves to save someone else who is at fault. It’s disgusting.
With everyone running drive cams these days, why is “preventable” and “nonpreventable” even such a thing.
The days of the truck driver automatically being guilty is over..
Nonsense. Dashcams are used to armchair quarterback, to prove that the trucker could have prevented any accident. If the other vehicle fully crossed the line, then the truck could have used the oncoming lane to avoid them. It’s foolishness, but it could have prevented the accident (in theory, which is all that matters after the accident has already happened…)
For cars, accidents are either your fault, or not your fault (or you bear some shared percentage of fault). For trucks, you can be faultless, and still bear blame for failing to prevent the accident caused by someone else. If you get rear-ended, fault lies with the driver who hit you. But you could have prevented the accident, by not being there to begin with. This is the logical fallacy of “preventable” – it lays responsibility for correcting the mistakes of others, at the feet of truck drivers. It disregards fault, in favor of blame.
Awesome, so the idiot hopped up on cocaine, had 2lbs of pot and an illegal firearm in his car, partially crossed into my lane and slammed into me… would still be considered my fault..? Yeah. Glad I had my dash cam on that one regardless.
Out of curiosity, what did the firearm have to do with causing an accident?
Well at the very least, some dope head drug pusher should not be packing a firearm.
Oh my GOD another HOLY ROLY FIREARM nut…Don’t even MENTION the “F” word or “G” word…Otherwise, the goon squad will come out after you in FORCE!
This entire thing is such a farce. Typical Government bureaucrats that don’t have a clue about real life. The exemptions are about as ordinary as a meteor falling from the sky and hitting your truck. They do NOT consider improperly marked roads, roads under construction not marked correctly, bad training by a carrier, road rage by a 4 wheeler, etc. If you don’t have a camera to back up what you say you are really out of luck. But even with a camera, it still goes on your record, fault or not. I have never been ticketed for any incident and never had a ticket in a commercial vehicle, which is a pretty good indication I did nothing wrong, yet I have accidents on my record that were unpreventable. These keep me from getting work. If these clowns realized you drive 5-600 miles a day, and then consider what it is like to try driving over Thanksgiving or Christmas with traffic from Hell, with people that are short tempered and worn out, they might get a clue as to how miserable and dangerous it can be out there.
Yeah but they have a sheepskin. That’s all that matters.
Some of the cars out there are driven by the very people who make the rules and fit your description of “traffic from Hell” drivers. You don’t expect them to make rules that might leave them with the fault/blame later, do you?
I drive 750 miles a day like a maniac and have for 20 years, I don’t slow down for work zones (unless there’s people in my way) and I watch YouTube on my phone most of the day while I’m driving, I’ve had plenty of tickets in trucks and 4 wheelers … but I’ve never had trouble getting a job and I even have a dream job now ! Did I mention I have a dui and a driving to endanger about 12 and 13 years ago ?? So don’t give me that bull that one little accident is keeping you from getting work …
So you supposed to leave road have accident to avoid four wheeler ,really,more people making rules that never been in tractor trailer hauling freight idots making rules and we are supposed to try to make living off rules that make no common sense god help us truckers
I had a safety person tell me that ALL accidents are preventable. My response was so a rear end collision could have been prevented? He had no comment….
Let me make that clear if someone else were to rear end me would that be considered “preventable “?
I once had a safety guy tell me that you can prevent being rear-ended by not being there.
Best safety records out there belong to drivers whose license is still warm from the lamination machine. Very little can happen to you, when you have so little time on the road…
That would’ve garnered a response from me concerning an absence of prophylactics….
They are if your a good wheel man who pays attention. I drive the northeast and have for 20 years and like a maniac and I’ve never put a scratch on a truck
So you are lucky👍🏾
Thank you truckers report for letting us know that the idiots are still in control
It’s all just a money game. Nobody “needs” the FMCSA. just like many other organizations making rules in America aren’t needed. So now they’re saying we need to do just what we always are trained not to, which is just swerve? If some idiot crosses into my lane and I swerve to avoid that and kill a family in a mini van all is good right?
Nope. It’s the Kobayashi Maru. The no-win scenario. The reason we need to keep recruiting new drivers, with clean records and shiny new licenses…
Ok so judging by this very little has changed. It’s like off tracking forget about that the roads today are still not accounting for off tracking room. Steer tire curb hopping is no fun to avoid off tracking. None the less the damage to the front end! Just an example of how it’s a low win for drivers.
Drivers will always be the scapegoats so the company’s can shift the liability
Rule #1. The driver is ALSAYS wrong.
Rule #2. If the driver is NOT wrong, refer to Rule #1.
Leave 5 minutes earlier. now it is preventable!
So, even though the driver of the passenger car is crosses the center line (but not fully in the oncoming lane) it is considered “preventable?” Oh, I get it now, once again the Class E and F Operators (drivers) get off scot free AGAIN!
God forbid anyone in a BMW or Audi be held accountable.
You make all truck drivers here sound so innocent and such good drivers. Truck drivers are the worst drivers on the road. I was married to two and am now engaged to another and a son-in-law that is a driver. A truck driver does not drive they aim the vehicle. Was almost killed twice by those good drivers and they were totally at fault.
You’ve married twice and now getting ready for a third. Sounds like you have questionable judgment lady.
🤣🤣🤣LOL you nailed it.
I don’t see what’s “questionable” about it at all. It’s just plain p*** poor. Puts her overall intelligence in question, too.
Sounds like youre a lot lizard
Ridiculous.
This is not a fix and this is why I wont drive over the road anymore.
It’s always some elaborate way of getting to the bottom line….. The money. This article literally is stating the same thing that has been going on. Carriers were always allowed to have and accident reviewed to be taken into consideration and the driver or carrier is almost always t fault. So the point of this article again?!
Werner got a $90 million judgement against them when a four wheeler crossed the median on an interstate and hit a Werner truck head on.
Like that was in any way werners fault ???
When I worked for Werner back in the 90s, there was a driver who was sitting at a red light. It was dusk, sunset, and raining lightly. A guy in a gray minivan going twice the speed limit (70 in 35 zone), no wipers on, no headlights on, no seatbelt, blew 0.31, swerved right and struck the left side drive tires so hard, the drive axles were knocked off the frame. He sustained facial injuries from the airbags.
He sued Werner. Werner settles out of court for $9 MILLION, even though the minivan driver received numerous citations, and the Werner driver was a complete innocent.
I found out about it in a mandatory safety meeting. They told ya that because of the continued number of wrecks Werner was paying out on, they couldn’t afford driver pay raises – then told us about this wreck and 4 others that the Werner driver was a complete innocent, and a total of $34 MILLION was paid out in out-of-court settlements!!!
Why out of court? Werner didn’t want the publicity!!! Oh, I hit the roof over it, and was nearly fired over my outbursts. I quit 3 months later.
BLAME IT ON THE TRUCK DRIVER AND PUT IT ON HIS DRIVER’S RECORD EVEN IF NOTVAT FAULT!!! BS!!!
so I wonder if it is swift pushing for these new rules. Being 7 out of 10 accidents involve a swift truck. Not trying to pick on swift its just the truth. It boils down to companies like swift your mega carriers that have more drivers behind the wheel that think they are super truckers and know everything with all of 2 month out on the road. And most of those drivers with 2 months are training the new guys and they are clueless themselves. How many times have you come upon two swift trucks trying to pass each other on a 2 lane highway and neither will give to let the other one by.
I just put a dash cam in truck to cover my end .. simple as that .. that’s my protection as to what happened
I know most of us driver’s don’t like dash cams, but since we installed ours forward facing only I must say I’ve hit that record button a few time.
I’ve got 3 and they record every angle all the time …. they are all stored in a cloud so I’m the only one with access to them … not that I’ve ever needed em but if I did I got em
Here’s my opinion for what it’s worth,
A solid 30% of government agencies are redundant or otherwise unnecessary. In order to protect their jobs, they need to show a compelling reason for their existence. Take the annual 72 hr. Annual blitz as an example, for three days each spring the DOT reeks havoc on the industry, looking for absolutely anything they can document on an inspection report, then they pound their collective chests and proclaim, see, you need us, to police these outlaw, killer truckers, and then they go back to their offices and put their feet up until the next spring blitz. Several years ago someone in Washington slipped up, and released the real accident statistics which showed something in the area of 87% of all truck vs auto crashes were the fault of the auto. I have not been able to find those statistics for any other year since then, and I have spent a bunch of time searching. The norm in our government is to exploit every crisis, and if you don’t have a crisis, then invent one.
But of course