driver safety

780,000 Driver Exam Results Requested by FMCSA

August 24, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“FMCSA is aware that while many medical examiners have submitted results of examinations conducted while the National Registry was offline, others still have not done so,” said the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in its pre-publication notice released in the Federal Register. “FMCSA estimates that approximately 14,000 medical examiners still have examinations results to upload.”

This statement comes as federal regulators are requesting around 14,000 medical examiners to submit missing truck driver exam results, an issue arising half a year after an inspector general audit was conducted by the Department of Transportation.

These results were said to be missing following a National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners system outage which occurred after a cyberattack effort. Now, The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has formally requested this missing information, noting that it is now clear that a “significant number” of medical examiners have yet to submit their exam results from examinations taking place between December 2017 and August 2018, when the registry was down.

FMCSA has requested that examiners upload their missing information by the end of September of this year.

“FMCSA seeks up to 780,000 driver exams from [the] 2017 National Registry shutdown,” announced FMCSA in a recent tweet.

In the inspector general audit from January 15th, it was made clear that a myriad of data accuracy- and efficiency-related weaknesses were able to “limit the effectiveness of FMCSA’s oversight.” These holes in the monitoring methods of medical examiner qualifications by federal regulators showed that these efforts were not able to accurately determine whether or not a trucker’s physical and safety qualifications were up to standards.

Additionally, the entire registry system was removed from its online platform following a potential registry hack occurring in December of 2017.

“Unfortunately, during the outage, medical examiners were not able to access their National Registry accounts to upload results of examinations conducted,” explained FMCSA in its announcement. “Medical examiners were encouraged to continue conducting physical qualification examinations and issuing medical examiner’s certificates to qualified commercial motor vehicle drivers.”

The National Registry includes a list of all certified medical examiners, including more than 50,000 physicians that have been deemed qualified to conduct physicals on commercial vehicle drivers by the FMCSA. Additionally, all qualified medical examiners must be licensed within the state in which they conduct all of their examinations. They must also pass a mandatory test and meet all necessary requirements relative to training.

In FMCSA’s updated registry mandate, all medical examiners must now report each individual commercial driver’s physical exam results from June of 2018 on. These results must also include those regarding exams in which a driver was deemed not sufficiently qualified to operate a commercial motor vehicle safely.

At the time of FMCSA’s announcement, the agency also explained that it was made clear to all examiners that they would need to efficiently prepare and submit all examinations conducted throughout the outage separately, and that once the system was finally operating properly once again, these missing exam results would need to be uploaded as soon as possible.

A physical exam conducted by a qualified medical practitioner is valid through the Department of Transportation for up to two years. Additionally, the examiner is able to issue an exam certificate that would be valid for a shorter period of time if a particular condition in a driver requires regular monitoring. Typically, exam results must be submitted to the National Registry system by midnight of the day following the examination itself.

Because technology issues have apparently been an issue for FMCSA in the past, the agency has proposed delaying the redesign of its National Registry for four years, although the system is currently operating adequately. The National Registry website platform was first implemented by FMCSA in April of 2021, and medical examiners have since been required to upload a commercial motor vehicle Driver Medical Examinations Results Form (MCSA-5850) for every physical exam conducted throughout the entirety of the previous month. This is applicable for any examination of any driver required to undergo examinations by an examiner listed on the registry itself.

In 2015, this mandate was amended to require examiners to report their results by the next calendar day, including results in which a driver was not deemed qualified.

Annual Roadcheck Event Takes 6,710 CMVs off North American Roadways

August 19, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“Hours of service was the most cited driver out-of-service violation during this year’s International Roadcheck, accounting for 41.5% of all driver out-of-service violations,” said CVSA in a recent tweet, following the release of their latest annual Roadcheck numbers. “That’s 1,203 violations.”

During the annual International Roadcheck which took place between May 4th and May 6th, CVSA inspectors took 6,710 commercial motor vehicles off of North American roadways and 2,080 total drivers off of roadways, which came out to a 16.5% commercial vehicle out-of-service rate and a 5.3% driver out-of-service rate for the continent.

The annual International Roadcheck takes place across Mexico, Canada, and the United States through a CVSA program initiative, with collaboration from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the National Guard, Transport Canada, the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, and Mexico’s Ministry of Communications and Transportation.

The three-day event was an inspection and enforcement effort of high-visibility and high-volume; this year’s event saw more than 40,000 commercial motor vehicle inspections be conducted. Of those, around 83.5% of all commercial vehicles did not have any out-of-service violations.

Still, the most highly-cited out-of-service violation for drivers was hours of service violations, making up 41.5% of all violations and totaling 1,203 citations. Along with hours of service, lighting was another major category in which inspectors accounted for violations. 14.1% of all violations were in this category, making it the third-most-cited violation for out-of-service vehicles and coming out to 1,367 of these particular violations.

Commercial motor vehicles and combination trucks, non-cargo tank HM/DG trucks and combinations, motor coaches and buses, and cargo tank hazardous materials and dangerous goods trucks and combinations were all inspected during the annual Roadcheck initiative by CVSA-certified inspectors. These professionals conducted these inspections throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico at designated inspection stations, weigh stations, and other designated roadside locations.

“Inspectors performed 23,135 Level I Inspections and removed 5,048 vehicles (21.8%) and 1,200 (5.2%) drivers from roadways due to the discovery of critical vehicle or driver inspection item violations as identified in the CVSA North American Standard Out-of-service Criteria,” explained CVSA.

This kind of inspection–the North American Standard Level I Inspection–is a 37-step process and was the primary method of inspections conducted during the event. 2020’s Roadcheck event was delayed due to the pandemic and finally took place between September 9th and September 11th, finding an out-of-service rate for commercial vehicles of 20.9% throughout the continent. This was a considerable increase from 2019’s out-of-service rate, which came out to be 17.9%–a surprising boost in regards to to the lessened roadway traffic that came from the pandemic era.

Additionally, although overall miles driven dropped by 13% in 2020 with shelter-in-place orders active throughout North America, roadway fatalities rose by 24% in 2020 as compared to 2019, according to the National Safety Council’s figures in CVSA’s recent news release.

During 2020, the fourth-most-cited driver violation was the “failure to use a seat belt while operating a commercial motor vehicle,” which totaled more than 32,000 violations of this kind just in the United States, according to the Management Information System data released by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. During 2021’s Roadcheck event, only 773 seat belt usage violations were found throughout the entire continent, with 464 cited in the United States, 305 in Canada, and just four in Mexico.

In regards to the most commonly-cited violations found during the 2021 International Roadcheck event, the top five for commercial motor vehicle drivers were having the wrong class license (565 citations making up 19.5%), having false or inadequate logs (427 citations making up 14.7%), having a suspended license (132 citations making up 4.6%), hours-of-service violations (1,203 citations making up 41.5%), or other various violations (482 citations making up 16.6%).

For commercial motor vehicles themselves, the top five violations this year were issues with tires (1,804 citations making up 18.6%), lights (1,367 citations making up 14.1%), brake systems (2,564 citations making up 26.5% percent), brake adjustment capabilities (1,203 citations making up 12.4%), and cargo securement capabilities (1,192 citations making up 12.3%).

Ways to Find Young, Safe Drivers is Focus of Latest Initiative by ATRI

August 18, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Due to the current national truck driver shortage, the industry is focusing on recruiting eligible drivers in the 18-to-20-year-old range, and new efforts will help industry experts determine the safest drivers in this group.

This new assessment tool is in development through the American Transportation Research Institute and will aim to find the best interstate commercial drivers in this young age range. Still in beta testing, the Young Driver Assessment Tool is an initiative meant to help identify which drivers are the most likely to be especially safe. These determinations come at the hands of specific safety profiles that focus on mental health, physiological traits, and personality aspects of a driver.

“ATRI’s Young Driver Assessment Tool can potentially identify those new entrant drivers who share the same personality attributes as safe, mature, veteran drivers,” explained Rebecca Brewster, President of ATRI. “We look forward to expanding our pilot test to include more younger drivers to further validate the tool’s accuracy.”

In the original assessment initiative, drivers of differing experience levels, ages, and overall safety performance were analyzed during the testing of drivers with a median age of 47–16 drivers were under the age of 30. As of now, drivers 21 and younger are federally prohibited from working across state lines and must only work within intrastate commerce with various freight restrictions also in place.

During initial testing, drivers underwent a myriad of evaluations involving aspects such as sleep quality, cognitive control, impulsivity, reasoning, sensation-seeking, and other personality traits. Then, their overall safety performance was determined by analyzing pre-employment screening data as well as their state motor vehicle records. These records offered data regarding past accident involvement and other safety violations.

The safest group of commercial drivers, according to ATRI’s findings, included those who scored the lowest in the “experience seeking” category and the highest in the “conscientiousness and agreeableness” category. Those who were found to be not-so-safe demonstrated particular cognitive control issues and had much larger reactions regarding “multi-source interference task” conflicts.

“Given all the internal and external pressures on driver recruitment and retention, it is safe to say that the driver shortage crisis is not going away,” said Joyce Brenny, CEO of Brenny Transportation.

Within the beta test, it was made clear that age-related differences regarding safety were prevalent in terms of a driver’s overall performance, although the safety differences were also visible among older drivers who had been driving for shorter periods of time. Still, the assessment tool’s overarching goal is to find the drivers between the ages of 18 and and 21 who have the qualities of highly-experienced and safe drivers.

“We need to find ways to expand the pool of safe truck drivers, and ATRI’s preliminary research indicates that safe, younger drivers can be found,” Brenny continued.

Because of this belief, Brenny Transportation has established an apprenticeship initiative to be able to train young drivers entering the trucking world more efficiently.

“At Brenny, our young-driver apprentice program has a proven track record,” Brenny explained. “Proper training and mentoring of young individuals who want to become truck drivers does work.”

With current projected freight growth, the driver shortage could rise from 60,000 to 100,000 by 2023, ATRI estimates. Employer competition and oncoming retirements of older truckers affect these numbers as well. For instance, 27.4% of the trucking workforce is over the age of 55, and the trucking industry’s present reliance upon those particular workers means employers will need to boost numbers of potentially qualified drivers.

ATRI has been working on solving the problems surrounding driver recruitment for six years by finding methods of determining which young and qualified people would be the safest and best candidates to enter the trucking workforce. ATRI also plans to expand its beta testing to a larger driver sample and to also expand safety performance attributes and qualities for drivers being tested.

The DRIVE-Safe Act, a federal initiative to allow young drivers to operate vehicles across state lines following apprenticeship programs and strict training (while operating special safety technology-equipped trucks) has been backed by American Trucking Associations and many other groups throughout the industry.

Driver Comfort to be Boosted With Fleets’ Seat Tech Investment

August 4, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“The last thing we want to do is lose a driver over an uncomfortable seat,” said Foodliner’s maintenance director, Kyle Neumann. “Drivers aren’t bashful. If they’re uncomfortable, they’re going to let you know.”

Because seat comfortability is so important for a truck driver, as they spend most of their workday sitting in the cab of a truck, the latest, most innovative truck seats have been manufactured with upgraded materials, effective suspension, and more adjustability than ever in an effort to maximize a trucker’s overall comfort while on the job. Many fleets have even been utilizing methods of attracting and retaining new truck drivers such as advertising their high levels of cab comfort.

“That has driven us to constantly look at seats and make sure we’re staying ahead of the curve, so we’re giving them the best option that is out there,” Neumann added.

More engineering and science-backed analyses are what is pushing these new designs forward, said North American aftermarket business director for Sears Seating, John Duax.

“Not only does the seat have to be comfortable to the driver, but there also has to be some science behind it to eliminate a couple major issues prevalent in trucking for years–driver’s fatigue and lost time due to injury,” he added.

The design of truck seats has seen vast improvement in its evolution, and those changes are happening exceptionally quickly, explained Navistar’s chief technical engineer for human factors and ergonomics, Sandeep Premkumar.

“We now have more objective and subjective data around seat discomfort, seat materials have changed, new testing equipment and methods are being developed, seats have gotten better at isolating road inputs, and new functions have been added to sets,” Premkumar said.

Back pain and other issues have always been particularly prevalent in the trucking industry among drivers, so companies like A. Duie Pyle are careful to select the best seats possible that will boost the overall safety and wellbeing for a trucker.

“If I have a poor seat, it can lead to back injuries,” said the company’s vice president of fleet maintenance, Dan Carrano.

Until now, customized adjustments in regards to comfort and lumbar support weren’t as easily accessible as they are nowadays, Carrano added.

“You just had the air that would raise and lower the seat and the seat slide to move it up and back,” he said of previous seat models. Now, adjustments can be made within the seat base to lengthen or tilt it to fit any individual driver’s comfort preferences.

“Between the length of the seat cushion, the tilt of the seat cushion, and the lumbar support, the adjustability is pretty drastic,” he said

Additionally, with these new designs, body shapes and sizes of all truck drivers are able to be adapted to with the latest customizable adjustment capabilities–which can be especially helpful to female drivers.

“Female drivers have complained they can’t get up high enough to see over the hood,” said aftermarket sales manager at Seats Inc., Adam Lindloff. Now, “you can change the rake angle, which increases the hip point where the occupant is sitting. You’re sitting higher, but the position isn’t interfering with you getting to the pedals.”

Additionally, until recently, a majority of commercial vehicle cab design has focused upon ergonomics–the physical toll of a seat on a human body. Now, it’s become more widely accepted that the prioritized elements of a proper seat should accommodate all different postures and body types, and come equipped with fore-aft and up-down travel ranges, seat suspension, and adequate width and firmness.

“Macro trends such as automation, electrification, and connectivity are driving a lot of new technology into cabs and [are] introducing new ways for drivers to interact with vehicles,” and cognitive ergonomics is becoming much more widely adopted, Premkumar explained.

Companies like Navistar are now working to prioritize a driver’s cognitive, physical, and even emotional needs by determining which particular seat characteristics most affect a driver’s needs and experience. The company is also working to determine the performance targets, capabilities, and limitations of the most necessary aspects of an innovative seat design.

“The best defense [to a bumpy environment] can be found in a properly fit seat that removes vibration and increased comfort for the driver’s particular needs,” said Seat Specialists’ director of business development, Jennifer Ross.

Truck Driver Notification Efforts During Disruptive Events Need Major Improvements

July 30, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Now more than ever, as the trucking industry has made clear its prominent role in the American economy, truckers need to be in the loop regarding everything being done to help them out during a disruption event, explained Truck Specialized Parking Services trucking expert Scott Grenerth. Truck Specialized Parking Services offers drivers easily accessible truck parking availability information.

Grenerth spoke at a Federal Highway Administration-hosted webinar last week as part of the Talking Freight seminar series by FHWA, and has worked as both a company driver and owner-operator himself.

The importance of adequately communicating with drivers on the road was made especially clear when these truckers stepped up to the front lines in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Grenerth explained. When travel centers, rest stops, and stores themselves all shut down during stay-at-home orders, many truck drivers couldn’t find a place to park, rest, or even find food.

FHWA announced at the start of the pandemic that it would allow for food trucks to come to federally-funded interstate highway rest areas in an effort to help boost snack and meal options for truck drivers during that time. Many states quickly took advantage of this flexibility; however, a majority of over-the-road truck drivers, when surveyed, said that they had been unaware about the presence of these food trucks soon enough for them to take the necessary exit, even though FHWA had issued a notice to state departments of transportation about this new allowance.

Because of issues like this–which directly affect a truck driver’s wellbeing while on the road–Grenerth suggested that the FHWA find ways of improving methods of alerting drivers to what is available to them during challenging circumstances. This raised awareness could come through methods like signage hauled behind trucks on the freeway or overhead variable message signs, he said.

Additionally, not only would this kind of improved communication help drivers become quickly alerted to the resources and conveniences readily available, but they could also help alert truck drivers to the help they can get during severe flooding, wildfires, hurricanes, or other emergencies.

“We definitely just need to make sure that whatever comes up, like this kind of response, truckers know where they can get the help that they’re going to be seeking,” said Grenerth. “We just need to make sure they know about that.”

Many trucking companies have used the difficulties brought about the pandemic as motivation to boost in-company communication capabilities, with many fleets initiating regular town hall meetings amongst employees to keep everyone up-to-date on changes and updates within the industry and the company itself, others beginning to send out informative newsletters with helpful resources for employees, and others implementing mobile app platforms that allow drivers and fleet managers to stay regularly connected while truckers are on the road.

Additionally, many changes brought to the trucking industry during the pandemic era have lasted to today, according to Michigan State University associate professor of supply chain management, Jason Miller. These aspects include effects on truck stops, travel centers, and retail truck tonnage–which has reached higher levels this year in regards to freight movement than in 2018 or 2019.

“It ties into the challenges of [upsetting] the apple cart, and then we start to have a different mixture of freight taking place,” said Miller. “We have a mixture that is [made of] less manufacturing and substantially more retail. That creates a lot of disruptions.”

The pandemic has made addressing these disruptions vitally important, as the industry has already lost far too many truck drivers–74,000 more workers were employed in some capacity by the trucking industry in 2019 than in 2020.

“We’ve had demand rebound to near-record levels, but our number of long-distance drivers is down substantially from where we were even three years ago during that same time period of essentially record-high demand,” said Miller.

In fact, the local general freight sector has grown by 16,500 workers in May of 2021 as compared to May of 2018, although the number of folks working in the long-distance truckload sector and the long-distance less-than-truckload sector has dropped significantly.

1,273 CMVs Taken Off the Road After Unannounced Brake Safety Inspection Day

July 29, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Horizontal shot of a blue semi climbing a hill on an interstate highway in heavy traffic.

More than 1,200 commercial motor vehicles with critical brake violations were removed from American roadways by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s inspectors during a surprise one-day brake safety enforcement initiative.

10,091 inspections were unexpectedly inspected throughout the United States, Mexico, and Canada near the end of May. This unannounced inspection event led to 1,273 vehicles being placed out-of-service.

“CVSA released its May 26th Brake Safety Day results,” said CVSA last week in a tweet. “Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. reported a total of 1,725 brake hoses [or] tubing violations–this year’s focus area–from the one-day, unannounced brake safety initiative.”

All data from this Brake Safety Day was thoroughly tracked and reported by inspectors and sent to the CVSA. This Brake Safety Day has been implemented as part of CVSA’s enforcement and inspection initiative for boosted road safety.

“We are sharing the results to call attention to the importance of commercial motor vehicle brake safety,” explained President of CVSA and Delaware State Police sergeant, John Samis.

Although the the transportation industry–and the trucking industry in particular–is well aware of the necessity for brakes to be up to standard at all times, vehicle out-of-service conditions are still mostly comprised of brake-related violations. Because of this, brake issues are continuing to be the most prevalent among commercial motor vehicles, according to the CVSA. Additionally, during 2020’s three-day International Roadcheck driver and vehicle enforcement safety event, brake system violations were the most common vehicle out-of-service category.

The safety operation was conducted by 42 U.S. jurisdictions, six Canada jurisdictions, and Mexico’s National Guard and Ministry of Communications. 8,658 inspections were conducted throughout the United States, 946 were conducted throughout Canada, and 487 were conducted throughout Mexico. The overall out-of-service brake-related violation rate throughout the continent of North America was 12.6%–With 13.3% of violations being brake-related in the United States, and in Canada and Mexico–11.4% and 2.9%, respectively. The United States, of course, had the most overall violations, with 1,151 vehicles taken off the country’s roadways after these inspections.

In addition to these issues, inspectors collected data in relation to brake hoses and tubing, a category requested to be inspected specifically by the CVSA in regards to a variety of brake hose and tubing chafing violations, but not out-of-service violations. North America saw 1,725 brake hose and tubing violations during the inspection initiative, with the United States reporting 1,288, Canada reporting 251, and Mexico reporting 186.

“Brake hoses and tubing are essential brake system components and must be properly attached, undamaged, without leaks, and flexible,” explained Samis. “We chose to focus on brake hoses and tubing this year in an effort to reduce deaths and injuries as a result of commercial motor vehicle brake system failures from pressure or vacuum loss due to brake hosing and tubing deficiencies.”

The data submitted on brake hose and tubing chafing violations included four distinct categories. Category 1 saw 664 commercial motor vehicles having brake hose and tubing wear reaching the brakes’ outer protective material; Category 2 saw 509 commercial motor vehicles that had chafing which extended through the brake hose or tubing’s outer protective material and into the outer rubber cover; Category 3 saw 275 commercial motor vehicles with brake hose or tubing wear with reinforcement ply visible, although the ply may have still been intact; and Category 4 saw 169 commercial motor vehicles with visible reinforcement ply that was severed, frayed, or completely cut through.

Although Brake Safety Day is a unannounced, surprise brake safety initiative implemented by the CVSA, Brake Safety Week is held annually and the alliance does indeed announce the dates for those inspections in advance.

“This year’s Brake Safety Week is scheduled for August [22nd through the 28th],” said the CVSA in a recent tweet. “Throughout the week, inspectors will conduct North American Standard Inspections of commercial motor vehicles, focusing on the vehicles’ brake systems and components.”