public safety

Cargo theft has become the trucking industry’s latest threat, following an already particularly difficult year. Updated business strategies and new technology are the most important tools fleets have to boost the overall security of their drivers and the shipments they carry.

“The safety of our drivers is number one,” said C.R. England’s freight claims supervisor, Melissa Jordan. “We don’t want them to put themselves in harm’s way. The next priority is the customer and the integrity of their product.”

Throughout North America, supply chain risk events recorded throughout 2020 have risen by about 16% from 2019, according to theft prevention and recovery network, CargoNet.

Not only is this safety risk making cargo security improvements more important than ever, but also rendering them vitally important if fleets want to keep overall costs down, as the prices brought about by these kinds of thefts has also risen–by 19%, CargoNet estimates. The average cargo theft costs have come out to be around $166,334 in 2020, with the increase believed to be due to COVID-19’s effect on individuals and its ability to motivate them to steal shipments of medical supplies and pharmaceuticals.

This kind of expensive, large-scale thievery has been steadily increasing for the last few years, according to Sensitech Inc.’s director of global intelligence, Scott Martino.

“Thieves use this as one way to gather intelligence on what is in trailers coming from certain distribution centers, etc., but they do sometimes have inside information of some form,” he explained. “Thieves are opportunistic. They typically target specific cargo, but they will target anything if the opportunity presents itself.”

                                                                                                    

There are multiple methods a thief may use to pull a crime like this off, such as an instance in which a he or she may fraudulently claim to work for a specific carrier and subsequently pick up someone else’s shipment, which BSI supply chain risk consultant, Tony Pelli, said is now happening more and more throughout North America.

Often, a perpetrator may even steal a carrier’s identity or use an out-of-business trucking company name, particularly through emails sent with phishing scams.

“They’ll say they’re a supplier who needs to get paid or a vendor who wants to pay them,” explained Pelli. To avoid these scams, an overall understanding of cybersecurity is key, he added.

Trucking companies are now having various departments collaborate to find the best ways for safety improvement as often as possible. For Averitt Express, its cargo claims team, operations team, security team and safety experts are all consistently working together to find the bests methods of keeping the company safe.

“At the same time, our team researches and tests new technology and tools that may enhance our ability to protect our assets and cargo,” said the company’s security coordinator, Tim Barnes. “Asset-based tracking is the primary tool that can currently be used to increase recovery rates within the transportation industry. When we can pinpoint the location of an asset through GPS surveillance, we stand a good chance of recovering our assets.”

Most important, through, is that all drivers and employees are aware of the risks at hand and the ways to best avoid them, Barnes noted.

“This includes conducting training around specific areas of cargo theft and promoting awareness campaigns through emails, newsletters, routing meetings, and signage at facilities,” he said, explaining that all employees must undergo regular prevention-focused training. One of these training programs is dedicated specifically to raising awareness of all security dangers involved with the transportation of hazardous materials (HM-232 security).

For C.R. England, tracking tech is extraordinarily important in reducing security risks.

“We’re able to see the location of any of our trucks or trailers at any given interval,” said Jordan. If a vehicle happened to diverge from its proper route, alarms would be raised and the company would contact the driver immediately, she added. 

C.R. England is also able to let a driver know ahead of time if he or she may be about to enter a risky region.

“We deliver some loads into the Bronx or Brooklyn,” “said Jordan. “We know they have a limited amount of space to begin with, so it is easy to target those parking spaces that are available…We’ll also ask them to back up to something–a wall or a light pole–so no one can open the door.”

If a shipment is of particularly high-value, customers may make specific requests to keep the load secure.

“Depending on the value of the load, [the customer] may have pace cars that follow the truck,” said Jordan. Customers may also require a driver to not stop within a specific distance.

C.R. England also requires drivers to pay a deposit for an Abus lock that is used on every shipment, and requests that they always lock their right-side doors (although a shipper’s particular security seal may make that impossible). To circumvent any issues regarding proper security of these locks, the company will always spec its new trailers with enforcer boxes that are able to cover both the security seal and the latch.

“It provides an additional place for them to place the padlock without damaging the seal,” Jordan noted.

Additionally, the company holds periodic meetings with its drivers to regularly cover safety protocol as thoroughly as possible.

“We’re a teaching company as well as a trucking company,” she explained. “From the beginning, drivers are taught about security and safety, and we have continued education.”

Under standards that have been in place since 1971, a driver is physically and legally qualified to operate a commercial motor vehicle if he or she has distant visual acuity of at least 20/40 in each eye without corrective lenses or visual acuity of 20/40 or better with corrective lenses. Additionally, he or she has had to have a field of vision of at least 70 degrees in each eye and be able to recognize the different colors in traffic signals, signs, and other safety devices. Now–that vision standard is being amended.

The new regulation would allow truckers not able to meet these federal vision standards of either field of vision, distant visual acuity, or both (in at least one eye) to be physically qualified to legally operate a commercial vehicle within interstate commerce.

“Currently, such individuals are prohibited from driving CMVs in interstate commerce unless they obtain an exemption from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration,” said a recent Federal Register post. “The agency proposes an alternative vision standard for physical qualification that, if adopted, would replace the current vision exemption program as a basis for establishing the physical qualification determination for these individuals.”

Until now, a driver would have to request an exemption from FMCSA if he or she did not meet the vision standards. This process would often take months and require extensive paperwork–these drivers would have to be able to present evidence to FMCSA that they had driven a commercial motor vehicle in intrastate commerce safely, despite their vision deficiency, for the last three years. 

Analysis of this recent driving performance is most important in determining future driving safety, as explained by various research studies that analyze past and future driving performance. According to the agency, 2,566 truck drivers currently hold a vision requirement exemption.

If approved and finalized, the new proposed policy change would require that any driver who cannot meet the field of vision or acuity standards must undergo an ophthalmologist or optometrist examination. This exam report would be forwarded to a truck driver medical examiner, who would then have the authority to make the final decision regarding whether or not this driver is fit to safely operate a commercial vehicle. Then, if approved, that driver can legally operate a CMV under a 12-month medical card.

This policy has been called a “performance-based approach.”

“It is well-recognized in the literature that individuals with vision loss in one eye can and do develop compensatory viewing behavior to mitigate the vision loss,” said FMCSA.

Under this proposal–which comes at a time in which the trucking industry has been grappling with a large truck driver shortage, especially with the increase in demand that arose during the pandemic–a truck driver that does not meet either the field of vision standard to distant visual acuity standard in at least one eye could be physically qualified to operate a commercial motor vehicle without having to be given an exemption.

“FMCSA estimates that the proposed rule would reduce barriers to entry for current and future CMV drivers,” said FMCSA. “The 2,566 drivers holding vision exemptions would no longer have to apply for an exemption, and potential driver applicants who do not have three years of intrastate driving experience may meet the alternative vision standard and be able to operate a CMV in interstate commerce.”

Drivers would need to complete and pass a road test before operating a CMV if they are now physically qualified for the alternative standard in their states under the new proposed regulation, with some limited exceptions.

Many safety advocates have been fighting against regulatory changes such as these, which tend to prioritize easier entrance into the trucking industry over actual road safety. This includes rules such as the updates made within hours-of-service regulations, which recently permitted truck drivers to operate at longer hours and choose how they spend and split up their rest breaks, allowing for drivers to become much more fatigued while operating their trucks.

The vision requirement proposal has indeed been officially published in the Federal Register, but could still be withdrawn by the Biden administration during a later regulatory review, as announced by the White House in its regulatory freeze memorandum.

FMCSA will be accepting public comments in regards to this new proposal until March 15th, 2021.

2020’s Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s International Roadcheck event, which was originally set to take place in May, was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and took place in early September. Now, reports from the three-day event have been released and show a 20.9% rate of overall out-of-service vehicles throughout the continent of North America–an increase from 2019’s rate of 17.9%.

International Roadcheck is an enforcement and inspection initiative taking place over the course of 72 hours and is conducted by CVSA-certified inspectors. These inspectors examine motor vehicles and drivers’ compliance regarding safety and health protocols throughout the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

In 2020, over 50,000 inspections took place, and include the examination of vehicles such as large trucks, non-hazmat cargo tanks, cargo tanks transporting hazardous materials, and passenger vehicles.

Out of the 50,151 inspections done, 26,451 were Level I inspections, 11,224 were Level II, 11,364 were Level III, and 1,112 were Level V.

When releasing the results of the event, CVSA said that the International Roadcheck “highlights the daily work of the more than 13,000 commercial motor vehicle inspectors throughout North America and acknowledges the safety compliance of motor carriers and professional drivers through the issuance of the CVSA decal on eligible vehicles.”

These decals are given to vehicles that are not found to have any critical vehicle inspection item violations following a Level I or Level V inspection. For 2020, 9,303 power units, 3,662 trailers, and 123 passenger vehicles were issued a decal.

During the course of the 45,046 Level I, II, and III inspections that occurred throughout the United States, 7,256 vehicles and 2,365 total drivers were removed from American roadways.

Issues regarding brake systems made up the largest number of out-of-service violations throughout the U.S., a number which comprised over a quarter of all out-of-service vehicle violations. For drivers in particular, hours of service regulation violations were the most common, as these violations made up 32.5% of overall out-of-service driver violations.

Across the continent, the five most common vehicle-related out-of-service violations found upon inspection had to do with tires, lights, cargo securement, brake adjustment, and overall brake systems. The top five for drivers were, of course, hours-of-service violations, as well as wrong class license, suspended license, false logs, and “other” violations–mistakes like cell phone use and moving violations.

“Although the coronavirus pandemic understandably shifted priorities and personnel during the spring, the commercial motor vehicle law enforcement community has reasserted its focus on the roadside inspection program and enforcement duties,” said CVSA President, Sgt. John Samis, at the time the postponement was announced. “Jurisdictions are nearly back to their pre-pandemic capacity with a  strengthened concentration on identifying and removing unfit vehicles and drivers from our roadways using federal safety standards and the out-of-service criteria.”

This is the first year in 32 years that the International Roadcheck event did not occur on schedule. The decision to postpone was “thoroughly and thoughtfully discussed,” according to Samis. “The experience is unprecedented in our modern society, and we all need to do all that we can to help stop the spread of this global pandemic.”

While adhering to strict safety precautions, inspections worked to collect and verify drivers’ documents, identify motor carriers, check records-of-duty statuses, examine driver’s licenses, and carefully check periodic inspection reports.

Inspectors also checked Medical Examiner’s Certificates, daily vehicle inspection reports, and Skill Performance Evaluation Certificates when necessary.

Illness, fatigue, drug or alcohol possession or impairment, and proper seat belt usage were also checked for.

“As we urgently respond to this time-sensitive crisis, we must remain diligent and committed to ensuring that the commercial motor vehicles and drivers providing essential goods and services to our communities are following motor carrier safety regulations,” Samis explained. “Safety doesn’t take a break. It is always our top priority.”

More than 1.7 million roadside inspections have been conducted throughout International Roadcheck events since the beginning of the campaign in 1988. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, Transport Canada, Mexico’s National guard, and the Mexico Ministry of Communications and Transportation all participate each year in CVSA’s Roadcheck. 

The next International Roadcheck campaign will take place between May 4th and 6th of 2021, pandemic permitting.