FMCSA wants to research impact of fault in CMV crash records

Washington – The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is proposing a study (.pdf file) that would help develop a system to update commercial motor vehicle crash records to reflect determination of fault in a crash.

Current records are based on the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program’s safety measurement system, which only records when a CMV is involved in a crash, not whether the operator was at fault.

The proposed study intends to do the following:

  • Determine whether police accident reports’ determinations of fault are consistent across the nation.
  • Analyze whether including determination of fault in a CMV carrier’s crash records better indicates the carrier’s future crash risk.
  • Establish procedures for incorporating determination of fault into records after soliciting public input.

The proposed study is scheduled for completion by summer 2013, at which point the agency would determine if and how fault determinations would be incorporated into crash records.

Post a comment to this article

Safety+Health welcomes comments that promote respectful dialogue. Please stay on topic. Comments that contain personal attacks, profanity or abusive language – or those aggressively promoting products or services – will be removed. We reserve the right to determine which comments violate our comment policy. (Anonymous comments are welcome; merely skip the “name” field in the comment box. An email address is required but will not be included with your comment.)