Large carriers do stand to benefit from a potential federal program to reward carriers for voluntary safety investments or other “beyond compliance” initiatives, says Joe Rajkovacz of the Western States Trucking Association, but that’s no reason for owner-operators and other small carriers to oppose such a program, Rajkovacz told Overdrive late last week.
Rajkovacz, a former owner-operator himself, offered a second take on the potential beyond compliance program following the mostly negative opinions expressed against such a program last week at a public FMCSA listening session. WSTA plans to file its formal comments with FMCSA soon, Rajkovacz said.
Last week’s public session was short on guidance for FMCSA to consider in developing the program and long on apprehensive commentary by owner-operators, who expressed concerns that the program would heavily favor larger carriers and potentially become a new industry standard in compliance, which could cost owner-operators business, commenters argued. You can read my coverage of the listening session at this link for more.
Rajkovacz, meanwhile, encouraged owner-operators and other small carriers to, instead of “just saying no,” make their ideas heard to FMCSA about how owner-operators and small business truckers could benefit from the beyond compliance program. An “anti-everything” approach, he says, “[squelches] meaningful dialogue that could, if truckers actively participate, build some forgiveness into [CSA’s] Safety Measurement System. It isn’t going away,” he said.
Despite a recent move by Congress and FMCSA to hide SMS rankings from public view, enforcers are still using the system to target carriers for intervention. And scores/rankings are still requested of carriers by shippers and insurers, Rajkovacz said, making the system ripe for incentivizing via a voluntary compliance program.
From Joe’s email:
If a small carrier is close to or over an intervention threshold within a BASIC in the SMS, why shouldn’t they be able to do something beyond the minimal regulatory requirements and get some extra credit that reduces the percentile ranking or eliminates them being in alert status? Currently, even with the methodology flaws, there is nothing someone can do about deficient scores other than let time pass or attempt to get as many clean inspections as possible (which isn’t really a viable strategy for a number of reasons). Violations happen. I’ve been tagged with them and they were legit.
