Crash Preventability Determination Program

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FMCSA-2022-0233]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Crash Preventability Determination Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice; response to public comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> FMCSA announces changes to its Crash Preventability Determination Program (CPDP). Under the CPDP carriers and drivers may submit requests for data review (RDR) to FMCSA to determine the preventability of commercial motor vehicle (CMV) crashes. FMCSA proposed these changes in its <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice, “Crash Preventability Determination Program,” published at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2022-0233</E> on April 13, 2023. This notice finalizes the proposed changes, responds to comments received, and outlines next steps for implementation. </SUM> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Mr. Catterson Oh, Compliance Division, Office of Enforcement and Compliance, FMCSA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001, (202) 366-6160, <E T="03">Catterson.Oh@dot.gov.</E> If you have questions regarding viewing or submitting material to the docket, contact Dockets Operations, (202) 366-9826. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> FMCSA organizes this notice as follows: <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Summary of Public Comments and Response</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. List of Eligible Crash Types</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Changes to Existing Crash Types</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. New Crash Types</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Reminders on CPDP Process and System Impacts</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Process</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Document Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Impacts to Safety Measurement System (SMS) and Pre-Employment Screening Program (PSP)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Implementation of Crash Type Updates to CPDP</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Other Comments on Changes Not Proposed</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Next Steps</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> FMCSA currently accepts RDRs in its DataQs system to evaluate the preventability of 16 specific crash types as set forth in a notice published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 6, 2020 (85 FR 27017). On April 13, 2023, FMCSA proposed changes to existing and new crash types in CPDP and announced a 60-day preview and comment period for stakeholders (88 FR 22518). The comment period ended on June 12, 2023. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Summary of Public Comments and Response</HD> FMCSA received 60 unique comments in response to the April 2023, notice; one comment was received outside the notice comment period. Of these, 53 submissions contained comments specifically on the changes proposed in that notice. The commenters included motor carriers, drivers/owner-operators, industry associations, and safety consultants. The following entities submitted relevant comments: AIST Safety Consultants, American Trucking Associations (ATA), Big M, Cessna Transport, David W. Blankenship LLC, Fuel Delivery Services Inc., Heyl Truck Lines, Independent Carrier Safety Association, J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc., Knight-Swift Transportation, Lytx, National Motor Freight Traffic Association, Inc. (NFMTA), National Tank Truck Carriers (NTTC), National Waste and Recycling Association, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), Ray Walker Trucking, Sanborn, Brandon, Duvall & Bobbitt Cp., L.P.A., Siskiyou Transportation, Inc., The Forward Group, Inc., TMC Transportation, Trailiner Corp, Veolia North America, Werner Enterprisers, Inc., a consortium of associations Air & Expedited Motor Carriers Association, Airforwarders Association, Alliance for Safe, Efficient and Competitive Truck Transportation, Auto Haulers Association of America, American Home Furnishings Alliance, Apex Capital Corp, National Association of Small Trucking Companies, Sompo International, Specialized Furniture Carriers, The Expedite Association of North American, Transportation & Logistics Council, Transportation Loss Prevention and Security Association, and individuals who did not identify their organizations. Many stakeholders provided comments on multiple proposed changes and topics. Comments outside the scope of the April 2023 notice are not discussed in this notice. Comments in response to the April 2023, notice largely supported the proposed changes. The relevant topics generating the most responses were: (1) proposal for new crash types, particularly the inclusion of requests that have video evidence of the crash; (2) changing the eligibility standard for wrong direction crashes; and (3) the turnaround time for a preventability determination on an eligible crash. In addition, many commenters suggested additional crash types to include as eligible for the program. Two commenters (Josh Curry and Charles E. Guitard) stated their opposition to expanding the program. Josh Curry noted that the “cost to benefits ratio can't justify it,” and Charles E. Guitard would like the Agency to address existing issues, such as the lack of truck parking. The following sections provide a summary of the comments received and the Agency's responses. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. List of Eligible Crash Types</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Changes to Existing Crash Types</HD> While many commenters favored expanding the eligibility of the program, few specifically addressed the changes to existing crash types that would allow more crashes to be eligible. Five commenters (Werner, NFMTA, NTTC, Steve Davis, Siskiyou Transportation, Inc., and OOIDA) specifically expressed support for the proposed modifications. AIST Safety Consulting supported FMCSA's proposal to remove the phrase “The Commercial Motor Vehicle (CMV) was struck because” to address unfair disqualification of CMVs that were the striking vehicle but could not have avoided the collision.” They also supported the acceptance of multi-vehicle crashes as eligible under the existing crash types. The Independent Carrier Safety Association and ATA supported the change to the crash type originally worded “When the CMV was struck by a driver who admitted to falling asleep or admitted to distracted driving” to remove the admission requirement. Barry Poole of Griffith, Indiana, recommended that FMCSA, “Please strike the term committing or attempting to commit suicide and replace with died by or attempting to die by.” <HD SOURCE="HD3">FMCSA Response</HD> FMCSA will modify the list of existing crash types as proposed in the April 13, 2023, notice. These changes will encompass more scenarios, such as where the CMV was not the striking vehicle and multi-vehicle crashes. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. New Crash Types</HD> Many commenters welcomed the addition of new eligible crash types to the program. The notice proposed adding the following types: 1. CMV was struck on the side by a motorist operating in the same direction. 2. CMV was struck because another motorist was entering the roadway from a private driveway or parking lot. 3. CMV was struck because another motorist lost control of their vehicle. The Police Accident Report (PAR) must specifically mention loss of control either in the citation, contributing factors, and/or PAR narrative. 4. Any other type of crash involving a CMV where a video demonstrates the sequence of events of the crash. Twenty-six commenters supported the inclusion of the four new crash types. The crash type “Any other crash involving a CMV where a video demonstrates the sequence of events of the crash,” generated the most comments, with fourteen commenters (The Forward Group, Inc., Jeff Loggins, Trailiner Corp, AIST Safety Consultants, J.B. Hunt, NWRA, NTTC, Independent Carrier Safety Association, ATA, Werner Enterprises, Inc., David Search, and three anonymous posters) specifically addressing this change. Three commenters (Jeff Loggins, Trailiner Corp, and an anonymous commenter) offered remarks on the challenges of uploading videos to the DataQs system. These commenters requested that the DataQs system be updated to allow upload of more file types and larger file sizes. ATA, J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc., and an anonymous commenter expressed concerns with the Agency's handling of video files. ATA's comments noted “ATA urges FMCSA to further clarify that any video evidence should be reviewed, not just an onboard video recorder ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> surveillance footage, cell phone video, etc.). Furthermore, FMCSA should clarify the expectation for demonstrating the sequence of events of the crash . . . FMCSA should not expect, nor require, video evidence in the hours and days leading up to the crash. Additionally, FMCSA should take steps to ensure data privacy when submitting video evidence and ensure that any video submissions are permanently deleted after a determination has been made.” J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc., believes that video submissions should be treated as confidential business information and exempt from public disclosure. An anonymous commenter inquired about the policies surrounding video submissions, stating “What will be done with the videos that are submitted? . . . Just think it should also be disclosed if we will be submitting our private footage.” In addition to the four proposed crash types, many commenters also requested the program expand to include other crash types. The crash types suggested by commenters are listed below. <FP SOURCE="FP-2">1. Crashes at non-controlled intersections, when video evidence is provided</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">2. Crashes where the other vehicle tries to outrun the truck</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">3. Crashes with an abandoned vehic ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 41k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━