I am writing to you from the great state of Florida, enjoying a little bit of down time during these hot summer months.  Hope you are too.  But as you can see from the CABs LABs we have been busy continuing to improve our website offerings.

But first, a huge thank you to everyone who participated in our annual survey.  We are gratified by the tremendous amount of positive feedback we received and are thankful to those of you who offered great suggestions and comments to help us improve.  Please keep the feedback coming throughout the year.  It is really important to us to ensure all of you are familiar and comfortable with all of the tools and information that is available as a part of your subscription to CAB.  For this reason we offer live training sessions every month, one a basic training session and one a focus session that covers one topic more in depth. Previous sessions are available to view in the About CAB – Webinars section of our subscriber website.  If you have suggestions for topics you’d like covered, or if you have questions about anything on the site, in the reports, or what we can offer please do not hesitate to contact us.

CABs LABs – At CAB, we are more than just the data but the data is still our lifeblood. We are committed to bringing the power of the data to all of our users. We are excited to announce the launch of Analysis Central™, our newest feature.  Analysis Central™ gives you instant access to reports and analysis giving you a deeper and more insightful review of a motor carrier and its operations. The best part about Analysis Central™ is that we are just getting started. There are already a bunch of new reports available on the Analysis Central™ tab in the CAB report and there are many more that will be added. You can also request your own customized reports and we will try to accommodate every request we can. We will be offering a live training session on Thursday August 20th to introduce you to Analysis Central™ and how you can play a key role in ensuring you get access to the analyses you need.

This month we report:

CSA  ATTACK – We continue to watch the attacks on CSA on various fronts and the FMCSA’s reaction.

In the Senate an amendment was added to the proposed six year surface transportation bill which would requires FMCSA to bring in third parties to oversee the CSA program.   It would also require that the scores be removed from the public website.  The bill calls for the National Research Council to conduct a correlation study and for the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General to oversee FMCSA’s corrective action plan.

However, The FMCSA continues to move forward efforts to correlate carrier safety fitness determinations with CSA. The FMCSA has submitted a notice of proposed rulemaking that will modify how the agency assigns carrier safety fitness determinations to motor carriers.  Under the proposed rulemaking motor carriers would have their carrier safety fitness rating assigned based on: Safety rankings within the CSA program; An investigation; Or a combination of on-road safety data and investigation information.

While the official scores may ultimately be removed from the public website, rest assured that CAB will continue to gather all of the underlying data, provide analytics and assist the insurance industry to successfully evaluate risk.

INSURANCE LIMITS – The quest to increase insurance limits continue.  We have conflicting bills this month, one which protects the current limits and another which seeks to double limits.   Various trucking organizations have started to marshal support to defeat any increase.  We will continue to keep you advised as this moves through the system.

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Welcome to Summer.  We hope you are all taking some time to relax and enjoy a bit of a slowdown as we head into the holiday weekend.  Life at the shore is good.  Happy 4th of July.  This month we report: 

FILING INSURANCE LIMITS TO REMAIN THE SAME – The House rejected an amendment to the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Fiscal 2016 appropriations bill that would have opened the doors to an increase in insurance requirements for trucking and bus companies. As the restriction on increasing limits is also in the version passed by the Senate, while differences in the bill need to be worked out in a House-Senate conference and the ultimate bill signed by the President, it appears that there will be a freeze on current insurance requirements on trucking companies. We will let you know if anything more comes up on this issue.

FMCSA ATTACKED – At month end a bill was introduced in the Senate targeted at reformation of the FMCSA.  Under the proposal a review of rules, guidance, regulations and enforcement policies would be mandated every five years and numerous steps and protocols put in place to limit the ability of the FMCSA to implement rules, with mandated oversight of the rulemaking process from the Transportation Research Board or the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General.  It will be interesting to see where this goes. 

NHTSA REPORT – The Office of Inspector General released a report that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and its Office of Defects Investigation is “insufficient” in its handling of vehicle defects.   In its audit, OIG looked into ODI’s procedures for collecting vehicle safety data, analyzing data and identifying potential safety issues, and determining which of these issues should be further investigated. The OIG determined that there was a lack of guidance on what information should be reported so that there could be early warning of the defects.  All in all it was not a good rating for the department. The report is scheduled to be released later this year. 

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