Originally published at: Bill empowers truck drivers to ■■■■■ flawed safety data - FreightWaves
New legislation would mandate independent appeals for safety data contested by truck drivers while expanding carrier access to current driver records.
Good concept adding 3rd party involvement for an unbiased look at violations. However, does not take into account how things operate with Motor Carriers that do operate as safe and compliant as possible.
Example: a driver receives a citation for going 20 mph hour over the posted speed limit. And contests the violation. If the speeding violation is a policy disqualification event for the driver and motor carrier, the motor carrier would not be able to fire the driver until DataQ review is completed. This places the motor carrier in violation with it’s safety policy, possibly in violation with their insurance provider and in the event the same driver whom was allowed to continue driving is involved in an accident soon after - opens the carrier to major lawsuits. Also does not address what happens to the Motor Carrier’s Safety Score while being reviewed. A Good idea- poor planning to make it work in the real world. Continue to explore how to make this work within Motor Carrier company policy, insurance requirements policy and lawyers using the data to attempt proving inadequate safety controls of drivers.
This seems all well and good, but there needs to be measures taken to keep commercial enforcement officers from writing bogus violations and warnings. Drivers are taught the most basic rules for a pretrip inspection and are told that if the equipment meets these standards, it is safe to go down the road. Meanwhile law enforcement is taught constantly and in depth how to make every rule and regulation in the fmcsr work in their favor to write violations or even warnings. They want to keep us d.umb (I can’t believe this word is censored on here) and uninformed then weaponize the rules against us.
1 Like