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2007 SORROW TO STRENGTH CONFERECE

Can’t Meet Your Safety Goals? Just Change the Target!

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has played a shell game for the past 8 years in a feeble attempt to mask the failure of their programs and policies to reduce deaths and injuries that result from big truck crashes:

* In 10 of the last 11 years, more than 5,000 people have died in big truck crashes.

* In 1998, 5,395 people died in big truck crashes.

* Former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation in 1999 promised that this horrific number of big truck deaths in 1998 would be cut in half in 10 years. The goal to reduce deaths to approximately 2,700 truck crash fatalities by the end of 2008.

* No progress whatever was made in reaching this goal in the next few years.

* 1999: 5,380 people died in big truck crashes.

* 2000: 5,282 people died in big truck crashes.

* In 2001, FMCSA’s own projections showed that the 2008 goal would be missed by nearly 50 percent, so the agency changed its goal in the U.S. DOT annual Performance Plan of cutting truck crash deaths in half by 2008.

* Instead of reducing the actual number of annual fatalities, FMCSA adopted a goal of reducing only the rate of truck deaths by 41 percent, to 1.65 fatalities per 100 Million Truck Miles Traveled by the close of 2008.

* An improvement in only the rate of truck deaths is highly objectionable because the rate could improve while the number of deaths actually increases. This actually occurred in both 2003 and 2004. In a 1999 report, the Inspector General of the U.S. DOT criticized this change in the truck crash fatality reduction goal.

* For example, although the fatality rate for large trucks was 2.29 in 2004 and 2.31 in 2003, 199 more people died in 2004 in large truck fatal crashes than in 2003 – 5,036 people died in 2003 at a fatality rate of 2.31 per 100 MVMT, but 5,235 people died in 2004 at the lower fatality rate of 2.29 per 100 MVMT.

* When FMCSA adopted a target to reduce only the rate of truck deaths, it chose an earlier year – 1996 – because it was more favorable in setting the target rate of 1.65 deaths per 100 MTMT for 2008.

* But FMCSA could not meet its goal of reducing the rate of deaths in any year. The agency goals compared to the actual rate widened year after year.

* In 2003, FMCSA’s goal was 2.19 truck deaths per 100 MTMT, but the actual rate was 2.31.

* In 2004, FMCSA’s goal was 2.07 truck deaths per 100 MTMT, but the actual rate was 2.37.

* In 2005, FMCSA’s goal was 1.96 truck deaths per 100 MTMT, but the actual rate was 2.34.

* FMCSA’s own published trend line in 2005 projected that the gap between the target rate and the actual rate would continue to widen each year through the target date of 2008.

* As a result, FMCSA in 2006 started to play the shell game again. The agency merged all truck fatalities and all motorcoach and bus fatalities into one commercial motor vehicle fatality figure. Motorcoaches and buses have a much lower fatality rate than big trucks and far fewer fatalities each year so it would mask the real picture of truck deaths on our highways.

* FMCSA then abandoned the direct measurement of truck fatalities by 100 MTMT, and instead measured a single figure for all commercial motor vehicle (CMV) fatalities against all annual motor vehicle miles traveled, including cars, sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and motorcycles! The agency will no longer use a separate truck fatality rate per 100 MTMT!

* The fatality rate goal now for all CMVs measured against all annual vehicle miles traveled is now 0.184 fatalities per 100 Million Total Vehicle Miles Traveled for 2005.

* The new goal for the new shell game rate is to achieve 0.171 CMV fatalities per 100 Million Total Vehicle Miles Traveled for 2011.

* If you now measure truck crash deaths against all miles driven by every vehicle on the road instead of just the miles driven by trucks it disguises how serious the truck safety problem is and how over-involved trucks are in deadly.

* Once again, FMCSA proves it is more serious about coming up with new performance goals then in reducing truck crash deaths and injuries.