OTA Dispatch Issue 1 2020

THE MCSAP IS a federal grant program that purports to intend to provide financial assistance to states to reduce the number and severity of crashes and hazardous materials incidents involving commercial motor vehicles (CMVs). The goal of the MCSAP is to reduce CMV-involved crashes, fatalities, and injuries through consistent, uniform, and effective CMV safety programs. The MCSAP is FMCSA’s largest grant program that supports State and local law enforcement agencies to utilize over 12,000 enforcement officers to increase enforcement and safety activities nationwide. The FAST Act consolidated several previously stand-alone FMCSA grant programs and mandates state participation in all as a condition of grant eligibility. The MCSAP grant now includes Basic and Incentive grant funds, requires New Entrant safety audits on interstate motor carriers and intrastate motor carriers, provides for Border Enforcement (safety program conducted by States for border CMV safety projects and activities focused on international commerce) and components of other consolidated grant programs, including: ` Safety Data Improvement— provides financial and technical assistance to States to facilitate the collection of accurate, complete, and timely data on all large commercial truck and bus crashes that involve a fatality, injury, or a vehicle towed from the crash scene. ` Innovative Technology Deployment (Operations & Maintenance Only)— advances the technological capability and promotes the deployment of intelligent transportation system applications for CMV operations and supports and maintains CMV information systems and networks; and, ` Performance and Registration Information Systems Management (PRISM)— cooperative Federal/State public safety program that links carrier safety fitness to State vehicle registration process. The state of Oregon acting initially through the PUC truck regulatory program and since 1995 through the Motor Carrier Transportation Division at ODOT has perennially been a MCSAP grant recipient. Changes in MCSAP grant requirements and conditions of eligibility inclined ODOT to not apply for the MCSAP grant in 2015 and subsequent years. Recently, ODOT has been contemplating applying for the grant once again. Why did ODOT opt out of the grant in 2015? Recognizing that the stated purpose of the MCSAP grant was to reduce the number of truck at fault accidents, then a blinding flash of the obvious premise results that an appropriate use of MCSAP grant dollars would be to pay OSP troopers to increase their presence and patrols on interstate corridors known to experience truck at fault accidents. ODOT’s thesis in 2015 was simply that everyone should acknowledge that the mere visible presence of a state trooper in the rearview mirror impacts driver behavior. Who does not glance down at their speedometer, perhaps slow down and remain alert to lane position and other vehicles in their vicinity immediately after seeing a trooper? ODOT observed that its data revealed that 95% of all truck-at-fault accidents have nothing to do with mechanical issues; rather, they derive from driver behaviors like speeding, unsafe lane changes, following too closely and they are exacerbated by fatigued drivers violating hours of service regulations or unqualified drivers with underlying suspensions and CDL issues who remain behind the wheel. This connection between driver behavior and truck at fault accidents is intuitively obvious and should be easy to agree upon. Apparently not so inasmuch as FMCSA remains wrapped around the axle (pardon the pun) expressing an inordinate concern that it not be put in the position of awarding grant dollars for which it cannot demonstrate to congress an adequate return on their safety investment measured unfortunately only in the “widgets” of completed truck and driver inspection documents. Truck mechanical condition accounts for less than 5% of truck at fault accidents and yet FMCSA requires completed truck inspection documents to justify award of the vast majority of these grant dollars. This should frustrate everyone. Optimally we should see OSP troopers do what they excel at and that is traffic enforcement. It should be obvious it is largely a waste of time to have 300 troopers perform a handful of truck and driver inspections if they only perform them to the minimum standard (32 per year or 2.7 per month) required to remain certified as an inspector. Doing so does not garner them any real proficiency in analyzing a logbook to sleuth out a carefully concealed hours of service violation or to detect a less than immediately obvious out of service violation. Yet, FMCSA has built a grant program that is inspection document centric and requires same in order to fuel REGULATORY COMPLIANCE What is the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP)? By Gregg Dal Ponte, OTA’s Director of Regulatory Compliance Oregon Trucking Associations, Inc. Oregon Truck Dispatch 8 95% of all truck-at-fault accidents have nothing to do with mechanical issues