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The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's preliminary data shows a consistent increase in big truck crashes among businesses that have entered the market since 2018.
The information was given on Wednesday at the annual Analysis, Research, and Technology Forum by FMCSA statistician Dan Burrill.
An examination of the spike in new common-carrier registrations that occurred both before and during the pandemic was supplemented with these data. The FMCSA reported, for instance, that the average number of new registrations for motor carrier authority in 2021 was 17,000, up from 8,500 in 2019. Most of the spike was caused by new competitors who only had one power unit.
According to Burrill, an analysis of crash data for carriers that commenced operations in 2018 reveals an intriguing trend. It appears that new carriers typically experience a relatively low number of crashes during their first year in the industry. However, as time progresses, there is a noticeable upward trajectory in the frequency of crashes encountered by these carriers.
In the year 2018, a notable statistic emerged: emerging participants played a role in approximately 1.3% of total incidents encompassing sizable buses or trucks. In 2021, the crash rate for individuals who entered the market in 2018 experienced a significant increase, reaching approximately 3.5%.
According to Burrill, their team is excited to conduct further analysis of this valuable data. Many individuals will evaluate and contrast newly introduced carriers with a more established group to determine any disparities in safety performance.
The average number of new registrations has begun to decline from a peak in 2021, however, Burrill pointed out that "it's still much higher than pre-COVID."
A briefing on Level 8 commercial vehicle inspections, a novel form of safety inspection carried out electronically while cars are traveling at highway speed without direct contact with law enforcement, was one of the other presentations given during the conference.
According to FMCSA Transportation Specialist Tom Kelly, the Level 8 inspections aim to enhance data collection on carriers, vehicles, and drivers. This includes electronically verifying CDL status and hours-of-service compliance against national compliance databases in real time.
The data is subsequently employed "not only to make a bypass decision [whether or not to conduct a more intensive safety check] but also to record the results electronically without human interaction."
According to Kelly, the FMCSA believes that Level 8 inspections can conduct up to 10 times as many inspections, allowing the agency to better monitor the increasing number of trucks on the road. To test the examinations, the agency is creating an operational model.
As a blueprint for carriers using autonomous driving systems, the agency also creates a model operational safety plan.
