Name: Alliance for Safe, Efficient and Competitive Truck Transportation (ASECTT)
The Alliance
ASECTT is composed of interested carriers, brokers, shippers and allied industry participants which are committed to working with the U.S. DOT and the FMCSA to enhance highway safety while confirming that as the regulating body, the Federal Government certifies carriers as safe to operate on the nation’s roadways, affording regulated carriers due process and the shipping public certainty that carriers certified as safe by the Agency may be chosen for use based upon routes, rates and services, and without vicarious liability concerns under differing and inconsistent state law principles.
ASECTT calls for a critical analysis of the FMCSA’s CSA 2010/SMS methodology prior to its implementation in accordance with the statutory requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act. Its members are concerned that while SMS methodology is a work in progress, portions of it have been released to the public without proper vetting, including but not limited to, the most basic scientific and statistical studies necessary to justify a nexus between the compliance violations measured in each of the so-called 7 BASICs and crash predictability.
ASECTT questions the viability of replacing objective safety standards applied after compliance reviews with percentile rankings and artificial peer groups as a satisfactory safety rating methodology.
ASECTT questions whether any system which arbitrarily concludes that a significant portion of the motor carrier industry should be labeled as marginal should be affirmed, particularly in light of the material, negative effect such SMS methodology has on efficiency, competition and job creation, while having no measurable positive effect on transportation safety.
ASECTT is committed to a thoughtful and critical review of SMS methodology through the administrative process, in the court of public opinion and through Congressional oversight of the Agency’s mandate under the National Transportation Policy with a view to ensuring that the benefits of heightened competition envisioned by deregulation of the motor carrier industry are not damaged as an unintended consequence of an unproven safety methodology.
Purpose:
(1) To affirm and encourage enforcement of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations consistent with due process.
(2) To ensure that motor carriers authorized by the FMCSA fulfill their non-delegable safety duties under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.
(3) To affirm the FMCSA’s duty to determine carrier safety fitness for use by the shipping and traveling public.
(4) To affirm that shippers and brokers can rely upon the Agency’s ultimate fitness determination without exposure to vicarious liability, negligent hiring or negligent selection when the carrier selected has been certified by the Agency for use.
(5) To affirm and encourage the National Transportation Policy and the promotion of safety, competition, and efficiency in truck transportation.
Short Term Goal: To require the FMCSA to redact publication of CSA 2010 methodology pending rulemaking or to otherwise affirm that data cannot be used in a court of law to establish vicarious liability and that shippers and brokers may rely upon Agency’s current fitness determination of satisfactory, unsatisfactory or unrated (which is equivalent to satisfactory).
Long Term Goal: To reestablish primacy of FMCSA for certifying safety, including preemption of state law.
Constituent Group: Founding constituency includes 3 trade associations (NASTC, AEMCA and TEANA) which are composed of privately owned for-hire motor carriers and property brokers who are their logistics partners. Other supporters include shippers, factors, and insurers who understand the threat which fear of vicarious liability poses to the marketplace use of regulated carriers.
Some Facts: CSA 2010 methodology was released on December 13, 2010. 57% of the ranked carriers were marked as under “Alert” in one of the five reported BASIC areas. The 51,000 branded under Alert included hundreds of carriers which had actually been audited and found to be satisfactory and such major carriers as US Express and CR England. The data upon which CSA 2010 methodology is based has not been vetted, does not offer carriers due process, and is based upon capricious percentile rankings which assures that over half of the carriers ranked will be subject to progressive intervention and hence marked under “Alert”.
In the run up to publication of CSA 2010 data, shippers and brokers have been told that unless the Agency’s ultimate certification is second guessed using CSA 2010 methodology, they are “one accident away” from a vicarious liability judgment. The anti-competitive effect this advice and the rush by many to set contractual bars and standards for use based upon CSA 2010 threaten the spot market and vast numbers of small carriers otherwise certified as safe by the Agency.
Structure: ASECTT will operate with a Board of Directors composed of representatives of the 3 trade associations currently involved in litigation plus representatives from affected shippers, insurers, transactional brokers and factors. Nominations for Steering Committee members should be addressed to asectt@gmail.com. In addition to a Steering Committee, subcommittees including publication/blog, membership, data analysis, legislative affairs and industry relations will be established.
It is not the goal of ASECTT to replace or supplant any existing trade organization or group. Membership and participation is offered to all who are dedicated to the reaffirmation of the principles of deregulation as embodied in the National Transportation Policy, and motor carrier deregulation that is a safe, dependable system of privately owned motor carriers which compete on a level playing field based on service and rates with the Federal Government certifying carriers as safe for the public’s use.
