FMCSA Updates Crash Preventability Determination Program (CPDP)

(NOTE TO MEMBERS: While ICSA recently wrote about forthcoming changes to the CPDP, we are providing a recap here. ICSA will be providing comments supporting the changes and we want to remind you that it’s not too late for you to submit your own comments – due by June 12. We have included the link for filing comments in the final paragraph of this article. We also are providing an overview of what ICSA will include in its comments which may help you compose your own comments. However, we ask you not to copy and paste what’s provided in our overview, but to give your own examples of crashes you or your company has experienced that would have been deemed unpreventable had the expanded program been in place. – Karen Rasmussen, ICSA Executive Director)

Among the good news in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s proposed revisions to its Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program was that the Crash Preventability Determination Program (CPDP) would be retained. Under that program, motor carriers can submit a Request for Data Review (an RDR) to FMCSA’s DataQs program, stating that a crash was not preventable by the motor carrier or the truck driver. Since the program started in May 2020, motor carriers have done just that over 39,000 times. About 72.5 percent of those submitted crashes were deemed to fall within the 16 categories of crashes eligible for review. Once reviewed, fully 96 percent were in fact determined to be non-preventable by FMCSA. That finding means the crash could not be counted against the motor carrier or truck driver under the CSA Safety Measurement System (SMS).

Now FMCSA is looking to clarify those 16 categories of eligible crashes and to add four new categories as listed below. After reviewing the comments, FMCSA will make necessary adjustments to the DataQs program and announce a start date for the expanded Crash Preventability Determination Program.

1. A commercial motor vehicle (CMV) was struck on the side by a motorist operating in the same direction. (Currently, eligible side strikes are limited to the very rear of the commercial motor vehicle.)
2. A CMV was struck because another motorist was entering the roadway from a private driveway or parking lot.
3. CMV was struck because another motorist lost control of their vehicle.
4. Any other type of crash involving a CMV where a video demonstrates the sequence of events of the crash. This is a great benefit to carriers who utilize video cameras.

You can read more in this article posted on the ICSA website at https://www.safecarriers.org/industry-information-posts/fmcsa-proposes-csa-overhaul/)

Comments on the CPDP proposal are due by June 12, 2023. Here is the clink for filing comments: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/04/13/2023-07818/crash-preventability-determination-program)

Summary of What ICSA Will stress in its CPDP Comments

• ICSA will emphasize the fact that small carriers and owner-operators can have their CSA safety scores dramatically impacted by a single, non-preventable accident.  Preservation and expansion of the Crash Preventability Determination Program is not only fair to those carriers, it is essential. 
• ICSA will support FMCSA’s provision of a particularly important new crash type, where a video demonstrates the sequence of events of a crash.  ICSA already emphasizes the importance of cameras in trucks and assists its members in their purchase, installation and training in their use. 
• ICSA will remind FMCSA that, unlike larger carriers, who may have personnel available to gather facts and reports around a crash, small carriers and owner-operators have little to no staff -- but as ICSA members they do have cameras.  With this new crash type added to the program, small fleets can protect their safety scores with direct, visual evidence.