Truck Industry Takes Issue with Federal Statistics Collection

Associations representing the trucking industry are taking issue with a federal agency’s reliance on police statistics in relation to crashes involving big rigs.

According to a press release, American Trucking Associations have requested the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator Anne Ferro to release the results of its study on the use of police reports to determine crash accountability.

ATA President and CEO Bill Graves said. “Several weeks ago, the agency indefinitely placed on hold a process to correct this fundamental flaw in the system, citing, in part, concerns with the reliability and usefulness of police accident reports. To better understand FMCSA’s reluctance to act, the public should see the results of the study the agency promised almost two years ago.”

American Trucking Associations say at present the Federal Carrier Safety Administration ranks truck companies based on all truck-involved crashes, including accidents that the carrier did not cause nor could have prevented.

“To live up to its goal to be open and transparent, FMCSA should release the results of its study, identify the specific concerns that caused it to place the planned solution on hold, and commit to a timeline for addressing this issue,” said Graves.

As Norfolk, VA based truck accident injury attorneys who see some horrific accident involving big rigs, we support measures to rank the records of carriers based on their safety record. It’s also important that companies that commit serious violations are taken off the highways of Virginia.

However, it’s also important that the data used is as accurate as it possibly can be.

The Virginia Beach and Norfolk based truck accident injury law firm, Cooper Hurley, handles automobile, truck, and motorcycle injuries as well as other cases such as slip and fall cases, wrongful death and medical malpractice.  John Cooper and Jim Hurley have over 40 years of combined experience in handling truck injury accident claims.  Attorney John Cooper has been named to Virginia “Super Lawyers” since 2010.

Cooper Hurley represents people hurt in accidents in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News and throughout VA, and always put the best interests of our clients first. The firm is recognized by other lawyers as “AV” by Martindale-Hubbell, a national attorney rating service, for our top level of legal skill and highest ethical standards.