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April 2023

Still Time to Take ICSA Survey

Enter Our $500 Gift Card Drawing

Members who complete the new ICSA Survey and include their contact information by May 1st will be entered into our drawing for a $500 gift card.

Annual Membership Meeting

Reports Available Now

A hearty thanks to all the members who Zoomed in to ICSA’s 2023 Annual Membership Meeting on April 20th! We apologize for the “technical difficulties” that made our screen freeze on some of the visuals.

If you missed anything, we recorded the meeting for those who couldn’t attend or for those who want to listen to it again and will have the recording available in a few days. Meanwhile, here are links to the reports on Upcoming Regulations by Guest Speaker Warren Hoemann; Membership Report by ICSA Executive Director Karen Rasmussen; and Safety Report by Lead Safety Consultant Mike Hitchcock.

Member Alert: 2023 Road Check Set for May 16-18!

In just three weeks, thousands of commercial enforcement personnel will be out in force for Road Check 2023. Officers will set up to do truck and driver inspections at regular weigh stations or scale facilities, rest areas and even some truck stops.

According to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), brakes will get special emphasis again this year as officers focus on anti-lock braking systems (ABS). Although ABS violations are not out of service (OOS) violations, ABS reduces the risk of a crash by preventing wheels from locking up or skidding, allowing a driver to maintain control of the vehicle while braking. During Road Check 2022, two of the top three OOS violations were brake-related, with brake systems accounting for more than one-fourth of violations and defective service brakes at 12.7%.

Here's a general Road Check trip from ICSA’s Executive Director Karen Rasmussen: “It’s important that drivers not try to evade these inspections. I’ve worked alongside highway patrol officers at numerous Road Check events. Almost always, the agencies post chase cars down the road to pursue and pull over any truck that attempts to evade,” she said. “Then, in addition to potential inspection violations, the driver is also cited for failure to obey a traffic control device. In many states, this violation is good for three points on the CDL,” Rasmussen added. ICSA’s advice is to be ready for Road Check and follow the signs to the inspection site.

What should ICSA members do to be ready for this intensive 72-hour inspection and enforcement event?

Why You Should Have an LLC

Without One, You Could Lose All Your Assets

We at ICSA are always surprised and concerned that too few members are protected by LLCs, or Limited Liability Companies. LLCs are an essential part of how a single-truck operator or small fleet can protect not only their livelihood but also their personal assets. While no one is required to have an LLC, obtaining one can make all the difference in limiting financial distress as a result of any accident, injury, or emergency that occurs on the job. Whether you are a single-truck operator or own a small fleet, you are operating your own business and are responsible for all liabilities.

Here is an all-too-familiar scenario: A carrier involved in an accident is sued for damages by other affected parties, who are often being represented by a less than ethical trial lawyer. The trucker loses his or her case in court, and as the result of an unfavorable legal judgment, their personal savings, home, and other financial assets are seized to pay off any legal judgments or debts left over after insurance is paid.

Think this can’t happen to you? Sadly, the courts are filled with thousands of examples like this, while forming an LLC would have created a separate legal entity that would have helped protect the individual owner and their personal assets. Forming an LLC is just one service ICSA’s partner – U.S. Legal –provides our members.

FMCSA Proposes Changes

to Crash Preventability Program

If you’ve been in trucking for a few years, you may have filed one or more DataQ requests to submit crashes to FMCSA for evaluating whether these incidents were preventable or not. FMCSA implemented a permanent Crash Preventability Determination Program (CPDP) in May 2020, in which crashes deemed not preventable would be removed from use in a carrier’s Crash Indicator Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category (BASIC) percentile ranking in the current system FMCSA uses to determine a carrier’s safety rating.

According to FMCSA, between May 1, 2020, and December 30, 2022, nearly 40,000 such requests were submitted to the agency. Of that number, approximately 96% of the eligible crashes were found to have been not preventable. FMCSA is now proposing to change some of the 16 existing crash types and add four new types to expand the program so that even more crashes would be reviewed each year for preventability.

Be watching for ICSA’s May Regulatory Roundup detailing the proposed changes, the additional crash types that may be added and the impact on ICSA’s members.

COACHING CORNER

By Mike Hitchcock, Lead ICSA Safety Consultant

Avoiding “Sticker Shock” for

Extended Video Recordings

Recently several ICSA members received some substantial bills for ordering extended videos from their SmartDrive system. Members are the owners of their SmartDrive system and data, and certainly have the right to order anything they wish. However, in some of these cases, the member would not have needed to order an extended recording had he or she followed a few simple steps.

As explained in the SmartDrive training courses (use password: SDResources to access training videos), each 30-second video segment a member orders costs $3. These SmartDrive training modules help members minimize the need to order extended video recordings. This in turn lowers your cost and may even eliminate the need to order altogether. In the meantime, here are some tips to minimize or eliminate the cost of extended recordings:

Michigan is the Safest State for Truckers

According to a new study conducted by transportation services company Simplex, Michigan highways are the safest in the nation for truck drivers. Using 2022 data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the study reviewed the percentage of large trucks involved in fatal crashes last year compared to all fatal vehicle crashes per state to rank states according to the percentage of truck-involved incidents to total vehicle crashes. Michigan was ranked first, with just 4.72%of its fatal crashes involving large trucks. Wyoming was ranked as the least-safe state, with nearly 19% of total crashes involving large trucks.

The study ranked Vermont as the second safest state for truckdrivers with just 5% of fatal crashes involving large trucks, followed by Hawaii (5.26%); Delaware (5.56%); and Massachusetts (5.74%).

Following closely behind Wyoming was Idaho, which was just slightly safer for trucks with16.33% of all fatal crashes involving trucks. Nebraska is the third least-safe state for truck drivers, with a 15.92% truck-involved fatal crash rate. Iowa is the fourth most dangerous state for truck drivers, with 14.35% of fatal vehicle crashes involving a truck. Fifth was North Dakota, with 13.24% of fatal vehicle crashes involving a large truck.