Trucking companies have an additional load to bear this year - broader federal safety rules under a system that gives bad scores for a number of violations.

Spokane-area trucking company operators say they're still adjusting to the stricter Compliance Safety Accountability (CSA) program launched by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in December.

While they say the newer measures will have an overall positive effect in reducing commercial truck accidents, they also have some concerns about how fairly its measurement system depicts a company's safety ratings as tracked through roadside inspections and crash data.

"So far, it's still pretty new to us and to everyone in the industry," says Dave Ross, vice president and co-owner of Spokane Transfer & Storage Co. "Their rating system is much more strict than it used to be, and I foresee it taking more drivers off the road and smaller companies out of business. It can be just a few violations, and you're under investigation, so it's like a pass-fail thing."

The safety program affects commercial truck and bus operators. Central to the program is a safety measurement system that now analyzes seven categories of safety-based violations: unsafe driving, fatigued drivers, improperly licensed or trained drivers, drug or alcohol abuses, vehicle maintenance citations, improper cargo loading, and crashes. A high score in one of the seven categories connotes a poor safety record in that area.

The public can view most of the safety rating analyses on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's website - with the exception of accident details and cargo-related incidents - but all of the data is available to state law enforcement and shippers, those in the industry say.

Companies with high scores for violations face different stages of intervention, starting with warning letters that call for corrective action along with more targeted roadside inspections. If problems persist, the safety administration may proceed with company-site audits, fines, and further steps to close down a company.

The safety administration updates companies' safety scores monthly if sufficient data is available, the agency's website says, and assessments cover 24 months of activity, although some data such as the listing of accident numbers stays on longer.

Spokane's DeVries Moving Packing Storage co-owner Mike DeVries says the federal safety regulations have been in place for some time now, including the 11-hour driving time limit for drivers to prevent fatigue. What's new, he says, is stricter enforcement.

"The enforcement has gotten a lot more stringent out there for the drivers, meaning they have more roadside inspections, which causes them to be on top of their game," DeVries says. "I think it is a good thing. It does separate the bad companies from the good companies."

For Mike Mitchell, operations manager for Spokane-based Mercer Trucking Co., he's seeing the impact of more hours spent in tracking and training. "It takes a lot more time," he says, as companies track individual violations online. "You have to put those together with each driver, and you have to talk to and educate the drivers."

"I think the overall roots behind it are good," he adds. "If you have a high score, they'll pull you in more (for inspections). They want to make sure we're paying attention to the whole system, and we are, but just because you're paying attention to the score, it doesn't necessarily bring it down. You can't control everything a driver does every minute of the day."

Trans-System Inc., in Spokane, which ranked on the 2011 Journal of Business' Book of Lists as the largest trucking company here, declined to comment for this article. It referred questions to a trade industry group called Washington Trucking Associations, based in Federal Way, Wash., with about 900 trucking company members. That includes about 60 members in the Spokane area, and overall, member companies represent freight haulers, household movers, log-truck haulers, and private carriers such as Safeway Inc.'s trucking fleet.

The association's safety director, Mike Southards, says that the carrier safety administration has long enforced safety compliance, previously under a program called SafeStat. The new safety program expands the safety standards and how they are measured, he adds.

"Under SafeStat, the carrier safety was broken into four parts, and now it has seven parts," Southards says. "There's a lot more details," such as a cracked windshield or broken tail light in the category of vehicle maintenance.

Good news for safe carriers

Overall, Southards says the expanded system means good news for safe carriers. For example, he says, law enforcement officers won't be pulling trucks over as frequently for roadside inspections if a quick electronic check reveals a truck carrier's good safety scores. Shippers also will pay attention.

"It will shine a light on the bad carriers," he says. "Customers will be looking at those scores and because of liability reasons, they're going to want to use the carriers with better scores. Truck drivers will be looking at carrier scores as well. They want to work for companies with good scores."

Company owners here say they're doing all they can to keep those scores looking positive.

To prepare for the safety-accountability compliance, Spokane Transfer & Storage spent about $53,000 at the end of last year to install electronic onboard recorder systems in each of its 42 trucks for GPS, communication, and electronic logging to track driver's hours, Ross says.

"It's a pretty big investment, but we figure it makes the drivers safer, there's a value regarding insurance, and there's the CSA compliance," Ross says. "We have more control and information about how our trucks are used. We can even reconstruct an event, how fast the truck is going, which direction, if the driver applied brakes, if he's exceeding the speed limit. Yes, it's Big Brother, but once drivers got used to it, they found it was very effective for communication."

The Spokane-area carriers also say they've increased driver training to understand compliance, and safety training is ongoing. Keeping ahead of all the rules is the challenge, they add.

Although DeVries Moving Packing Storage's federal safety ranking overall shows as satisfactory and "no violations," in most categories, one safety measurement is flagged: vehicle maintenance.

"There are things we didn't get scored or rated on before that now we do," says DeVries. "The rules have changed, and we just have to make sure we adhere to those rules, which we thing is a good thing. It's just a learning curve."

DeVries adds that the company has always monitored its truck maintenance closely. As an Atlas Van Lines agent, the company with 36 trucks moves household goods and does office relocation, and while Atlas oversees safety and is ultimately responsible, DeVries has to know all the regulations.

At the same time, perfect truck maintenance in the real world of trucking isn't easy, he adds.

"You can do everything right at our maintenance shop with a truck and it can get 10 miles down the road and a light goes out," DeVries says. "The next thing you know, you're getting written up."

He saw that when a $2 light went out on a truck between Spokane and the Tri-Cities, he says.

"You can walk around the truck so many times and inspect the truck, but you do have to get in it at some point and drive it," DeVries adds.

Mitchell, at Mercer Trucking, says he has concerns about how many violations can be scored against flatbed trucks, on which loads obviously are more visible than in van or refrigerated trucks.

Almost all of Mercer's 39 trucks are flatbeds that haul building materials, iron, steel, agricultural products, and recyclables. Violations for failing to secure loads adequately, such as having one loose strap, now are written up more frequently against flatbeds, while law enforcement officers rarely inspect the security of loads inside van or refrigerated trucks, he says.

"I think the penalty, or the point system, is not fair to the flatbed," he says. "The points with CSA are pretty severe. Bottom line, we really have to mind our Ps and Qs. I'm not saying it can't be done. It's just a little much to choke down all at once."

Mercer shows an overall satisfactory rating under the stricter federal regulations, although its listed rating in the fatigued driving category was a bit high and showed need for improvement.

Mitchell says, "We need to work on it; we all need to work on it. You want to get as close to zero as you can."

Ross, of Spokane Transfer & Storage, has concerns with how accidents are listed in the federal measurement system, although his company's overall scores show well into the positive range.

"The past three winters, we've had four accidents, and three of them were people running into us," he says. "You have to report it. We didn't do anything wrong, but it has that we have those accidents, and it stays on a three-year cycle. It will fall off, but that's kind of a bone of contention with us."

He adds that just keeping up with the number of rules is challenging. "I'm all for safety and operating under the rules, but some of the rule are getting a little more ridiculous."