Large Truck Safety: Federal Enforcement Efforts Have Been	 
Stronger Since 2000, but Oversight of State Grants Needs	 
Improvement (15-DEC-05, GAO-06-156).				 
                                                                 
About 5,000 people die and more than 120,000 are injured each	 
year from crashes involving large trucks. The Federal Motor	 
Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has several enforcement	 
programs to improve truck safety and funds similar enforcement	 
programs in states through its Motor Carrier Safety Assistance	 
Program (MCSAP). Following concern by Congress and others in 1999
that FMCSA's enforcement approach was ineffective, the agency	 
committed to take stronger actions. This study reports on how	 
FMCSA's enforcement approach has changed, how it makes decisions 
about its enforcement approach, and how it ensures that its	 
grants to states contribute to the agency's mission of saving	 
lives.								 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-06-156 					        
    ACCNO:   A43278						        
  TITLE:     Large Truck Safety: Federal Enforcement Efforts Have Been
Stronger Since 2000, but Oversight of State Grants Needs	 
Improvement							 
     DATE:   12/15/2005 
  SUBJECT:   Accident prevention				 
	     Highway safety					 
	     Internal controls					 
	     Motor carriers					 
	     Motor vehicle safety				 
	     Performance measures				 
	     Program evaluation 				 
	     Program management 				 
	     Safety regulation					 
	     Traffic accidents					 
	     Transportation safety				 
	     Trucking operations				 
	     Grants to states					 
	     Grant administration				 
	     FHwA Motor Carrier Safety Assistance		 
	     Program						 
                                                                 

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GAO-06-156

     

     * Report to Congressional Committees
          * December 2005
     * LARGE TRUCK SAFETY
          * Federal Enforcement Efforts Have Been Stronger Since 2000, but
            Oversight of State Grants Needs Improvement
     * Contents
          * Results in Brief
          * Background
          * FMCSA's Enforcement Programs and Actions Have Been Stronger Since
            2000
               * FMCSA Committed to a Stronger Enforcement Approach
               * FMCSA's Programs Have Mirrored Its Stronger Enforcement
                 Approach
               * FMCSA's Enforcement Actions Have Increased
          * FMCSA Has a Well- Defined Enforcement Approach and Has Efforts
            Underway to Help It Refine and Set Priorities for Its Enforcement
            Programs
               * FMCSA's Enforcement Approach Addresses Many of the Major
                 Factors that Cause or Contribute to Truck Crashes and
                 Targets High-Risk Carriers
               * FMCSA Has a Broad Range of Enforcement Goals and Performance
                 Measures but It Does Not Measure the Effectiveness of Its
                 Civil Penalties
               * FMCSA's Enforcement Goals Do Not Describe Expected
                 Contributions to FMCSA's Fatality Rate Goal
               * FMCSA Has Made Several Refinements to Its Enforcement
                 Programs and It May Make Additional Refinements Depending on
                 the Outcomes of Studies
          * MCSAP Is Designed to Improve Safety but Program Oversight Is
            Inadequate
               * MCSAP Employs a Performance-Based Approach to Improve Safety
               * FMCSA's Inadequate Planning and Oversight of Its State Grant
                 Program Resulted in Uncertainty About Whether States Met
                 Many of Their Safety Goals
               * FMCSA Has Not Completed Various Oversight Reviews of Its
                 Grant Program but Has Taken Steps to Improve Its State
                 Review Program
          * Conclusions
          * Recommendations for Executive Action
          * Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
     * Scope and Methodology
     * GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgements
     * PDF6-Ordering Information.pdf
          * Order by Mail or Phone

Report to Congressional Committees

December 2005

LARGE TRUCK SAFETY

Federal Enforcement Efforts Have Been Stronger Since 2000, but Oversight
of State Grants Needs Improvement

Contents

Tables

Figures

December 15, 2005Letter

The Honorable Christopher Bond Chairman The Honorable Patty Murray Ranking
Minority Member Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury, the Judiciary,  
Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Committee on
Appropriations United States Senate

The Honorable Joe Knollenberg Chairman The Honorable John W. Olver Ranking
Minority Member Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury, and Housing  
and Urban Development, the Judiciary,   the District of Columbia, and
Independent Agencies Committee on Appropriations House of Representatives

About 5,000 people die each year as a result of crashes involving large
trucks,1 and over 120,000 more are injured. Compared to a crash involving
only cars, a crash involving a car and a truck is more likely to result in
a fatality because of the difference in weight between the two vehicles.
In this respect, although large trucks are involved in only 4 percent of
all accidents, they are involved in 12 percent of all fatalities from
vehicle crashes. These crashes may result from errors by truck and
passenger vehicle drivers, vehicle condition, and other factors.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) within the U.S.
Department of Transportation shoulders the primary federal responsibility
for reducing crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving large trucks.2
FMCSA's primary means of preventing these crashes is to develop and
enforce regulations to help ensure that drivers and motor carriers are
operating in a safe manner. FMCSA uses several enforcement activities to
improve truck safety, such as conducting inspections of motor carriers'
operations at their places of business-and of drivers and vehicles at the
roadside-to ensure compliance with safety regulations. FMCSA also funds
and oversees similar enforcement activities at the state level through its
Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP). MCSAP was appropriated
$188 million, or about 38 percent, of FMCSA's $501 million appropriation
for fiscal year 2006.

FMCSA was created in 2000 in response to concerns raised by Congress, the
Department of Transportation's Inspector General, and us. One of the
Inspector General's concerns was over the lax enforcement of safety
regulations by FMCSA's predecessor, the Office of Motor Carriers, within
the Federal Highway Administration, in the late 1990s.3 FMCSA publicly
committed to increasing both the amount of effort devoted to enforcement
against carriers and the severity of action when safety problems are
found. In addition, in 1999 we reported that FMCSA did not have sufficient
information about the factors that contribute to truck crashes to help the
agency set priorities for its activities. In a similar vein, in 2000, we
found that the agency's ability to set priorities for its safety
activities was limited, in part, by the agency's lack of knowledge about
the safety impact of its activities. In fiscal year 2003, the Office of
Management and Budget identified challenges to program accountability
within MCSAP.

The Senate report for the Department of Transportation's fiscal year 2005
appropriation directed us to examine the effectiveness of FMCSA's truck
safety enforcement activities. Accordingly, and as discussed with Senate
Appropriations Committee staff members, this report focuses on:

o how FMCSA's safety enforcement approach, programs, and actions have
changed since 2000;

o the extent to which FMCSA follows key effective management practices in
making decisions about its safety enforcement approach; and

o the extent to which FMCSA ensures that its grants to states contribute
to the agency's mission of saving lives and reducing injuries by
preventing truck crashes.

To examine how FMCSA's enforcement approaches, programs, and actions have
changed since 2000, we reviewed legislation and FMCSA regulations, program
guidance, and plans. We also reviewed congressional reports related to the
creation of FMCSA, and assessments of the agency's enforcement efforts by
the Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General and by us.
We analyzed data from FMCSA on its enforcement activities, such as the
number of reviews of carrier compliance with safety regulations (referred
to as "compliance reviews"). We also analyzed FMCSA data on enforcement
actions, such as civil penalties assessed from fiscal year 1995 (before
FMCSA committed to be more aggressive) through 2004 (the latest full year
for which data are available). Finally, we discussed these issues with
industry and safety advocates.

To determine the extent to which FMCSA follows key effective management
practices in making decisions about its enforcement approach, we
determined the extent to which the agency incorporated several key
elements that are important for effective program management: (1) use of
program goals, including goals that describe the intended outcomes of
programs; (2) a well-defined approach for achieving goals; and (3)
performance measures that demonstrate contributions to program goals. We
identified elements of effective program management by reviewing our
reports on this topic, Office of Management and Budget guidance, and the
Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. We reviewed FMCSA
documents about the agency's activities and plans related to each of these
elements, and we also interviewed agency officials.

To assess the extent to which FMCSA ensures that its MCSAP grants
contribute to the agency's mission, we reviewed regulations and FMCSA
guidance relating to the design of the grant program. We also discussed
with FMCSA officials how accountability is built into the grant program.
We assessed FMCSA's planning and oversight of seven state MCSAP grantees
in fiscal year 2004 (the latest full year for which information was
available), including whether FMCSA obtained sufficient information to be
able to determine whether grantees substantially met their objectives. We
then discussed our assessment with FMCSA officials responsible for grant
activities in those states. The seven states represent about 27 percent of
MCSAP grant funding in fiscal year 2004. Because we chose these states
judgmentally (representing the largest grantees), we cannot project our
findings nationwide. Reviewing a larger number of grantees would not have
been practical due to resource constraints.

As part of our review, we assessed internal controls and the reliability
of FMCSA's data on its program activities and enforcement actions that
were pertinent to this effort. We determined that the data elements were
sufficiently reliable for our purposes. We conducted our work from October
2004 to December 2005 in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards. (See app. I for additional information on our scope
and methodology.)

Results in Brief

FMCSA has increased both its enforcement activities and actions in
response to criticism in 1999 that it was ineffective at improving safety.
The agency more than doubled the number of carrier reviews from about
6,400 in 1998 to about 13,200 in 2000, and increased the average civil
penalty per violation by more than 80 percent from about $820 to about
$1,500 over the same time period (in constant 2004 dollars). In the 5
years since FMCSA implemented these changes, some of FMCSA's enforcement
activities and actions have remained relatively steady, while others have
fallen slightly, in part because FMCSA's statutory responsibilities have
expanded to include conducting homeland security-related reviews of
hazardous materials carriers and educating new carriers about their
responsibilities under the safety regulations. FMCSA has also begun to
reduce civil penalties for first-time offenders in cases where the carrier
agrees to come into compliance and make additional safety-related
improvements. At the same time, FMCSA officials told us that the agency is
committed to applying strict enforcement to egregious offenders.

To a large extent, FMCSA follows key effective management practices in
making decisions about its enforcement approach. For example:

o FMCSA has a well-defined enforcement approach that addresses major risk
areas that contribute to (or cause) crashes, such as motor carrier
operations and driver behavior, and targets resources at the motor
carriers that FMCSA assesses as having the greatest crash risk;

o FMCSA has a broad range of goals and performance measures that it uses
to provide direction to-and track the performance of-its enforcement
programs, including measures of the impact of its enforcement programs on
the level of carrier compliance with safety regulations and on the
frequency of crashes, injuries, and fatalities; and

o FMCSA has made several refinements to its enforcement programs, such as
placing more emphasis on drivers during roadside inspections based on
preliminary results from a study indicating that driver errors contribute
to crashes much more frequently than vehicle defects.

FMCSA is also working to obtain additional information on crash risk
factors, and on the costs and effectiveness of its enforcement programs
and alternative approaches. This information will help FMCSA further
refine and set priorities for its programs, thereby addressing
deficiencies that we identified in 1999 and 2000. Although FMCSA has a
broad range of goals and performance measures for its enforcement
programs, it does not measure the effect that one of its key enforcement
actions-civil penalties against motor carriers-has on carriers' compliance
with safety regulations. Civil penalties comprised 81 percent of FMCSA's
enforcement actions against motor carriers following compliance
reviews-which FMCSA considers to be its key enforcement program-during
fiscal years 2002 through 2004. Without a measure of the effectiveness of
civil penalties, FMCSA does not know whether or how much they are
increasing carriers' compliance; therefore it lacks the information needed
to make sound decisions about any changes to its use of civil penalties.

While MCSAP is designed to ensure that its grants to states contribute to
the agency's mission of saving lives and reducing injuries by preventing
truck crashes, FMCSA's oversight of state grantees is lacking. MCSAP
employs a performance-based approach that requires states to analyze their
commercial vehicle data; target their grant activities to reduce crashes,
deaths, and injuries; and use performance information to demonstrate how
safety improvement goals are being met. However, in reviewing the safety
goals of the seven states that received the largest MCSAP grants, we could
not determine whether states substantially met 37 of their 61 goals (61
percent) to improve truck safety. We could not make this determination
because (1) FMCSA's grant planning meetings-in which it communicates
priorities and how to develop plans with quantifiable goals-were conducted
for about one-fourth of the state grantees in fiscal year 2004, and even
fewer state grantees had their safety plans reviewed by service centers
that year; (2) many of the safety goals were missing key elements, such as
quantifiable performance measures and targets, and some safety plans were
missing evaluations of whether goals were substantially met; and (3) FMCSA
division offices that work with states did not sufficiently monitor and
ensure states' progress towards safety goals. In addition, although FMCSA
requires its field division offices, its four regional service centers
that support division offices, and headquarters to periodically review
grant program activities for adequacy of oversight (among other issues),
these reviews are only being partially completed. In this regard, FMCSA
division offices reviewed 19 of the 56 state grantees (34 percent) in the
past 3 years. For those division offices that did not conduct reviews,
reasons included restructuring occurring within the lead agency in the
state that is responsible for the grant4 and uncertainty about whether
conducting smaller "process" reviews fulfilled the state review
requirement. Furthermore, service centers conducted 15 division office
reviews (29 percent) and headquarters did not review any service centers
in the past 3 years. FMCSA did not conduct these reviews for a variety of
reasons, including a weakened oversight role for service centers, and an
almost two-thirds reduction in headquarters staffing for MCSAP activities.

We are making several recommendations to improve FMCSA's ability to
determine and demonstrate the effectiveness of its enforcement approach,
and to make adjustments to this approach when needed. For example, we are
recommending that FMCSA measure the effectiveness of its civil penalties
against motor carriers. We are also making recommendations to improve
FMCSA's oversight of MCSAP grants to help ensure they lead to safety
improvements. For example, we are recommending that FMCSA ensure that
existing planning and oversight mechanisms are carried out.

We provided a draft of this report to the Department of Transportation for
review and comment and received comments from FMCSA officials. FMCSA
generally agreed with the report's findings and agreed to consider our
recommendations. FMCSA offered several corrections, which we incorporated
in this report.

Background

The trucking industry is an important component of the nation's economy.
Of all manufactured goods and raw materials shipped across the country,
close to three-fourths of their value and nearly two-thirds of their
tonnage are transported by trucks. In 2002, trucks transported more than
$6.2 trillion and 7.8 billion tons of goods and materials (these are the
latest data available). The increased demand for transporting freight and
the deregulated nature of the trucking industry have resulted in a growing
industry. In recent years, the numbers of carriers, trucks, drivers, and
vehicle miles traveled have been increasing. (See fig. 1.) The motor
carrier industry comprises approximately 677,000 interstate carriers
operating some 7.9 million large trucks and employing several million
drivers. Carriers frequently enter and exit the industry; in 2004, the
industry had a net gain of approximately 31,000 interstate carriers.

Figure 1: Growth in the Number of Interstate Motor Carriers, 1995 through
2004

Note: The numbers of carriers are estimates.

There are more fatalities each year resulting from passenger vehicle
crashes than from truck crashes; however, the likelihood that a fatality
will occur is greater for crashes that involve large trucks. In 2004,
5,190 fatalities resulted from large truck crashes while 38,531 fatalities
resulted from passenger vehicle crashes (based on preliminary data).
Although large trucks are involved in 4 percent of all accidents, they
contribute to 12 percent of the fatalities. As a result, fatality
rates-the number of fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles
traveled-involving truck crashes are consistently higher when compared to
passenger-vehicle-only crashes. (See fig. 2.)

Figure 2: Fatality Rates Involving Large Truck and Passenger Vehicle
Crashes, 1995 through 2004

Note: Fatality rates for 2004 are based on preliminary data.

Large-truck fatality rates have generally been falling since the
mid-1990s-from 2.76 in 1995 to 2.29 in 2004 (based on preliminary data).
Although there has been a reduction in the fatality rate, the number of
fatalities has increased in each of the last two years, reaching 5,190 in
2004. According to FMCSA, truck crashes result in costs totaling more than
$20 billion annually.

In an attempt to reduce the number and severity of crashes involving large
trucks, FMCSA was created by the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of
1999. FMCSA assumed almost all of the responsibilities and personnel of
the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Motor Carriers. The
agency's primary mission is to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities
involving large trucks by (1) issuing, administering, and enforcing
federal motor carrier safety regulations and hazardous materials
regulations; (2) providing education and outreach for motor carriers and
drivers regarding the federal motor carrier safety regulations and
hazardous materials regulations; (3) gathering and analyzing data on motor
carriers, drivers, and vehicles; (4) developing information systems to
improve the transfer of data; and (5) researching new methods and
technologies to enhance motor carrier safety.

FMCSA's goal is to reduce the fatality rate for crashes involving trucks
by 41 percent between 1996 and 2008, from 2.81 to 1.65 fatalities per 100
million vehicle miles traveled. FMCSA was on track to meet this goal
through 2002, when the fatality rate of 2.30 was slightly below the
agency's interim target of 2.32. However, the 2003 fatality rate of 2.31
was higher than the agency's interim target of 2.19, and in 2004 the gap
between the fatality rate (based on preliminary data)-2.29-and the
agency's interim target-2.07-grew. FMCSA has an additional goal to reduce
the number of serious, reportable hazardous materials incidents involving
trucks by 20 percent (from 463 to 370) between 2000 and 2010.5

FMCSA programs are intended to contribute to these goals by addressing
safety in motor carrier operations through identifying and enforcing
safety regulations that target high-risk carriers and
large-commercial-truck drivers, improving safety information systems and
commercial motor vehicle technologies, strengthening commercial motor
vehicle equipment and operating standards, and increasing safety
awareness. Although each of these activities plays a role in FMCSA's
overall safety approach, FMCSA considers enforcement to be its primary
approach for reducing the number of crashes, fatalities, and injuries
involving trucks. Most of FMCSA's enforcement programs focus on two
parties that greatly influence the safety of truck operations-motor
carriers and truck drivers. (See table 1.) In each fiscal year from 1996
through 2004, FMCSA, on average, initiated 3,800 enforcement cases against
motor carriers following compliance reviews, and FMCSA and its MCSAP
partners placed, on average, about 180,000 drivers and about 450,000
vehicles out of service following roadside inspections. In addition to its
traditional enforcement approach, FMCSA, in conjunction with the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration, recently funded a pilot program in
Washington state that combined education and enforcement with the purpose
of improving the driving behavior of passenger-vehicle drivers when in the
vicinity of trucks.

Table 1: FMCSA's Enforcement Programs

                                        

          Program                            Description                     
Commercial carriers                                                       
Compliance reviews     On-site reviews of carriers' records and           
                          operations to determine compliance with safety     
                          regulations that address areas such as alcohol and 
                          drug testing of drivers, insurance, crashes,       
                          driver qualifications, drivers' hours of service,  
                          vehicle maintenance and inspections, and           
                          transportation of hazardous materials.             
New entrant safety     Audits conducted on new interstate carriers within 
audits                 their first 18 months of registration to ensure    
                          that they are knowledgeable about the safety       
                          regulations prior to receiving permanent           
                          registration. Although the emphasis of new entrant 
                          safety audits is on education, FMCSA can apply     
                          enforcement actions when new entrants are found to 
                          not be in compliance with safety regulations.      
Border safety audits   Audits conducted on all Mexican-domiciled carriers 
                          within their first 18 months of registration to    
                          certify that they are following safety practice    
                          and performance guidelines prior to receiving      
                          permanent certificates of registration.            
Commercial vehicles    
and drivers            
Roadside inspections   Inspections of drivers or vehicles conducted at    
                          the roadside to determine compliance with safety   
                          regulations that address such areas as driver's    
                          license, alcohol and drug use, hours of service,   
                          brakes, turn signals, head lights, and tires.      
Traffic enforcement    Enforcement against truck drivers who violate      
                          traffic safety laws.                               
Passenger vehicle      
drivers                
Share the Road Safelya A pilot program in Washington state that combines  
                          education and enforcement activities to increase   
                          the safety of passenger vehicle drivers when       
                          driving in proximity to commercial vehicles.       

Source: GAO analysis of FMCSA data.

aPrior to the pilot program, Share the Road Safely relied solely on
education to increase the safety of passenger vehicle drivers.

In addition, FMCSA has several information systems and a program to help
it identify high-risk carriers and drivers and to assist it in enforcing
safety regulations.6

o The Safety Status Measurement System evaluates the safety of carriers by
analyzing four broad categories-accidents, drivers, vehicles, and safety
management-and assigns an overall score to the carrier. FMCSA then targets
its compliance reviews at carriers that pose the greatest risk.

o The Performance and Registration Information Systems Management program
(PRISM), a grant-funded program, is a federal and state cooperative effort
that, by revoking or denying registration of carriers' vehicles, aims to
ensure that carriers placed out of service by FMCSA do not operate.

o The Enforcement Management Information System is a database used by
FMCSA to monitor, track, and store information related to enforcement
actions.

o The Motor Carrier Management Information System is an information system
used by FMCSA as a central repository to compile inspection, crash,
compliance review, safety audit, and registration data.

o Gotham is a web-based system that compiles information from the Motor
Carrier Management Information System, the Enforcement Management
Information System, and field offices to supply information and
performance measures to field managers.

When FMCSA discovers a violation of the safety regulations, it may use one
of several enforcement actions depending on the nature of the violation.
(See table 2.) An enforcement action may require the violating party to
correct the unsafe practice or operation, pay a civil penalty, or suspend
operations.

Table 2: FMCSA's Enforcement Actions

                                        

      Enforcement action                       Description                    
Compliance order          Directs a carrier to comply with the safety      
                             regulations.                                     
Civil penalty             Imposes a monetary penalty on a carrier that     
                             violates a safety regulation.                    
Out-of-service order      Orders a driver or vehicle out of service for    
                             posing an imminent hazard to safety, or orders a 
                             carrier to cease all or part of its operation    
                             for having imminently hazardous conditions or    
                             operations, or for being unfit.                  
Order-to-cease operations Prohibits a carrier from operating in interstate 
                             commerce for failing to pay a civil penalty      
                             assessed by FMCSA.                               

Source: GAO analysis of FMCSA data.

FMCSA has approximately 1,050 full-time equivalent employees, of which
nearly 850 work at 52 division offices throughout the U.S. and its
territories. The division offices oversee 56 MCSAP grantees-one grantee in
each of the fifty states, one in the District of Columbia, and one each in
the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Marianas,
Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.7 Much of the work carried out in the
field involves conducting reviews either at the roadside or at a carrier's
place of business. For fiscal year 2006, FMCSA was appropriated $501
million. Over half of these funds are slated for distribution to states in
the form of grants, the largest under MCSAP.

MCSAP provides financial assistance to states to reduce commercial motor
vehicle-involved accidents, fatalities, and injuries through consistent,
uniform, and effective commercial motor vehicle safety activities.
Initially, MCSAP primarily funded state roadside inspections as a method
of improving commercial motor vehicle safety. However, the program has
evolved over the past two decades to fund several other safety initiatives
in support of its goal, including compliance reviews, traffic enforcement,
new entrant safety audits, border grants, and other safety initiatives.8
The recently-enacted Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation
Equity Act: A Legacy for Users authorized an average annual funding level
of $200 million for MCSAP-more than twice the amount available in the
previous authorization.

The responsibility for the administration and the oversight of MCSAP is
shared among the various levels of FMCSA. Division offices in each state
have the primary responsibility for overseeing state programs. They work
closely with the states to develop commercial vehicle safety plans and
monitor the states' activities to ensure program goals are being met, and
are also responsible for ensuring that grant funds are spent for
reimbursable expenses. MCSAP responsibilities of the regional service
centers and headquarters differ from those of the division offices. The
service centers act as an intermediary between the division office and
headquarters. They assist in clarifying policy for the division offices
and they organize training and goal-setting meetings related to the grant
program. Headquarters responsibilities center on establishing and
communicating agency priorities for MCSAP, issuing and updating MCSAP
policy guidance, and carrying out financial management activities.

FMCSA's Enforcement Programs and Actions Have Been Stronger Since 2000

In response to criticisms in 1999 that its enforcement programs were
ineffective at improving safety, FMCSA has strengthened its enforcement
approach. Its enforcement approach has evolved to supplement strong
enforcement with additional measures to encourage carriers to comply with
safety regulations.

FMCSA Committed to a Stronger Enforcement Approach

During the 1990s, FMCSA believed that adopting a partnering approach with
the trucking industry-marked by an increased emphasis on education and
less emphasis on traditional enforcement programs-would lead to improved
large truck safety. However, while implementing this approach, the
fatality rate from crashes involving large trucks continued to increase.
The Department of Transportation's Inspector General criticized FMCSA in a
report stating that the approach was ineffective and that the agency
needed to emphasize traditional enforcement programs.9 Moreover, we
reported then that FMCSA lacked an understanding of the effectiveness of
its enforcement programs.10

In response to the criticism, FMCSA publicly committed to strengthen its
enforcement approach by committing to increase its emphasis on enforcement
programs and actions. Through the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st
Century in 1998 and the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999,
Congress broadened the government's enforcement authority, allowing it to
implement this new emphasis. This legislation made it easier for FMCSA to
revoke carriers' operating authority. Furthermore, the legislation
increased the allowable civil penalty from $1,000 to $10,000 for certain
violations.

Subsequently, the agency has come to believe that combining strict
enforcement with education and outreach will lead to greater improvements
in safety. This approach seeks to identify higher risk operators and apply
education and enforcement where needed. For example, the agency has a
program-geared toward new entrants to the industry-to encourage awareness
of the federal motor carrier safety regulations. However, FMCSA officials
told us that the agency is committed to applying strict enforcement to
egregious offenders who demonstrate non-compliance with the regulations or
unsafe driving practices. FMCSA has also made progress in assessing the
effects of its enforcement programs on safety in terms of reducing
crashes, injuries, and fatalities. We discuss these efforts in more detail
below.

Finally, FMCSA has restructured its organization to allow enforcement and
education programs to work more closely together. For example, FMCSA moved
the program manager for education and outreach from the Office of
Communications to the Office of Enforcement and Program Delivery in order
to increase collaboration between FMCSA's education and enforcement staff.
FMCSA officials have emphasized that although they are taking steps to
increase the role of education, they do not plan to return to the
partnering approach-i.e., in which education is the primary focus-that
characterized the mid-1990s.

FMCSA's Programs Have Mirrored Its Stronger Enforcement Approach

The number of compliance reviews was higher in 2004 than in 1998. Before
the creation of FMCSA, the number of compliance reviews conducted dropped
31 percent between fiscal years 1995 and 1998-from approximately 9,200 to
6,400. (See fig. 3.) Demonstrating its commitment in 1999 to follow a
stronger enforcement approach, FMCSA set and met its goal of doubling the
number of compliance reviews. In this respect, the number of compliance
reviews more than doubled from approximately 6,400 in 1998 to more than
13,400 in 2001.11 The number of compliance reviews began to decrease in
fiscal year 2002, largely as the result of additional homeland security
responsibilities to review hazardous materials carriers in the wake of the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The agency
completed almost 31,000 homeland security-related visits in fiscal year
2002. The number of these visits decreased to less than 2,000 in fiscal
year 2003, when FMCSA began targeting the reviews at the most vulnerable
carriers as identified by the agency's risk assessment.

Figure 3: Number of Compliance Reviews Conducted and Percentage of the
Motor Carrier Industry Receiving Compliance Reviews, 1995 through 2004

Another factor affecting FMCSA's ability to conduct compliance reviews was
its responsibility for implementing the new entrant audit program in 2003.
From fiscal year 2003 through August 2005, FMCSA conducted almost 54,500
new entrant audits. Despite these additional responsibilities of
conducting visits of hazardous materials carriers and new entrants, the
agency has still conducted more compliance reviews than were carried out
in the late 1990s. In 2004, the agency conducted approximately 11,300
compliance reviews, 77 percent more than in fiscal year 1998.

Despite an increase in the number of compliance reviews, the agency has
still been unable to review a larger proportion of the industry's
carriers. This is because the industry has grown faster than has FMCSA's
ability to conduct compliance reviews. (See figs. 1 and 3.)

o In 1995, FMCSA performed about 9,200 compliance reviews, reaching about
2.7 percent of the nation's estimated 350,000 carriers.12

o In 1998, when FMCSA conducted its lowest number of compliance
reviews-about 6,400-the industry had grown almost 40 percent to an
estimated 480,000 carriers. As a result, FMCSA's compliance reviews
covered only about 1.3 percent of the industry.

o Then, in 2000, as FMCSA doubled the number of compliance reviews, the
number of carriers increased by almost 80,000 from the 1998 level,
resulting in 2.4 percent of carriers receiving compliance reviews in 2000.

o In fiscal year 2004, FMCSA reviewed about 1.7 percent of the carriers-a
smaller proportion than the proportion reviewed in the mid-1990s-despite
increasing the number of compliance reviews by 77 percent from the late
1990s. This is because the trucking industry had continued to grow
steadily to about 677,000 carriers in 2004.

In fiscal year 2005, FMCSA expressed its intent to once again increase the
number of compliance reviews. As discussed in more detail later in this
report, FMCSA is also exploring potential changes to its compliance review
program, in part because it is concerned that the program reaches only
about 2 percent of carriers each year.

Roadside inspections have also increased. In the late 1990s, FMCSA and the
states continued to increase the number of roadside inspections, even as
compliance reviews were decreasing. During that time period, FMCSA and
states nearly doubled the number of roadside inspections conducted from
1.3 million to 2.3 million.13 (See fig. 4.) The number of roadside
inspections increased steadily through 2000, when FMCSA and state
inspectors conducted about 2.5 million inspections. In its fiscal year
2005 and 2006 budgets, FMCSA set its goal for roadside inspections at 2
million-about 1 million less than were conducted in 2004-bringing the
number of expected roadside inspections back to pre-2000 levels. According
to an FMCSA official, FMCSA set these lower goals in 2005 and 2006 with
the anticipation that the number of roadside inspections would decrease as
states shifted resources from roadside inspections to conduct increasing
numbers of audits of new entrant carriers. However, the anticipated
decrease in roadside inspections did not occur because some states hired
additional staff to conduct the audits of new entrants and therefore did
not have to use their roadside inspection staff to conduct these audits.
An FMCSA official also told us that the agency is no longer seeking to
increase the annual number of roadside inspections based on its analysis
indicating that the inspection program is no longer leading to annual
increases in the industry-wide level of compliance with safety
regulations.

Figure 4: Roadside Inspections Conducted and Planned, 1996 through 2006

Note: 1995 data are not included because FMCSA determined that they are
not reliable. FMCSA does not control the total number of inspections
conducted; states may choose to do more inspections.

FMCSA intends to make new entrant audits more enforcement-oriented. The
Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act established the new entrant audit
program to educate carriers that are new to the industry about safety
regulations and encourage their compliance. This act was in response to a
1988 FMCSA-commissioned study that pointed to a higher rate of violations
of safety regulations and higher crash rates among carriers that had
recently entered the motor carrier industry. In fiscal year 2003, the
agency began implementing the new entrant audit program and conducted
7,000 audits. As FMCSA fully implemented the program in 2004, this number
increased to more than 25,000.

FMCSA believes that in the audit's current form, the "pass rate" does not
accurately reflect new entrant carriers' level of safety. Currently,
carriers can fail one-third of the audit sections and still pass the
audit, resulting in a pass rate of more than 99 percent.14 FMCSA plans to
improve the program by employing stricter criteria for carriers and
increasing the threshold for carriers to pass, demonstrating the agency's
approach of using strict enforcement where needed. The agency plans to
publish a proposed regulation for public comment in March 2006.

FMCSA's Enforcement Actions Have Increased

FMCSA has initiated more enforcement cases and identified higher numbers
of serious violations. FMCSA calculates a "rate of enforcement," which is
the percent of compliance reviews that result in an enforcement case.
Since 2000, the rate of enforcement has increased from 30 percent to 46
percent of compliance reviews. (See fig. 5.) Further, the number of
serious violations (FMCSA calls these "acute violations") that FMCSA has
identified is consistently higher than in the 1990s. In 1998, the agency
identified approximately 710 serious violations of the regulations. This
number increased by 64 percent to approximately 1,160 violations in 2000.
The number of serious violations peaked in 2003 when FMCSA identified more
than 1,800 violations.

According to an FMCSA official, the increase in the number of serious
violations identified resulted from FMCSA's improved targeting of
compliance reviews of high-risk carriers. In 2004, the number dropped to
about 1,500-out of about 14,800 total violations-but was still more than
double the 1998 number.

Figure 5: Number of Serious Violations Found and Rate of Enforcement, 1995
through 2004

FMCSA has applied its authority to place carriers out of service. Between
2001 and 2004, the number of carriers prohibited from operating increased
from about 170 to about 1,700. (See fig. 6.) Before 2001, FMCSA prohibited
motor carriers from operating if the agency found that the carrier posed
an imminent hazard. FMCSA has explained that because the definition of
"imminent hazard status" was vague and limited in scope, the agency
ordered very few motor carriers to cease operating. In 2001, based on
authorities given it by the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act, FMCSA
began prohibiting carriers from operating if they failed to correct
operational problems or pay a civil penalty.

Figure 6: Number of Carriers Prohibited from Operating in Interstate
Commerce by FMCSA, 1995 through 2004

Note: This includes carriers that are closed as a result of both
violations to the regulations and failure to pay assessed civil penalties.

The size of proposed civil penalties was higher in 2004 than in 1998.15 
From 1995 through 1998, the average civil penalty proposed for each
violation decreased by 10 percent from $910 in 1995 to $820 in 1998.16
(See fig. 7. All amounts are in 2004 dollars.)  A key criticism by the
Department of Transportation's Inspector General during that time was that
carriers had begun to see these civil penalties as little more than a cost
of doing business. In response, FMCSA pledged to levy larger civil
penalties and, in 1999, implemented the authorities that Congress gave the
agency. From 1998 to 2000, the average civil penalty levied per violation
increased by more than 80 percent to almost $1,500. In recent years, FMCSA
has modified its view of civil penalties, citing that they are only one
tool to reach compliance. Accordingly, the average civil penalty for each
violation has dropped slightly to approximately $1,400 in 2004, but this
represents a drop of about 3 percent and does not bring the amount of
civil penalties back to the levels of the late 1990s. While the civil
penalties have been higher since 2000, the agency still has considerable
latitude under law to assess larger civil penalties.17 As discussed later
in this report, FMCSA does not know whether or how much its civil
penalties are increasing carriers' compliance, and therefore the agency
has a limited ability to determine whether the dollar amounts of the
penalties are at the most effective levels.

Figure 7: Average Civil Penalty Assessed per Violation, by Type of
Violation, Fiscal Years 1995 through 2004 (In 2004 Dollars)

Note: Numbers may differ from those reported by FMCSA because they have
been adjusted for inflation. The category of non-recordkeeping violations
did not exist before 1998.

FMCSA has assessed higher civil penalties for more serious offenses. The
agency has four categories of violations: acute, critical, non-record
keeping, and record keeping.18

o Acute violations are so severe that FMCSA will require immediate
corrective actions by a motor carrier regardless of the overall safety
status of the motor carrier. An example of an acute violation is a carrier
failing to implement an alcohol or drug testing program for drivers.

o Critical violations are serious, but less severe than acute violations
and most often point to gaps in carrier management or operational
controls, such as not maintaining records of driver medical certificates.

o Non-record keeping violations are related directly to driver or carrier
actions. An example is a driver operating a motor carrier under the
influence of drugs or alcohol.

o Record keeping violations involve a driver or carrier failing to
maintain required documentation. An example of a record keeping violation
is failure of the carrier to maintain a record of all accidents for one
year.

In line with FMCSA's commitment to stricter enforcement for more serious
violations, since 2000, acute violations, which FMCSA identifies as the
most serious violation, and non-record keeping violations have been
assessed penalties that are about five times higher than record keeping
violations, as shown in figure 7. Further, the average civil penalty per
violation of critical violations has consistently been more than twice the
average civil penalty per record keeping violation.

We also assessed the degree to which FMCSA reduced its initial civil
penalty assessment.19 We found that the average final assessment has been
80 percent or more of the initial assessment during this past decade.20
(See fig. 8.) Further, since 2000, the first fiscal year after FMCSA
promised to be stronger on enforcement, acute violations were reduced
slightly less than overall violations.

Figure 8: Final Assessment as Compared to Initial Assessment, Fiscal Years
1995 through 2004

In recent years, FMCSA has applied a new approach to civil penalties. With
first-time offenders and other carriers with less serious violations,
FMCSA has reduced civil penalties in cases where the carrier agrees to
come into compliance and make additional safety-related improvements. The
agency has specified that any carrier receiving a reduction in its civil
penalty must remain in compliance for several years. If the carrier
violates safety rules again, it is then responsible for paying the entire
originally assessed civil penalty or FMCSA will place the carrier out of
service. FMCSA does not currently maintain information on the
subpopulation of first time offenders, and therefore it has not assessed
the results of this new policy. In November 2005, FMCSA began issuing and
tracking notices to first-time offenders and other carriers with less
serious violations that describe the violations and the corrective actions
required, without assessing a civil penalty. This tracking should give
FMCSA the ability to assess the results of the policy.

FMCSA Has a Well-Defined Enforcement Approach and Has Efforts Underway to
Help It Refine and Set Priorities for Its Enforcement Programs

To a large extent, FMCSA follows key effective management practices in
making decisions about its enforcement approach. FMCSA's enforcement
approach addresses major risk factors that contribute to or cause crashes,
and FMCSA targets its enforcement resources at the motor carriers that it
assesses as having the greatest crash risk. FMCSA has a broad range of
goals and performance measures that it uses to provide direction to-and
track the performance of-its enforcement programs, but it does not have a
measure of the effectiveness of one of its primary enforcement actions:
civil penalties against motor carriers. FMCSA has made several refinements
to its enforcement programs based on agency studies of factors that affect
crash risk and on evaluations of the effectiveness of the programs
themselves. FMCSA is also working to obtain additional information on
crash risk factors, and on the costs and effectiveness of its enforcement
programs, needed to help it further refine and set priorities for the
programs.

FMCSA's Enforcement Approach Addresses Many of the Major Factors that
Cause or Contribute to Truck Crashes and Targets High-Risk Carriers

FMCSA's enforcement approach includes goals and programs that address many
of the major factors that cause or contribute to truck crashes. (See table
3.) For example, motor carrier operations-including hiring unsafe drivers
and inadequate vehicle maintenance practices-have been identified as one
of a number of interacting factors that can contribute to crashes. To
address this, FMCSA conducts compliance reviews of motor carriers'
operations and takes enforcement actions against carriers found to have
violations of the safety regulations. FMCSA also addresses vehicle
condition and driver factors (such as fatigue) by conducting roadside
inspections of drivers and their trucks. Another factor that has been
identified is unsafe driving by passenger-vehicle drivers in the vicinity
of trucks. To address this factor, FMCSA and the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration are jointly funding a pilot program in Washington
state in 2005 to educate passenger-vehicle drivers about how to drive
safely in the vicinity of trucks and to take enforcement action against
drivers who drive unsafely.21

Table 3: How FMCSA's Enforcement Approach Addresses Many of the Major
Factors that Cause or Contribute to Truck Crashes

                                        

                             FMCSA's enforcement approach 
Major factor that causes              Goal                   Program       
or contributes to truck                                
           crashes                                        
Motor carrier operations  Improve the safety           Compliance reviews; 
                             performance of high-risk     PRISM               
                             carriers                     
                             Improve the safety           Safety audits of    
                             performance of new entrant   new entrant         
                             carriers                     carriersa           
                             Ensure that Mexican carriers Safety audits of    
                             operating in the U.S. comply Mexican carriers    
                             with safety regulations      
Truck driver performance  Ensure that all commercial   Roadside            
                             motor vehicle drivers are    inspections;        
                             fully qualified, safe,       traffic enforcement 
                             alert, and healthy           
Vehicle performance       Ensure that commercial motor Roadside            
                             vehicles have optimum safety inspections         
                             performance                  
Passenger-vehicle driver  Improve the safety and       Share the Road      
performance               performance of               Safely              
                             non-commercial drivers with  
                             respect to trucks            

Source: GAO analysis of FMCSA information.

aThis program currently emphasizes education of motor carriers over
enforcement, but FMCSA intends to increase the enforcement emphasis of the
program.

Because FMCSA's resources do not allow it to conduct compliance reviews of
each of the estimated 677,000 motor carriers and roadside inspections of
each of the industry's millions of vehicles and drivers, FMCSA's
enforcement approach targets high-risk carriers and their vehicles and
drivers. As discussed above, FMCSA uses information about carriers' safety
performance (including crash history and results of roadside inspections
and compliance reviews) to identify unsafe carriers that it then targets
for additional compliance reviews; many states also use the information to

target their roadside inspections of drivers and their trucks.22 Because
carriers that have drivers with more convictions tend to have higher crash
rates, FMCSA is working to incorporate these driver conviction histories
into its targeting system.

FMCSA Has a Broad Range of Enforcement Goals and Performance Measures but
It Does Not Measure the Effectiveness of Its Civil Penalties

FMCSA has a broad range of goals and related performance measures that it
uses to provide direction to-and track the progress of-its enforcement
programs, but it does not measure the effect that one of its key
enforcement actions-civil penalties against motor carriers-has on
carriers' compliance with safety regulations. Without such a performance
measure, FMCSA does not know whether or how much its civil penalties are
increasing carriers' compliance, and it lacks the information needed to
make sound decisions about any changes to its use of civil penalties.

FMCSA's budget request for fiscal year 2006 includes a "logic model" that
describes how its enforcement programs are expected to result in the
desired end outcome of reductions in truck crashes, injuries, and
fatalities.23 (See fig. 9.) The model follows one type of structure for
such models, in which outputs (in this case, enforcement activities and
actions) result in intermediate outcomes (increased compliance with safety
regulations), which in turn result in end outcomes (increased safety).

Figure 9: Logic Model of How FMCSA's Enforcement Approach Contributes to
Truck Safety

For each component of its enforcement program logic model-outputs,
intermediate outcomes, and end outcomes-FMCSA has various goals and
performance measures. (See table 4.) The Government Performance and
Results Act of 1993 calls for agencies to establish goals, including
outcome goals, and performance measures for both outputs and outcomes, and
we have reported that it is a useful practice for federal programs to set
intermediate outcome goals in order to help show a program's contribution
to desired end outcomes.24 FMCSA describes some of its enforcement goals
and performance measures in its annual budget requests that it submits to
Congress, and it describes some of its other enforcement goals and
performance measures in its 2003 report entitled Measuring the FMCSA's
Safety Objectives from Year 2000 to 2002. FMCSA intends to update this
report annually beginning in February 2006. In addition, FMCSA reports its
progress on several of its enforcement performance measures in a quarterly
progress report that it posts on its Web site. Finally, FMCSA uses an
information system to internally track several performance measures
related to its management of enforcement cases.

Table 4: Examples of FMCSA's Enforcement Program Goals and Performance
Measures

                                        

            Goal            Goal is           Performance measure(s)          
                          numerically 
                           specified  
Output                             
Complete 10,000        Yes         Number of federally conducted           
federally conducted                compliance reviews of motor carriers    
compliance reviews of              completed                               
motor carriers in                  
fiscal year 2006                   
Reduce the agency's    No          Number of enforcement cases that have   
backlog of enforcement             remained open for 6 months or more      
cases                              
Intermediate outcome               
Increase the safety    Noa         FMCSA's performance measures for this   
performance of the                 goal include:                           
worst offending motor                                                      
carriers to meet the               o For poor-performing motor carriers    
norm                               collectively, a numerical rating based  
                                      on the frequency and severity of        
                                      violations of driver-related acute or   
                                      critical regulations cited at           
                                      compliance reviews                      
                                                                              
                                      o Percentage of carriers previously     
                                      rated "conditional" that improve their  
                                      rating to "satisfactory" on a follow-up 
                                      compliance review                       
Ensure that all        No          FMCSA's performance measures for this   
commercial motor                   goal include:                           
vehicle drivers are                                                        
fully qualified, safe,             o Percentage of inspections that        
alert, and healthy                 resulted in a driver being placed out   
                                      of service                              
                                                                              
                                      o Number of driver out-of-service       
                                      violations per inspection, with more    
                                      recent violations receiving more weight 
                                      and a penalty applied for instances in  
                                      which drivers were found to be          
                                      violating out-of-service orders         
End outcome                        
Reduce crashes,        No          Number of crashes, injuries, and        
injuries, and                      fatalities avoided by conducting        
fatalities by                      compliance reviews                      
conducting compliance              
reviews                            

Source: GAO analysis of FMCSA information.

aAlthough the goal suggests that FMCSA could use a numerical measure of
the safety performance of well-performing motor carriers as a target level
of performance for the worst offending motor carriers, the agency does not
do so.

FMCSA has output goals for its enforcement programs that specify how many
of certain types of activities, such as compliance reviews and roadside
inspections, it intends to complete. FMCSA also tracks many performance
measures related to its use of enforcement actions, such as the number of
vehicles, drivers, and motor carriers it places out of service; the number
and average dollar amount of civil penalties that it assesses against
motor carriers; and the average dollar amount of civil penalties that have
been reduced during FMCSA's negotiations with carriers. FMCSA does not set
goals linked to these performance measures because it believes that such
goals could bias the decisions of enforcement personnel. We agree that
such goals could result in undesirable behavior.

FMCSA has set an output goal related to another aspect of its enforcement
actions-how long it takes the agency to close its enforcement cases.25 In
May 1999, FMCSA set a goal of eliminating by January 1, 2000, the backlog
of 1,200 enforcement cases that had been forwarded by one of FMCSA's
regional offices to FMCSA's headquarters office.26 As the Department of
Transportation's Inspector General has noted, a large backlog undermines
the integrity of the enforcement process, since (1) FMCSA considers only
closed enforcement cases when targeting motor carriers for a compliance
review, and therefore high-risk motor carriers are less likely to be
selected if they have an open enforcement case, and (2) FMCSA assesses
smaller civil penalties against carriers with open cases than those with
closed cases, and therefore it may not assess appropriate civil penalty
amounts against carriers with multiple enforcement cases. FMCSA did not
meet its goal of eliminating the backlog of cases in headquarters, but it
did reduce the backlog by a commendable 70 percent-to 363 cases in
September 1999. As of October 2005, the backlog in headquarters stood at
140 cases, and the service centers that replaced FMCSA's regional offices
had an additional combined backlog of 667 cases. Reducing these backlogs
is one of FMCSA's four highest priorities for improving commercial motor
vehicle safety in fiscal years 2005 and 2006. However, FMCSA does not have
a goal that specifies how much it would like to reduce the backlogs or by
what date, as required by the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act.

FMCSA has several intermediate outcome goals and performance measures
related to the effects that its enforcement programs have on increasing
carriers' and drivers' compliance with safety regulations. However, FMCSA
does not measure the effect that one of its key enforcement actions-civil
penalties against motor carriers-has on carriers' compliance or safety.27
In addition, FMCSA's intermediate goals do not include numerical targets
that would help the agency plan its programs and make adjustments should
it not meet the targets. FMCSA's intermediate outcome goals include:
(1) ensuring that commercial motor vehicles have optimum safety
performance; (2) ensuring that all commercial motor vehicle drivers are
fully qualified, safe, alert, and healthy; and (3) increasing the safety
performance of the worst offending motor carriers to meet the norm. FMCSA
has many performance measures related to these goals, including ones that
reflect the average numbers of vehicle-out-of-service violations and
driver-out-of-service violations per roadside inspection and the
percentage of compliance reviews with no violations of acute or critical
regulations.

The performance measures that address motor carrier performance capture
the effects of FMCSA's compliance reviews, but they do not indicate the
effect on compliance of civil penalties against carriers that result from
compliance reviews. This is because the performance measures do not
distinguish between those compliance reviews that result in a civil
penalty and those that do not, and either type of compliance review can
increase carriers' compliance.28 Without a measure of the effectiveness of
its civil penalties, FMCSA does not know whether or how much the civil
penalties are increasing carriers' compliance, and it lacks the
information needed to make sound decisions about any changes to its use of
civil penalties. Several years ago, FMCSA did attempt to develop measures
of the effectiveness of its enforcement actions, including civil
penalties, but it was not satisfied with the results of the effort.

FMCSA's performance measures of the end outcomes of its enforcement
programs are crashes, injuries, and fatalities avoided due to compliance
reviews, roadside inspections, and traffic enforcement-the difference
between the actual numbers of crashes, injuries, and fatalities, and how
many would have occurred in the absence of these enforcement programs.
Because the numbers that would have occurred in their absence cannot be
observed, FMCSA uses analytical models to estimate the programs'
impacts.29 Using its compliance review impact model, FMCSA estimates that
about 9,200 compliance reviews conducted in 2002 prevented about 1,400
crashes, about 1,100 injuries, and about 60 fatalities in the 12 months

following the compliance reviews.30 Using its combined roadside inspection
and traffic enforcement impact model, FMCSA estimates that about 3 million
roadside inspections (about 800,000 of which included enforcement of
traffic laws) conducted in 2004 prevented about 19,000 crashes, about
14,000 injuries, and about 700 fatalities. According to an FMCSA official,
FMCSA also plans to develop a model to estimate the impact of new entrant
safety audits.

FMCSA's Enforcement Goals Do Not Describe Expected Contributions to
FMCSA's Fatality Rate Goal

In addition to goals for its enforcement programs, FMCSA has a primary
safety goal that is agencywide-that is, FMCSA seeks to achieve the goal
through its various efforts, including enforcement, education and
outreach, and research and technology. FMCSA's primary safety goal is to
reduce the rate of fatalities involving large trucks per 100 million miles
of truck travel by 41 percent from 2.81 in 1996 to 1.65 in 2008. FMCSA
expects its enforcement programs, as the agency's primary means of
reducing truck crashes, to help meet the fatality rate goal. Furthermore,
for three of its enforcement programs (compliance reviews, roadside
inspections, and traffic enforcement), FMCSA has goals for avoiding
fatalities, and, as mentioned above, it also has measures of how many
fatalities these programs avoid. However, the goals do not describe the
program's expected contributions to the fatality rate goal. We have
reported that program goals should demonstrate programs' contributions to
meeting agencywide goals.31 Currently, the goals state that the programs
are expected to avoid fatalities, but they do not include targets that
specify how many fatalities are expected to be avoided each year. However,
in order to demonstrate expected contributions to reducing the fatality
rate, the goals would need to have numerical targets that increase from
year to year; these targets should also be commensurate with the resources
the agency expects to receive.

Similarly, in order to demonstrate the enforcement programs' estimated
contributions to any reductions in the fatality rate, FMCSA would need to
compare its estimates of fatalities avoided from year to year. For
example, based on FMCSA's estimates of fatalities avoided, its enforcement
programs avoided 19 more fatalities in 2002 compared to 2001 (848
fatalities avoided in 2002 compared to 829 fatalities avoided in 2001).
This estimated increase in fatalities avoided represents the estimated
contribution that FMCSA's enforcement programs made to the overall
reduction of 172 truck-crash-related fatalities that occurred from 2001 to
2002 (from 5,111 fatalities in 2001 to 4,939 fatalities in 2002). Turning
to fatalities per 100 million truck miles traveled, the rate declined from
2.45 in 2001 to 2.30 in 2002. Based on the estimated increase in
fatalities avoided by FMCSA's enforcement programs in 2002 compared to
2001, these programs contributed 0.02 to the total decrease of 0.14 in the
fatality rate.32 Because we did not assess the quality of these models, we
are not suggesting that FMCSA's enforcement programs had these illustrated
results. Rather, this is an example of the kind of analysis FMCSA could
employ in order to demonstrate its enforcement programs' estimated
contributions to any reductions in the fatality rate.

FMCSA Has Made Several Refinements to Its Enforcement Programs and It May
Make Additional Refinements Depending on the Outcomes of Studies

FMCSA has made several refinements to its enforcement programs based on
agency studies of factors that affect crash risk, and on evaluations of
the effectiveness of the programs themselves,33 and it is exploring
additional, potentially substantial, refinements to its enforcement
approach. FMCSA plans to conduct additional analyses of crash risk factors
and on the costs and effectiveness of its enforcement programs to help it
further refine and set priorities for its programs.

FMCSA has made several refinements to its enforcement programs based on
agency studies of factors that affect crash risk. To date, only one such
refinement has been based on the results of FMCSA's most substantial
effort to understand the causes of, and contributing factors to, large
truck crashes-its Large Truck Crash Causation Study, which FMCSA began in
2001. This study was required by the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act
with the intent of providing information that would help FMCSA and the
states identify and set priorities for programs and other measures likely
to lead to significant reductions in crashes involving commercial motor
vehicles. Congress also required FMCSA, in designing and conducting the
study, to consult with experts on crash causation, research methods, and
other relevant topics. To meet this requirement, FMCSA requested the
Transportation Research Board to form a committee to review the study's
design and provide advice to FMCSA on study methods. The committee
expressed several concerns about FMCSA's design, and FMCSA revised the
design in response to some of these concerns.34 Based on preliminary
results from the study indicating that truck and car driver factors (such
as fatigue, inattention, and misjudgment) are much more likely than
vehicle factors (such as defective brakes and worn tires) to be the
critical reason for crashes involving a truck and a car, FMCSA has decided
to shift the focus of some of its inspections from the truck to the
driver,35 and has called on states to institute "driver inspection strike
forces" in high-crash corridors. FMCSA plans to conduct more formal
analyses of data from the study over the next several years, and,
depending on the results, it may make additional refinements to its
enforcement programs. Other examples of refinements to its enforcement
programs that FMCSA has made based on studies of factors that affect crash
risks include:

o Safety of new entrants: Based on studies indicating that new motor
carriers had higher crash rates and lower rates of compliance with safety
regulations, in 1999 Congress directed FMCSA to develop a program to
ensure that new entrants would operate safely. As discussed previously, in
2003 FMCSA initiated such a program that emphasizes educating new entrants
about their obligations under the safety regulations, rather than taking
enforcement actions when safety deficiencies are identified. FMCSA intends
to strengthen the enforcement component of the new entrant program.

o Share the Road Safely: Based on studies indicating that, in fatal
crashes involving a car and a truck, errors by car drivers are more
frequently cited in police reports than are errors by truck drivers,36 in
1991, Congress directed FMCSA to develop a program to educate drivers
about how to drive safely in the vicinity of trucks; in 1994, FMCSA
initiated the Share the Road Safely program for this purpose. Many highway
safety experts believe that programs such as Share the Road Safely are
more likely to produce substantial changes in drivers' behaviors if the
education efforts are combined with local law enforcement programs to
increase compliance with traffic laws. FMCSA agrees that enforcement
should be a part of the program, and in 2005 it began to pilot test a
combined education and enforcement approach in Washington state.

To its credit, FMCSA has also made several refinements to its enforcement
programs based on agency evaluations of the effectiveness of the programs
themselves. The Government Performance and Results Act calls for agencies
to evaluate the results of their programs, and we have suggested that
agencies use information on the performance of their programs to identify
opportunities for improvement.37 Examples of refinements to its
enforcement programs that FMCSA has made based on its evaluations of the
effectiveness of the programs include:

o Roadside inspections: Based on its analysis indicating that the
inspection program is no longer leading to annual increases in the
industry-wide level of compliance with safety regulations, an FMCSA
official also told us that the agency is no longer seeking to increase the
number of roadside inspections from year to year.

o Safety of new entrants: Based on (1) its analysis indicating that new
entrant safety audits-which currently emphasize education-have not had a
major impact on crash rates and (2) data showing that less than 1 percent
of audited new entrants were failing the audit despite the fact that many
new entrants were operating without comprehensive knowledge of the
requirements and without being in compliance with the safety regulations,
FMCSA intends to increase the level of compliance required to pass the
audit and to avoid an enforcement action. FMCSA plans to publish a
proposed regulation to this effect in March 2006.

o Compliance reviews: Based on its 2002 evaluation indicating that
inconsistencies and bottlenecks in its compliance review process were
reducing its efficiency and effectiveness, FMCSA made several changes in
2003 aimed at improving compliance review policies, procedures, training,
software, and supporting carrier data. Specific examples include:

o FMCSA discouraged repeat visits to high-risk motor carriers that had
received unsatisfactory safety ratings during a review conducted within
the past 12 months because the agency believed that not enough time had
elapsed to show whether safety improvements had taken effect.

o FMCSA (1) discouraged safety investigators from their earlier practice
of favoring violations of drug and alcohol regulations over violations of
hours of service regulations when they choose which violations to document
for enforcement because crash data and FMCSA's survey of its field staff
suggest that hours of service compliance is more important for safety, and
(2) revised its operations manual to encourage FMCSA's state division
offices to document the maximum number of parts of the regulations where
major safety violations are discovered, rather than penalizing motor
carriers for a few violations in a particular part at the expense of other
parts.

FMCSA has not evaluated the impact that these and other changes have had
on the efficiency and effectiveness of the compliance review process, but
an FMCSA official told us that the agency believes such an evaluation
would be worthwhile and that it will consider conducting one.

FMCSA is either conducting, or plans to conduct, several additional
evaluations of its enforcement approach, programs, and supporting
programs. Depending on the results of these evaluations, FMCSA may make
refinements to each of these. For example:

o Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010: Under this initiative, FMCSA is
evaluating its current approach to monitoring and assessing the safety of
the motor carrier industry, including its enforcement approach, with the
intent of developing and implementing new approaches. FMCSA began the
initiative because it believes that the centerpiece of its current
oversight and enforcement approach-the compliance review program-is
resource intensive; reaches only about 2 percent of a growing motor
carrier population each year; does not adequately reflect the impact that
people involved in motor carriers' operations, such as managers, owners,
and drivers, have on safety; and is impeded by delayed, incomplete, and
inaccurate data on the safety performance of carriers. As a starting point
for this initiative, FMCSA developed a preliminary proposal for a new
framework for its oversight and enforcement programs. In contrast to
FMCSA's current enforcement approach, which considers only the results of
compliance reviews in determining whether to assess civil penalties
against carriers, the proposed framework also considers, among other
things, indications of unsafe driving from traffic violations, crash
records, and the results of roadside inspections. FMCSA intends to refine
and begin implementation of the framework over the next several years.

o Roadside inspections: FMCSA is evaluating the effectiveness of
alternative truck inspection strategies being utilized by states, such as
building temporary inspection sites, using no fixed sites at all, mobile
enforcement using wireless communications technologies, and use of
sophisticated information systems and different kinds of sensing
technologies. FMCSA expects the results of its evaluation to be published
in December 2005. As part of a separate evaluation, FMCSA plans to review
alternatives to its current approach to vehicle roadside inspections, such
as requiring motor carriers to inspect their vehicles more frequently than
the current requirement of once a year and having third-parties conduct
inspections.

o PRISM: FMCSA is evaluating the effectiveness of its PRISM program,
including assessing whether states that have implemented PRISM have
achieved greater safety improvements than states that have not, and
identifying ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the
program. FMCSA plans to complete the evaluation in August 2006.

o Monitoring drivers' hours of service: FMCSA is evaluating the costs and
benefits of requiring electronic on-board recorders for monitoring
drivers' hours of service, as required by a July 2004 federal appeals
court ruling that criticized the agency for not having conducted such an
assessment.

o Drug and alcohol testing: In the next several years, FMCSA plans to
study whether the effectiveness of the agency's efforts to ensure
compliance with its regulations prohibiting certain uses of drugs and
alcohol by drivers is being adversely affected by (1) how motor carriers
are selecting drivers for random testing, (2) whether carriers are
actually testing each driver selected, and (3) tests in which bogus
samples are submitted. FMCSA may make policy, regulatory, and enforcement
changes depending on the findings of the study.

o Share the Road Safely: In March 2006, FMCSA plans to complete an
evaluation of the effectiveness of the ongoing Share the Road Safely pilot
program in Washington state that FMCSA is jointly funding with the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The pilot combines
education and enforcement to improve the safety of car drivers' driving
behavior in the vicinity of trucks. If the results of the evaluation are
favorable, FMCSA intends to extend the program to other states.

o Border safety programs: FMCSA plans to conduct an evaluation of its
border safety audit and compliance review programs in 2007. Border safety
audits and compliance reviews can result in revocation of a motor
carrier's authority to operate in the U.S., and FMCSA plans for its
evaluation to cover this enforcement aspect of the program.

In addition to its ongoing and planned program evaluations, FMCSA plans to
develop a tool to help the agency set priorities for its enforcement
programs by comparing their cost-effectiveness. The tool would produce
estimates of cost-effectiveness by combining information from the models
that FMCSA currently uses to estimate the impact of compliance reviews,
roadside inspections, and traffic enforcement in terms of reductions in
crashes, injuries, and fatalities with information on the costs of these
programs. We have reported that considering information on both the costs
and effectiveness of programs gives agencies a basis for focusing their
efforts and improving their performance,38 and the Office of Management
and Budget has guidelines for considering both the costs and benefits when
making decisions to initiate, renew, or expand programs which would result
in a series of measurable benefits or costs extending for

three or more years into the future.39 FMCSA officials told us that the
tool could also cover new entrant safety audits and certain education and
outreach programs. As part of a separate effort, FMCSA has developed
preliminary estimates of the average cost of a compliance review and the
average cost of a roadside inspection. However, the estimates are not
based on consistent assumptions, and an FMCSA official told us that the
agency intends to reassess the costs for purposes of its prioritization
tool.40

As recommended by the Office of Management and Budget, FMCSA also plans to
start evaluating the costs incurred and the benefits realized by its
existing regulations, beginning with evaluations of two regulations in
2006. Finally, in 2006 FMCSA plans to identify long-term trends in the
motor carrier industry and how these trends could affect the agency's
ability to meet its strategic goals and objectives over the next 20 years.
FMCSA intends to use the results of this effort to support its policy
development and strategic planning. We are encouraged by FMCSA's ongoing
and planned efforts to obtain additional information on crash risk factors
and on the costs and effectiveness of its enforcement programs because
these efforts address long-standing core deficiencies that we identified
in 1999 and 2000.41 We believe that the efforts will, if effectively
implemented, provide FMCSA with a sound basis to refine and set priorities
for its enforcement programs.

MCSAP Is Designed to Improve Safety but Program Oversight Is Inadequate

MCSAP employs a performance-based approach to truck safety by encouraging
states to analyze data to identify safety problems and target their grant
activities to achieve reductions in truck crashes, injuries, and
fatalities. However, FMCSA has not adequately overseen the development of
states' safety plans. For example, FMCSA's grant planning meetings, in
which it communicates priorities and how to develop plans with
quantifiable goals, were conducted for less than a third of the states in
fiscal year 2004, and FMCSA division offices that work with states did not
sufficiently monitor and ensure states' progress towards safety goals. As
a result, we were unable to determine whether states substantially met
many of their safety goals. Furthermore, FMCSA has not completed its
various oversight reviews of MCSAP in the past 3 years, as required by
agency policy, and which, if carried out, could have helped to identify
problems both with how states administer and the agency oversees the grant
program. The agency, though, has recently taken steps to improve its
grantee review program and strengthen its oversight of MCSAP.

MCSAP Employs a Performance-Based Approach to Improve Safety

Since 1997, FMCSA has employed a performance-based approach for funding
state commercial vehicle safety activities through MCSAP. The
performance-based approach entails states analyzing data to identify
commercial vehicle safety problems in their respective jurisdictions and
targeting their grant activities to achieve FMCSA's primary goal of
reducing truck crashes, injuries, and fatalities. As part of this
approach, states must also demonstrate how their proposed goals and
activities further other FMCSA goals, such as improving data quality and
timeliness. In their safety plans, states are required to measure and
evaluate their performance, which fosters accountability.42

Since 2000, FMCSA has convened several meetings to assist states in
developing their plans. First, every spring, each service center is
expected to hold a planning meeting attended by the state representatives
and division office staff that administer and oversee the grant program.
Service center and headquarters staff are to communicate the priorities
for and changes made to the grant program for the coming year. The states
are to reflect these priorities and changes in their safety plans. In
addition, the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center is to provide
states with training at planning meetings on analyzing data and developing
goals, activities, and performance measures to address safety problems.
Some states, such as New York and North Carolina, have also partnered with
universities to conduct additional research and analysis on commercial

vehicle safety.43 Finally, FMCSA's National Training Center conducts a
MCSAP grants management training course that addresses, among other
topics, how to develop safety plans, including goals, activities, and
performance measures.

Second, FMSCA conducts two examinations of the states' draft safety plans
to ensure completeness, and that goals and activities are measurable and
support FMCSA's mission. Initially, division office staff are to use a
standardized checklist to ensure that states' safety plans incorporate the
required elements. These elements include an identification of safety
problems based on data analysis; goals, performance measures and
activities that address state and agency priorities; evaluations of state
progress towards the previous year's goals and activities; and
certification of compatibility of state's motor carrier safety regulations
with federal regulations. If any of the required elements are missing or
unclear, the division office staff are expected to return the safety plan
to the state for revision. FMCSA officials explained that after the
division office staff approves the safety plan, they are to forward it for
review by a "technical review panel" comprised of several service center
and division office staff in that region before it is finalized and
forwarded to headquarters.

FMCSA staff at division offices, service centers, and headquarters
consider these planning meetings and safety plan examinations to be
valuable components of the grant program. We did not analyze the degree to
which these meetings and safety plan examinations improved the states'
safety plans.

To further encourage improvements in commercial vehicle safety, FMCSA
awards MCSAP incentive funds over and above the basic program funds to
states that meet agency-specified safety criteria,44 such as reducing the
number of commercial-vehicle-involved fatal accidents or the commercial
vehicle fatal accident rate. States can also receive incentive funds if
they meet other agency-specified safety performance criteria, such as the
timely uploading of accident or inspection data, or checking the status of
commercial driver licenses during all roadside inspections.45

FMCSA's Inadequate Planning and Oversight of Its State Grant Program
Resulted in Uncertainty About Whether States Met Many of Their Safety
Goals

Although MCSAP employs a performance-based approach to improving safety,
it remains unclear whether the states we reviewed substantially met a
majority of their safety goals. Using safety plans, quarterly reports,
evaluations of previous years' efforts, and other monitoring information
on states' activities, we assessed the extent to which seven state
grantees substantially met their safety goals in fiscal year 2004. Of the
61 goals in states' safety plans, we could not determine whether 61
percent of these goals were substantially met.46 Of the remaining goals,
we determined that 23 percent were substantially met, while 16 percent
were not.47

We could not determine whether a majority of states' safety goals were
substantially met because FMCSA did not thoroughly conduct three important
oversight activities intended to help FMCSA make its own determination of
states' progress towards their safety goals. First, FMCSA did not
adequately carry out planning activities for 2004 MCSAP grants designed to
ensure that states' safety plans included all of the key
elements-quantifiable national and state goals, performance measures, and
evaluations-needed to gauge whether state goals had been met. In this
regard, planning meetings-where states receive assistance in developing
goals, activities, and performance measures to address safety
problems-were convened by only one of the four service centers. The
meetings were not convened by three service centers because one did not
have a state programs staff person to convene the meeting, another
interpreted headquarters guidance to suggest that division offices work on
MCSAP planning directly with states without service center assistance, and
the third was constrained by states' budget restrictions at the time.
Headquarters officials told us that they had expected planning meetings to
occur that year. We also found that only one service center held technical
review panels to ensure that safety plans included all of the key elements
described above. One service center did not have a state programs staff
person to convene a panel, while two service centers did not hold
technical review panels because they believed their curbed oversight role
of the service centers from fiscal years 1999 through 2003 implied that
they should not conduct technical review panels. At the time, agency
leadership restructured the agency to create a more direct relationship
between headquarters and the division offices. Therefore, officials at
these two service centers told us they felt that they did not have the
authority to conduct many of their previous oversight activities. However,
agency officials told us that they did not suspend technical review panels
during that time period. Officials at the fourth service center-which
originated the concept of the technical review panel-also acknowledged the
curbed oversight role of service centers, but that they had conducted a
panel for fiscal year 2004 because of their recognition that strong
management should be maintained in their state grant programs. According
to agency officials, current agency leadership, however, has encouraged
service centers to assume a greater oversight role.

Second, FMCSA division offices did not follow program guidance that
requires ensuring that state safety plans incorporate key elements to
adequately gauge states' performance. We found that goals or performance
measures were not quantifiable, or were missing from various portions of
the safety plans for the seven states we reviewed. When asked about this,
staff from two of the division offices told us that quantifiable goals or
performance measures in their safety plans are not always needed. However,
we believe these key elements are critical because, without them, FMCSA
would not be able to objectively assess whether states' goals had been
substantially met. In contrast, staff from the other division offices with
whom we spoke responded that they did not realize that multi-year goals
should incorporate annual performance measures, or that goals and
performance measures in the safety plans were not quantifiable or were
missing. These staff agreed that incorporating such information into the
safety plans would be appropriate and responded that they would consider
doing so in the future.

Finally, because FMCSA division offices did not adequately monitor states'
progress towards safety plan goals, they did not obtain the information
that would have enabled both them and us to determine whether state safety
goals were substantially met. Offices monitor states' progress by
reviewing quarterly reports, safety plan evaluations, and data reports,
and through phone calls, E-mails and in-person meetings. For example, one
of the seven states we examined-the sixth largest overall grantee in
fiscal year 2004-did not submit required quarterly reports to its
respective division office for several years. This was due to the
responsible state staff person's belief that it was unnecessary to
complete them. The division office followed-up with the state about this
issue, but no further corrective action, such as withholding the state's
future grant funding, was taken by the agency. The division office also
reported that because the lead agency was in the process of changing, a
new staff person would be assuming the responsibility and that they expect
the quarterly reports to once again be submitted. In addition to the
omission of quarterly reports, we found that three of the largest grantees
did not include evaluations of both national and state goals in their
safety plans, despite this being a program requirement. When we asked the
respective division offices about this, they responded that this omission
was not of concern because their office had a general sense of the states'
progress through their monitoring. However, the information that these
offices provided to support their monitoring effort, for the most part,
did not allow us to assess whether the state had met its goals. Agency
officials believe that some of the required information-such as quarterly
progress reports and yearly evaluations-may no longer be necessary given
their regular communication with states and access to information
regarding state activities. However, given that MCSAP relies on a
performance-based approach, the agency would not be able to adequately
measure how grant funds are contributing to improving safety without this
information. All of the division offices provided us with records of their
monitoring, including data reports and E-mails. However, for the most
part, their records did not provide enough information about states'
progress for us to determine whether certain safety goals had been
substantially met. Additionally, only one division office we reviewed
formally tracks its state's activities by the goals specified in the
safety plan, and this office has only recently begun to do so.

Some division office staff conveyed their concerns regarding states'
safety plans. The staff of two division offices recognized that their
states' 2004 safety plans were not complete in terms of the key elements
we discussed and that future improvements were needed. As a result, both
division offices have explained that they are working more closely with
the states to highlight these key elements in order to strengthen
subsequent safety plans. Furthermore, the staff of all seven division
offices generally understood the inability to gauge state performance
based on the issues we identified and responded that they would consider
our comments in the development of their states' 2006 safety plans.

FMCSA Has Not Completed Various Oversight Reviews of Its Grant Program but
Has Taken Steps to Improve Its State Review Program

FMCSA guidance states that three MCSAP-related reviews are to be conducted
every 3 years: (1) division offices are to review their respective state
grantees, (2) service centers are to review the division offices in their
region, and (3) headquarters is to review the four service centers. Agency
officials told us that the purpose of these reviews is to identify any
weaknesses in the administration, monitoring, or oversight of the grant
program by a state, division office, or service center. The reviews also
identify best practices that could be applied to other states, division
offices, or service centers.48

We found that FMCSA division offices reviewed only 19 of 56 grantees (34
percent) in the past 3 years. Of the completed reviews, issues cited
include the incompatibility of various state motor carrier safety
regulations with federal regulations, the need to better integrate
performance-based approaches to state safety plans, missing quarterly
reports and narratives that address a prior year's goals, and
less-than-comprehensive annual evaluations of safety plan goals. Among the
seven largest grantees, we followed up with the three division offices
that had not completed reviews in the last 3 years to learn why they were
not conducted. Two of these three division offices did not conduct reviews
due to reorganization of the lead agency within their respective states.
However, given that reviews tend to last between a week and several weeks
and that there is a 3-year period to conduct state reviews, division
offices would have had sufficient time to complete a review either before
or after the reorganization. The third division office cited conducting a
series of smaller "process" reviews as

fulfilling the state review.49 When we asked headquarters about several
division offices not conducting reviews of states, agency officials
responded that they were disappointed many of the reviews had not been
completed. However, they said they are taking steps-such as creating an
implementation schedule of reviews to be conducted-to ensure that future
state grantee reviews are completed in a timely fashion.

The agency has also not reviewed division offices and service centers, as
required by agency policy. In the past 3 years, the four service centers
reviewed only 15 of 52 division offices (29 percent). We found that a
contributing factor to the lack of reviews was the curbed oversight role
of the service centers (as noted earlier) that was attributable to agency
restructuring. The restructuring was designed to create a more direct
relationship between headquarters and the division offices. We also
learned that, among the four service centers, one did not conduct any
division office reviews during the past 3 years because it believed that
it should not conduct the reviews given the curbed oversight role of the
service centers during part of that time period. Furthermore, headquarters
has also not reviewed any of the service centers in over 3 years. Staff in
headquarters cited a lack of staff and time as their primary reason for
not completing these reviews. Headquarters staff devoted to MCSAP have
steadily decreased over the past 11 years, from 11 full-time employees in
1995 to 4 full-time employees in 2005.

In a majority of the 15 division office reviews conducted, service centers
identified gaps in the monitoring and oversight responsibilities of
division offices. Some of the recommendations from these reviews address
commonly identified division office performance issues, including (1) not
tracking, recording, or retaining information on their monitoring
activities; (2) not providing consistent feedback to states about findings
from monitoring activities; (3) not following-through to ensure
improvements were made or tracking or recording any corrective actions
that needed to be, or have been taken, by the state; and (4) not
conducting grantee reviews as required by agency policy. Furthermore, two
of the four service centers did not keep track of the division offices
that have conducted state grantee reviews, and therefore they did not have
the information to know which division office reviews had not been
completed and what types of monitoring problems had been identified.
Although we did not evaluate the extent to which division office reviews
are necessary for the agency to conduct adequate oversight, we believe
that the frequency with which monitoring problems were identified suggests
the usefulness of these reviews. Lastly, we learned that headquarters does
not keep track of whether division offices conduct state reviews.

In addition to identifying gaps in monitoring and oversight, the agency
also identifies what it considers to be best practices during its reviews
of division offices. We have suggested that the sharing of best practices
can be helpful in improving grantee performance.50 However, the agency has
not fully shared those best practices among other division offices.
Several best practices of division offices were identified during these
reviews. Among them were (1) the development and use of an automated
monitoring of state grant activities, (2) the convening of regular formal
meetings with the state, (3) the development of a detailed quarterly
report format that includes progress made towards safety plan goals, and
(4) the hiring of an administrative grants manager. However, only two of
the four service centers have actively circulated best practices from
state reviews to division offices. The other two service centers told us
that they intend to circulate these best practices in the future.

In recognizing that the way in which states are reviewed has not been
recently revised to reflect changes in MCSAP, and that it would like the
reviews to have a greater focus on the financial aspects of the program,
FMCSA has taken steps to improve its state grantee review program. In
December 2004, the agency completed a draft plan for the new review
program. The proposed program would be carried out by a joint team of
division office, service center, headquarters, and contractor staff that
would assist the division offices, and is comprised of three parts: a
regulatory review, a financial review, and a performance review. The
performance review would compare states' activities with the goals
specified in their safety plans, and would emphasize the monitoring of
performance. After a review is completed, a draft report of findings,
recommendations, and other information would undergo review by the
division office and the state. FMCSA plans for this program to follow a
4-year cycle for conducting the reviews. Agency officials told us that
they have piloted this review program in four states, and officials expect
the program will be fully implemented by the first quarter of fiscal year
2006. To ensure that this improved review program follows a 4-year cycle,
FMCSA officials told us that they plan to schedule the reviews several
years in advance and track which ones have been completed. Because this
proposed review program is in the planning stage, we did not assess
whether it is likely to address the problems we found.

Further, FMCSA has several other efforts underway to strengthen the
agency's oversight of MCSAP. First, agency officials noted that a newly
created senior position to manage and oversee the service centers was
recently filled, and that FMCSA plans to request three additional MCSAP
staff in headquarters as part of its budget request for fiscal year 2007.
Second, agency officials told us that they plan to incorporate an
expectation of completing oversight reviews in the individual performance
plans of all division office, service center, and headquarters staff that
are responsible for MCSAP. Third, recent legislation requires that the
agency report annually to Congress on the effectiveness of the grant
program.51 Finally, FMCSA has two studies underway that relate to agency
oversight of MCSAP: one to determine the effectiveness of division
offices' activities, and the other to assure the quality of the agency's
grant operations.

Conclusions

In making decisions about its enforcement approach, FMCSA follows many of
the effective management practices we identified related to performance
management. We believe that it is noteworthy that FMCSA has begun to
refine its enforcement approach based on information about the causes of
crashes, that it plans to develop a tool to help it set priorities for its
enforcement programs based on estimates of their cost-effectiveness, and
that it has conducted-and continues to conduct-program evaluations of its
enforcement programs, including evaluations that are assessing alternative
approaches to enforcement. These efforts, if implemented effectively,
should provide FMCSA with a reasonable basis for setting priorities
for-and further refining-its enforcement programs in ways that reduce
crashes, injuries, and fatalities in a cost-effective manner. However,
because the agency's goals and measures for its enforcement programs do
not describe expected and estimated contributions to FMCSA's overall goal
of reducing the large-truck fatality rate, FMCSA and the public do not
have a sense of how much the programs contribute to any reductions in the
fatality rate that may occur over time. The absence of this kind of
information makes it more difficult for FMCSA to make adjustments to its
enforcement programs that could help achieve its fatality rate goal. In
addition, because FMCSA does not know how much its civil penalties
increase carriers' compliance with safety regulations, it lacks the
information it needs to make sound decisions about any changes to its use
of civil penalties; it also may be missing opportunities to increase
carrier compliance, and ultimately safety, that could result from such
changes. Furthermore, without targets specifying by how much it expects to
reduce its backlog of enforcement cases and by when, Congress and other
interested parties find it more difficult to hold the agency accountable
for achieving this goal-one of the agency's four highest priorities for
improving commercial motor vehicle safety in fiscal years 2005 and 2006.

FMCSA's overall framework establishing performance and accountability for
MCSAP is sound. It establishes expectations for safety improvements by
grantees to help further the department's goal of saving lives and
contains several mechanisms to help ensure that these expectations will be
met. This is important, as MCSAP represents almost half of FMCSA's budget
and the agency counts on it to materially contribute to saving lives.
However, we found that the execution of these expectations has, too often,
not been met, and aspects of how the agency actually works with states to
oversee performance need strengthening. These conditions ranged from
planning opportunities forgone, to differing perspectives about
performance requirements on the part of division office and service center
staff, to unfulfilled reviews of performance. While there are various
reasons underlying the conditions that we found, all contributed to the
end result of FMCSA not being in a position to determine whether states
focused their attention on, and carried out, activities that could lead to
lives saved. Further, the steps taken by the agency to strengthen safety
plans and improve reviews of states performance are promising, but FMCSA
should also assess its own oversight of the program.

Recommendations for Executive Action

We are making five recommendations aimed at improving FMCSA's enforcement
programs and MCSAP oversight:

o To help ensure and demonstrate that FMCSA's enforcement programs
contribute to the agency's goal to reduce the large truck fatality rate,
we recommend that the Secretary of Transportation direct the FMCSA
administrator to set goals for its enforcement programs that are designed
to clearly demonstrate these contributions.

o To improve FMCSA's ability to establish the most effective structure of
civil penalties, we recommend that the Secretary of Transportation direct
the FMCSA administrator to develop and implement one or more measures of
the effectiveness of its civil penalties against motor carriers.

o To improve the consistency and effectiveness of FMCSA's truck safety
enforcement, we recommend that the Secretary of Transportation direct the
FMCSA administrator to develop and include in its strategy and annual
plans a specific numeric or measurable goal to eliminate the agency's
backlog of enforcement cases, as required by the Motor Carrier Safety
Improvement Act of 1999.

o To improve accountability for use of MCSAP grant funds, we recommend
that the Secretary of Transportation direct the FMCSA administrator to
ensure that existing mechanisms, such as planning sessions, reviews of
draft state plans, and periodic monitoring of states' progress, to the
extent possible, are carried out and result in clarity of goals and
performance measures and assessments of safety improvements made.

o To improve FMCSA's oversight of MCSAP grantees, we recommend that the
Secretary of Transportation direct the FMCSA administrator to (1) assess,
upon implementation, whether the improved performance review of state
activities are meeting the agency's intended goals; (2) incorporate MCSAP
oversight as a segment of the effectiveness study of division offices; and
(3) assess the oversight activities of service centers.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to the Department of Transportation for
review and comment and received comments from FMCSA officials. FMCSA
generally agreed with the report's findings and agreed to consider our
recommendations. FMCSA offered several corrections, which we incorporated
in this report.

We are sending copies of this report to congressional committees and
subcommittees with responsibilities for commercial motor vehicle safety
issues; the Secretary of Transportation; the Administrator, FMCSA; and the
Director, Office of Management and Budget. We will also make copies
available to others upon request. This report will be available at no
charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov .

If you have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202)
512-2834 or [email protected] . Contact points for our Offices of
Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page
of this report. Staff who made key contributions to this report are listed
in appendix II.

Katherine Siggerud Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues

Scope and Methodology Appendix I

In determining how the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)
used its enforcement authority to address noncompliance with the federal
motor carrier safety regulations, we reviewed legislation, congressional
reports leading to the creation of FMCSA, FMCSA regulations, manuals,
guidance, and assessments of the agency's enforcement efforts by the
Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, and our own
assessments. In addition, we obtained information from FMCSA about
enforcement policies, the implementation of these policies and procedures,
and analyzed enforcement data; we focused on fiscal years 1995 through
2004 in our efforts. We chose 1995 because it represented a period in
which FMCSA partnered with industry and provided a 10-year period from
which to observe changes in FMCSA's policies and actions. We discussed
these requirements and the agency's implementation of them with FMCSA,
industry and safety advocacy groups, and transportation researchers.

We also analyzed FMCSA data on compliance reviews, roadside inspections,
new entrant safety audits, homeland security-related visits of hazardous
materials carriers, out-of-service orders and orders to cease operations,
and civil penalties occurring between fiscal years 1995 and 2004. We used
2004 as the most recent year in our analysis because it is the most recent
year for which complete data are available.

In calculating the percentage of the motor carrier industry that receives
compliance reviews, we used FMCSA's estimates of the annual size of the
interstate motor carrier industry. This number is an estimate due to the
fact that carriers are not required to report the closing of their
operations to the department. This estimate has improved with the
development of the new entrant audit program because FMCSA is able to
identify non-interstate carriers and remove them from the total count.

In determining total civil penalties assessed, we used the average civil
penalty per violation, rather than the average civil penalty per
enforcement case. We did this to observe how FMCSA treated different types
of violations, such as recordkeeping and non-recordkeeping.1 We made
several adjustments to FMCSA's data. First, we removed all motor coach
cases from the dataset, because this report only focuses on large truck
safety. During the past decade, passenger carriers have accounted for
slightly more than 1 percent of enforcement actions. Second, we excluded
all cases that the agency closed without enforcement or that remained open
as of July 2005 (the end of our fieldwork). Between 1995 and 2004, an
average of 145 cases was closed annually without enforcement, and an
average of 19 cases was left open. FMCSA chooses to close a case without
enforcement when the agency decides to cease seeking to collect a civil
penalty. This can happen for several reasons, but frequently it is due to
a carrier declaring bankruptcy. Excluding these cases ensured that the
agency had completed the enforcement process before we analyzed the data.
Since in many cases that are closed without enforcement the carrier is not
formally charged with a civil penalty, the data tend to be skewed by
including these cases. Third, we adjusted all civil penalties for
inflation using 2004 dollars.

In determining the reliability of FMCSA's data, we performed electronic
testing for obvious errors in accuracy and completeness, and we
interviewed officials from FMCSA's data analysis division who are
knowledgeable about the data and how they were entered. FMCSA determined
that the 1995 data on roadside inspections were not reliable. Due to this
determination, we did not use these data. For the remainder of the data,
we determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for the types of
analysis we present in this report.

In assessing the extent to which FMCSA follows key effective management
practices in making decisions about its enforcement approach, we reviewed
our reports on performance management, guidance from the Office of
Management and Budget, and the Government Performance and Results Act to
identify key effective management practices for agency decision making.
The key practices that we identified were related to strategy, goals,
performance measures, and decision making that considers the factors that
contribute to large-truck crashes as well as the costs and effectiveness
of agency programs. We obtained information on FMCSA's enforcement
strategy, goals, and performance measures through discussions with FMCSA
officials, and from FMCSA documents, including its budget request for
fiscal year 2006 (which also serves as FMCSA's strategic plan, performance
plan for fiscal year 2006, and performance report for fiscal year 2004).
We also reviewed a report entitled Measuring the FMCSA's Safety Objectives
from Year 2000 to 20022 and reports on FMCSA's estimates of the impact of
its enforcement programs. We obtained information on FMCSA's completed and
ongoing crash causation studies and program evaluations, as well as how
the results of some of these studies and evaluations have influenced
FMCSA's decisions about refinements to its enforcement programs, through
discussions with FMCSA officials or from FMCSA documents, including
program evaluation plans and reports, and statements of work for planned
evaluations. We also attended FMCSA's October 2004 public session in Falls
Church, Virginia, designed to obtain input on its Comprehensive Safety
Analysis 2010 initiative, which is intended to develop a new framework for
overseeing truck safety.

In assessing the extent to which FMCSA ensures that its Motor Carrier
Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) grants contribute to the agency's
mission, we reviewed regulations and FMCSA guidance relating to the design
of the grant program and discussed with FMCSA officials how accountability
is built into it. We assessed FMCSA's planning and oversight of seven
MCSAP state grantees in fiscal year 2004 (the latest full year for which
information was available). These states-California, Georgia, Illinois,
New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas-comprised 27 percent of all MCSAP
grants awarded for that year. Because we chose these states judgmentally
(representing the largest grantees), we cannot project our findings
nationwide.3 Reviewing a larger number of grantees would not have been
practical due to resource constraints. To increase the reliability of our
assessment, two analysts independently assessed whether states
substantially met their goals. They then discussed their results and
resolved any differences. We then discussed our assessment with FMCSA
officials responsible for grant activities in those states. We also
reviewed all four regional service centers to determine how they conduct
their oversight activities. Finally, we attended a planning meeting for
the fiscal year 2006 safety plans to gain a better understanding of how
agency priorities are conveyed and how the agency provides assistance to
the states in developing safety plans.

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgements Appendix II

Katherine Siggerud (202) 512-2834 or [email protected]

In addition to the contact named above, James Ratzenberger, Assistant
Director; Mallory Barg Bulman; Craig Fischer; David Goldstein; Tina Won
Sherman; and Gregory Wilmoth made key contributions to this report.

(542049)

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt? GAO-06-156 .

To view the full product, including the scope

and methodology, click on the link above.

For more information, contact Katherine Siggerud at (202) 512-2834 or
[email protected].

Highlights of GAO-06-156 , a report to congressional committees

December 2005

LARGE TRUCK SAFETY

Federal Enforcement Efforts Have Been Stronger Since 2000, but Oversight
of State Grants Needs Improvement

About 5,000 people die and more than 120,000 are injured each year from
crashes involving large trucks. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration (FMCSA) has several enforcement programs to improve truck
safety and funds similar enforcement programs in states through its Motor
Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP). Following concern by Congress
and others in 1999 that FMCSA's enforcement approach was ineffective, the
agency committed to take stronger actions.

This study reports on how FMCSA's enforcement approach has changed, how it
makes decisions about its enforcement approach, and how it ensures that
its grants to states contribute to the agency's mission of saving lives.

What GAO Recommends

GAO makes several recommendations to improve FMCSA's ability to determine
the effectiveness of its enforcement approach and strengthen the agency's
oversight of MCSAP, such as measuring the effectiveness of its civil
penalties and ensuring that existing planning and oversight mechanisms are
carried out.

GAO provided a draft of this report to the Department of Transportation
for its review and comment. The department generally agreed with the
report's findings and agreed to consider our recommendations.

FMCSA has made considerable strides in strengthening its enforcement
programs and actions. For example, it almost doubled the number of on-site
safety reviews (called compliance reviews) at carriers' bases of
operations, from approximately 6,400 in 1998 to 11,300 in 2004. Further,
it has increased the average civil penalty by about 75 percent (from $820
to $1,400) over the same period. FMCSA generally maintained its firmer
approach to enforcement at a time when it took on the additional
responsibilities of conducting homeland security-related reviews of
hazardous materials carriers and safety reviews of new carriers.

To a large extent, FMCSA follows key effective management practices in
making decisions about its enforcement approach. For example, its
enforcement approach addresses major risk areas that contribute to (or
cause) crashes, and targets its enforcement resources at the motor
carriers with the greatest crash risk. FMCSA also has a broad range of
enforcement goals and performance measures that it uses to provide
direction to-and track the performance of-its enforcement programs.
Furthermore, FMCSA is working to obtain additional information on crash
risk factors and on the costs and effectiveness of its enforcement
programs, as well as alternative approaches that it needs to further
refine and set priorities for its programs. However, because FMCSA does
not measure the effect that one of its key enforcement tools-civil
penalties-has on carriers' compliance with safety regulations, it lacks
the information needed to make sound decisions about any changes to its
use of civil penalties.

MCSAP is designed to improve safety by employing a performance-based
approach; however, FMCSA's oversight for these grants is inadequate. In
reviewing the 61 program goals set by the seven states that received the
largest MCSAP grants, we could not determine whether states substantially
met almost two-thirds of these goals due to missing performance
information, among other reasons. Further, although FMCSA requires that
its various offices periodically review grant activities for adequacy of
oversight, few of these reviews are being completed. For example, in the
past 3 years, FMCSA's service centers have assessed only 15 of the
agency's 52 field division offices (29 percent). FMCSA did not conduct
these reviews for various reasons, including a curbed oversight role for
service centers and markedly reduced headquarters staffing for MCSAP.

FMCSA's progress on initiatives to improve truck safety enforcement

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