WASHINGTON The 22-month-old safety-rating system developed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration unfairly tarnishes truck and bus companies for crashes that may not be their fault, a House committee was told.

The safety scores developed through the FMCSAs Compliance, Safety, Accountability program are hurting companies with good operating histories, lawmakers said, citing complaints theyve received from companies.

Brokers, shippers and insurers are less likely to do business with companies with bad scores, even if theyre based on paperwork violations, they noted.

"While the old adage of garbage in, garbage out does not completely apply here, there are questions about the reliability and integrity of the data," Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said at the hearing held by a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on highways and transit.

The chairman of the subcommittee, Rep. John Duncan, R.-Tenn., also raised questions about the quality of information that is being fed into CSA and its Safety Measurement System, the performance-based, data-driven enforcement program that powers CSA.

"Not all states report every violation to FMCSA, so the (Safety Measurement System) methodology is only as good as the data flowing into the system," said Duncan.

"These data problems present a significant challenge for small . . . companies which make up the majority of commercial motor vehicle (operators). Since many of these small companies generate little to no data into the SMS, their scores can fluctuate dramatically and the small companies that generate no score are misconceived as unsafe.

"Questions have also been raised over the relationship of some violations and whether they are indicators of future crash risk. Scores generated in certain BASICs may not have a correlation to future crash risk and may inadvertently focus FMCSA enforcement measures on the wrong carriers," Duncan said.

Six years in the making

The FMCSA spent six years developing its Compliance, Safety, Accountability system before implementing it in December 2010. It is supposed to guide the safety agency in better targeting unsafe companies for safety monitoring and inspections.

The American Trucking Associations and others are asking the agency to revise what data is being included in the system.

"FMCSA must acknowledge that the system does not accurately and reliably identify unsafe carriers," said Scott Mugno, vice president of safety for FedEx Ground Package System Inc., who testified on behalf of the ATA.

The agencys priority "should be to focus on the least safe carriers, not merely those carriers that have compliance problems," he said.

A study by Wells Fargo Securities found no correlation between a carriers scores and actual accidents. (See Aug. 15 Bus & Motorcoach News.)

Wells Fargo told interested parties, like shippers, brokers and insurers, that FMCSA safety scores werent reliable, and that they were setting themselves up for potential lawsuits if they use the scores.

The FMCSA needs to come up with a way for companies to challenge data they believe is inaccurate, and if so to get their rating changed, said Duncan.

"We want the bad companies acted on, but we dont want the good companies treated like theyre bad," said Duncan.

System validated

FMCSA data and ratings have been validated by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, said agency Administrator Anne Ferro.

Carriers with the worst scores have crash rates twice as often as the average company, Ferro said.

Her agency is sensitive to criticism the program isnt fair, Ferro told a news service later in an interview. The agency has set up an agency-industry task force to evaluate suggested changes, she said.

The program is working better than the agencys earlier efforts to identify risky companies, which is important because inspectors can only look at a fraction of the more than 500,000 U.S. trucking and bus companies, Ferro said.

"We have an obligation to use our data to really focus our resources on the high-risk carriers," Ferro said.

The father of a college-aged son killed by a negligent truck driver cautioned lawmakers that determining fault in an accident isnt always easy.

Steve Owings, president and co-founder of Road Safe America, said the police report of his son Cullums 2002 crash initially indicated no fault based on the truck drivers false account. Cullum was killed when a speeding truck hit his car from behind.