Cracking SAFER

Insurance companies regularly check the Internet to monitor clients or investigate prospective ones. If one of your trucks is involved in an accident, lawyers for any injured party will immediately search online for your safety records. Your customers have easy access to your safety statistics. So do your competitors. The good news: so do you.

If you operate in the United States, you’re part of the U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s electronic records system. Carrier safety information-inspection results, accident stats, your DOT safety rating — is available to anyone who wants it, either for free or for a nominal amount.

There are several different types of reports available. The starting point is www.safersys.org, home of the Safety and Fitness Electronic Records (SAFER) system. SAFER functions as a gateway to a variety of information and services maintained by the U.S. DOT. The simplest report is the carrier snapshot, an electronic record of a carrier’s identification, size, commodities hauled, and its safety history-including crash information. There is also a summary of roadside out-of-service inspections and the safety rating, if the carrier has been rated. These snapshots are updated weekly and contain information going back 24 months. They’re available at no charge and can be called up, one at a time, using either the carrier’s name or DOT number.

The Carrier Safety Profile is a more detailed report of inspections, accidents and moving violations. It also includes a detailed history of compliance enforcement actions. Profiles are updated monthly, with data going back 12 to 24 months. Profiles can be ordered through www.safersys.org for $20 US or through Computing Technologies, FMCSA Data Dissemination Program, 703/280-4001, ext. 1102, for $27.50 US. Monthly, quarterly, and semi-annual subscriptions are also available.

The Motor Carrier Safety Status Measurement System — better known as SafeStat-incorporates current on-road safety performance information with a history of on-site compliance review and enforcement results to help federal and state safety agencies target motor carriers for enforcement actions. Driver out-of-service, vehicle out-of-service, and driver moving violation summaries are also available. You may find this report hard to decipher, but www.ai.volpe.dot.gov is a web site that offers help. SafeStat reports are updated twice a year (quarterly updates are supposed to begin this year). Information goes back 30 months, but safety events are weighted by time and severity. For instance, a fatality in the last six months counts against you more than a fatality two years ago.

Because they’re used by enforcement officials to identify problem carriers, it’s important for fleet managers to understand how data are compiled and maintained. For example, SafeStat reports don’t distinguish between preventable and non-preventable accidents — a point worth reminding your insurer about.

Correcting mistakes on your record isn’t easy, and the consequences for wrong information can be serious. For instance, SafeStat reports contain an ISS-2 number that’s used by the DOT’s Inspection Selection System to prioritize trucks for roadside inspections. If an error lumps you in with the so-called bad apples, you may find your trucks and drivers needlessly targeted for safety inspections.

Furthermore, 47 states have access to the software that allows SafeStat updates, but it’s not known how many actually use it. Quarterly updates are provided on CD-ROM, which means someone has to take the time to refresh the files. If they don’t, inspectors are working with information that’s out of date.

“That’s why it’s so important for carriers to monitor their safety data,” says Philip Slater, president of Slater Safety Systems, a compliance consultancy in Brampton, Ont. “Someone else is — an insurance company, a client, John Q. Public, whatever. If there’s a problem with the information-either it’s wrong or could be easily misinterpreted — you want to address it right away.”

You have to know this system exists, understand how it works, and then watch it like a hawk, Slater says, because someone is going to make a judgment about you based on what they find.

On the other hand, he adds, the results may indicate what you can do to better manage your safety performance: “Even a simple snapshot report can offer clues about where to direct your energy in training or compliance to help you stay out of the doghouse in the first place.”