OTA Dispatch Issue 1 2020

Issue 1 | 2020 www.ortrucking.org 9 other aspects of the FMCSA regulatory program. What is ironic is that FMCSA is quite content if all the MCSAP grant administrative requirements are met and yet truck at fault accidents are increasing. That is because the MCSAP grant is not a performance-based grant. ODOT should be allowed to expend the MCSAP grant dollars in any manner their professional safety managers are led to believe through data analysis and staff combined years of industry experience will contribute to a reduction in truck at fault accidents. Continued eligibility to receive the grant should result from attaining observable objective results. If ODOT reduces truck at fault accidents along with attendant deaths and injuries, should anyone reasonably care how many truck inspection documents ODOT submitted? If ODOT does not produce desired results without adequate explanation do not give them the grant again. This is not as difficult as it is being made to be. The frontpage headline of the January 5, 2015, Transport Topics said “Truck-Crash Deaths Inch Up–NHTSA Reports 0.5% Rise in 2013.” In Oregon comparing 2012 to 2013 ODOT reported that the rate at which truck crashes occurred declined , the number of deaths resulting from truck crashes declined and the number of injuries resulting from truck crashes declined . ODOT professional staff reasonably determined that they could most effectively carry on this good work without the distraction of FMCSA oversight and direction resulting from participation in the MCSAP grant. That is the reason Oregon declined to apply for the federal grant beginning in 2015. If ODOT accepts the MCSAP grant it obligates itself to expend time and resources in pursuit of activities like New Entrant Safety Audits and the PRISM program that empirical data and statistical regression analysis demonstrate do not translate into reducing truck at fault accidents. If ODOT rejects the MCSAP grant, then it is free to make its own judgments about performing work that is delivering the desired outcomes. Oregon had a state funded truck safety program long before there was a FMCSA or MCSAP grant. There is something fundamentally flawed about this set of circumstances. OSP was a historical recipient of MCSAP grant dollars through ODOT. In 2009 OSP determined that the federal oversight of the grant was so onerous that it no longer wanted the money. In particular, the grant was then configured that the only manner in which subcontractors could be paid was if the payment was linked to the completion and submission of an inspection document. In other words, FMCSA has a “widget” mentality and they need to have something to “count” to demonstrate to GAO, congress or whomever that they are getting a return on their grant dollars. Grant accountability is of course reasonable and a good thing. Linking grant accountability to the submission of ‘widgets” is not so good. In any event, when OSP took itself out of the program, ODOT was left to look for other external law enforcement partners to replace the “widgets” OSP was no longer getting paid for in order to expend the grant. OSP had 300 participating troopers. ODOT recruited county sheriff offices and local police departments to alternatively perform this inspection work but ended up having dozens of contracts with entities only involving limited numbers of inspectors you could count on one hand. The dollars were no longer being expended at the same rate. ODOT found that towards the end of the federal fiscal year it still had over a million dollars of unexpended grant dollars. ODOT could not give it away. So, ODOT looked at ODOT expenses that were for activities were being paid for with state funds but were eligible for MCSAP reimbursement and ODOT switched state funded work over to federal funded work. ODOT didn’t do anything different than operate its traditional state funded safety program and therefore the federal dollars were not buying any extra “bang for the buck” and the whole thing became an accounting exercise. FMCSA officials decided that their desire in reauthorization was to collapse all then separate grants (PRISM, NCE, MCSAP, etc.) into one grant and then make it a requirement that if a state applies for the single grant that it must engage in each of the individual grant functions whether or not they individually see value in them. The basic argument here is that one size does not fit all. Oregon DOT only has so many safety full-time employees. Mandating how they use them limits their ability to direct their resources to perform those tasks which their outcome-based performance measures and statistical regression analysis inform them are most productive to reduce truck at fault accidents. This mandate approach negates the value of state management review and analysis. ODOT should not be reduced to mindlessly performing prescribed tasks. ODOT to date has always endeavored to work towards a higher standard directing its efforts and investments towards activities they have statistically demonstrated to correlate with the desirable outcome of reducing truck at fault crashes. If ODOT is to simply follow federal prescription, it can abandon their outcome-based performance metrics and reassign their safety management professionals. ODOT should think long and hard before reapplying for the MCSAP grant if the underlying grant eligibility requirements and grant accounting requirements have not changed. The industry could be witness to long lines of trucks awaiting unnecessary truck inspections simply to generate the numbers of inspections necessary to account for the grant funds received. Or, just as worse, ODOT employees may be coerced into performing federally prescribed busy work that does not contribute anything to reducing truck at fault accidents.  If ODOT is to simply follow federal prescription, it can abandon their outcome-based performance metrics and reassign their safety management professionals.