Doubt Cast On Regulator's Effectiveness in Cutting Accidents

We’ve asserted all along that regulations have little if any impact on the frequency of accidents in the transportation sector.  Now, researchers at Wells Fargo are backing us up.  Although it seems like heresy to make such claims, we ask that you simply take the time to read our white paper, The Perversion of Safety.  In it, we develop the theme that safety regulations force carriers to focus on compliance and that takes their time, energy and attention away from what’s really important: human behaviors.  The only way to bring down accident frequency is to understand the concept of safety, which means freedom from risk and risk management, which is a systematic process for reducing accidents.  Accidents happen when human beings engage in a risk-taking behavior.  Regulations don’t affect behavior. Look at it this way, if regulations controlled human behavior, we wouldn’t have two million Americans in prison today!

Note the comments below in an article by Oliver B. Patton for Truckinginfo, quoting Jeff Tucker, CEO of QualifiedCarriers and of Trucker Company Worldwide:

Research Disagrees

Tucker also cited an analysis of CSA produced last November by Wells Fargo Securities.

The Wells Fargo analysts, Anthony Gallo and Michael Busche, said it is not clear that CSA scores reflect either the carrier's risk or the likelihood of an accident.

"According to our analysis of the 200 largest carriers in the CSA database, we find no meaningful statistical relationship between actual accident frequency and BASIC scores for Unsafe Driving, Fatigued Driving or Driver Fitness," they said in their report.

The agency responded in March with a counter analysis by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute and the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center.

"FMCSA strongly disagrees with the findings of the Wells Fargo report," the agency said.

See the full article here:

http://www.truckinginfo.com/news/news-detail.asp?news_id=76850
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Mark G. Gardner
Chief Executive Officer
Avatar Management Services, Inc