New Mexico
Trucking Association
4809 Jefferson St. N.E.
Albuquerque, NM 87109
505 884-5575
505 884-3661 (fax)
Click on ITH to link
June 29, 2010
In This Issue:
Scanned Logs Guidance Issued
Motor Carrier Protection Act of 2010
Employee Misclassification Prevention Act
HAZMAT Registration Due June 30
Gasses Falls
FMCSA Announces National Registry Program Outreach Meetings
FMCSA Fines Transport Company Owner $72,760 After Fatal Crash
J.J. Keller Offers Program to Help CSA 2010 Education
NM DOT Website Tracks Road Status
Unsure
of State road conditions or closures?
Want to check the weather forecast. Then check out the New
Mexico Department of Transportation's website for compressive to State
traffic information. Click
here to visit the NM DOT website.
On the NM DOT site, you'll find a wide array of State maps, photo galleries, video galleries and much more.
You will also find State-wide and city specific details on:
Road Conditions
Accidents & Incidents
Road Closures
Road Construction
Commercial Vehicle Permits
Weather Alerts
Weather Forecasts
NMTA CSA2010 Meetings
NMTA has scheduled a series of CSA 2010 meetings and briefings for the near future they are scheduled for the following locations:
Thursday, July 8, 2010 – Farmington, NM at San Juan Coilege.
All members are encouraged to take these opportunities to interface with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration officials during these meetings.
ATA Urges Improvements in CSA 2010
The American Trucking Associations (ATA) fully supports CSA 2010’s objectives of targeting unsafe operators, changing their behavior, and removing the most egregious actors from the road. However, ATA has concerns with the current design of CSA 2010 and how these flaws will affect the industry and highway safety if not corrected, Transport America Executive Vice President and COO Keith Klein said June 23 to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit.
In his testimony on behalf of ATA, Klein said ATA supports the CSA 2010 initiative because it is based on safety performance rather than compliance with paperwork requirements; it focuses limited enforcement resources on specific areas of deficiency, rather than on comprehensive on-site audits; and because it will eventually provide real-time, updated, safety performance measurements. “All three of these attributes address long-standing problems with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) current monitoring and enforcement program,” Klein said.
“FMCSA deserves to be applauded for its development and implementation of CSA 2010 to date. The agency has gone to great lengths to test the program, develop and implement an extensive outreach and education program, and demonstrated a willingness to accept stakeholder input,” Klein said. “However, ATA has a number of serious concerns relating to how CSA 2010 will work that, if not addressed, will have a dramatic impact on motor carriers and on highway safety.”
To address the primary concerns with CSA 2010, ATA recommends that FMCSA:
- Make crash accountability or “causation” determinations on truck-involved crashes before entering them into a carrier’s record so drivers and carriers are held accountable only for crashes they cause.
- Use vehicle miles traveled (VMT), not number of trucks or power units, as a carrier’s exposure measure.
- Focus on using only actual citations for moving violations and not unadjudicated “warnings” issued by law enforcement.
The intent of raising these concerns is two fold, Klein said. “The first is a matter of safety, to ensure that unsafe carriers are selected for interventions, and the second is a matter of equity, to ensure that relatively safe carriers are not selected for interventions.”
Klein said that in addition to the primary concerns, ATA is also concerned about how the severity weights for violations are assigned; measuring carriers based on violations committed by drivers who have since been terminated; measuring carriers based on citations that have been dismissed in a court of law; inequitable measurement of open deck or flatbed carriers; overly broad peer groups; and inconsistent state enforcement practices.
“A system that is based on inconsistent data and a flawed scoring methodology will not achieve its objectives. Instead, it will create inequities for some safe carriers and inappropriately allow some unsafe carriers to avoid scrutiny and consequences,” Klein said.
To avoid these consequences, Klein recommended that FMCSA wait to implement the program after they have the opportunity to review an evaluation study of CSA 2010 currently underway by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. FMCSA must also make the corrections based on ATA’s three primary concerns before the initial implementation of CSA 2010 and before making the information publicly available.
“Any system based on evaluating motor carrier safety comparatively must be grounded in sound data, sound math, and consistent measurements to be both equitable and effective,” Klein said.
CSA 2010 Meeting Set For Farmington, NM
On July 8th, New Mexico Trucking Association will host a CSA 2010 seminar at the San Juan College (Sun's Room) in Farmington.
The seminar will run from 10 am to 12 noon. The presentation will be by Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration personnel. Please contact the NMTA at 505 884-5575 to register.
DOT Awards $6 Million For Highway Truck Parking Test
The $6 million recently awarded by Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will be used to add parking capacity and to continue to develop innovative ways to provide updated information on space availability to professional truck drivers in the following locations:
- along I-15 in Utah,
- I-10 in Mississippi,
- I-5 in Oregon,
- I-40 in Tennessee and
- I-81 in Pennsylvania.
The $6 million awarded is part of the Truck Parking Facilities pilot program, enacted under SAFETEA-LU to provide funding to address the shortage of long-term parking for commercial vehicles on the highway system.
"Professional truck drivers need to have access to safe, legal parking so they can get the rest they need to deliver the goods we rely on," ATA Senior Vice President Dave Osiecki said. "Without access to adequate parking at safety rest areas, drivers must often settle on less safe parking locations like a shoulder or a ramp. They should not be put in these dangerous situations."
The ATA strongly encourages Congress to pass "Jason's Law" legislation, introduced by Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), to further address shortages in safe parking for commercial motor vehicles on the NHS. Named after slain New York truck driver Jason Rivenburg, the legislation would allow the Secretary of Transportation, in cooperation with appropriate State, regional, and local governments, to allocate funds for new safety rest areas and the expansion and improvement of existing safety rest areas that serve the highway system.
At the urging of the ATA and the Virginia Trucking Association, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell re-opened earlier this year the 19 safety rest areas closed by the Commonwealth's previous administration as a cost-cutting strategy. Several other states are looking at closing safety rest areas to lower transportation costs. The ATA continues to work with the states to educate them on the important safety benefits safety rest areas provide for all motorists.
Click here to read more:
New Mexico
2010 Safety Awards
Driver of the Year:
Kelvin Holly, ABF Freight
Systems
Phil Snapka Allied Member of the Year:
Lori Harris, HUB International
Jim Wilcox Sr. Safety Professional of the Year:
Don Boyer, LRC Trucking
Outstanding Service to the Industry Award:
John Holland, ABF Freight (Retired)
2010 Fleet Safety Awards
100,000 - 500,000 Miles:
ABF Freight Systems
500,000 – 1,000,000
Support Contract Services/UPS
1,000,000 – 3,000,000
Conway Freight
3,000,000 – 5,000,000
United Petroleum Transport/OTL
5,000,000 & over
Fedex Freight
Well done and congratulations to all the individuals and fleets concerned – all of these awards were well deserved.
2010 N.M. Truck Driving Championships
Overall Grand Champion
Kirk Weis, ABF Freight Systems
Overall Team Champions
ABF Freight Systems
Rookie-of-the-Year
Kevin Childers, Groendyke Transport
Step Van Rookie-of-the-Year
Chris Shaw, Fedex Express
Straight Truck:
1 st. - Kirk Weis, ABF Freight Systems
2 nd.- Kim Hendrix, YRC
3 rd. - Shannon Mike, Fedex Freight
3-Axle:
1st. - Jose Mora, Conway Freight
2nd. - Armando Rojas, YRC
3rd. - Chris Kovacs, YRC
4-Axle:
1st. - Carlos Sandoval, Conway Freight
2nd.- Donnie Tafoya, ABF Freight Systems
3rd. - Mario Gurule, Fedex National LTL
5-Axle Sleeper:
1st. - Ralph Garcia, ABF Freight Systems
2nd. - Jeff Scott, Fortune Transport
3rd. - CJ Owens, LRC Transport
Flatbed:
1st. - Michael Contreras, ABF Freight Systems
2nd. - Bryon Myres, Navajo Refining
3rd. - Garrett Santillan, Conway Freight
Tanker:
1st. - Tom Fullerton, Conway Freight
2nd. - Kevin Childers, Groendyke Transport
3rd. - Jarret Poe, Navajo Refining
Twin Trailers:
1st. - Tony Vigil, Conway Freight
2nd. - Luis Hermida, Fedex Freight
3rd. - Dion Saiz, Fedex Freight
Step Van:
1st. - Chris Shaw, Fedex Express
2nd. - Eric Y. Martinez, Fedex Ground
3rd. - Jeffry Sena, Fedex Ground
Click here for a PDF copy of the 2010 TDC Winner list above.