Motor Carrier Safety Progress Report

I. Use of MCMIS Crash Data

The December 31, 2011, Motor Carrier Safety Progress Report was the first to use the State-reported crash data from the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS) for reporting fatalities, injuries, and crashes involving large trucks and buses. Previous reports relied on the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and General Estimates System (GES) data received from NHTSA. The MCMIS crash data are available more quickly than the FARS and GES, which typically are not available until sometime between July and December of the year following the crash. States have a target goal of 90 days after a crash to report the data to FMCSA. Therefore, the crash data presented in the Safety Progress Report are up to the end of the quarter 3 months prior to the date of the Report. However, we recognize that not all crashes are reported within the 90-day timeframe, so the counts of fatalities, injuries, and crashes for the most recent year are likely to increase in subsequent reports as new data are entered into MCMIS. Because crashes are considered in evaluating a carrier’s safety performance, we do not “lock down” the MCMIS crash file; rather, we continue to accept crash data submissions from the States to ensure we have the most accurate accounting. In general, we consider crash data in the Safety Progress Report to be “preliminary” for 18 months to allow for changes.

Additional changes to the crash data displayed in the Safety Progress Report result from the differences in how crashes are defined in MCMIS and FARS/GES:

Fatal crashes: The MCMIS fatal crash data will differ slightly from FARS, because MCMIS uses the gross combination weight rating (GCWR) to determine whether a crash should be reported to MCMIS, whereas FARS uses the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR). Thus, a truck pulling a trailer where the GCWR is greater than 10,000 pounds would be reported in MCMIS as a large truck crash, but would not in FARS if the GVWR of the truck alone was not greater than 10,000 pounds.

Non-fatal crashes: GES data are estimates based on a sample survey of crashes, whereas MCMIS contains a census of all large truck and bus crashes reported to FMCSA by the States. There are also definitional differences between GES and MCMIS. MCMIS uses the National Governors' Association recommended crash thresholds to define injury crashes as ones where the person injured is taken to a medical facility for immediate medical attention, and tow-away crashes as ones where at least one vehicle is towed from the scene as a result of disabling damage suffered in the crash. GES follows the National Safety Council's KABCO scale, where injury crashes involve disabling, evident, or possible injuries, and property-damage-only crashes involve no fatalities and no apparent injuries. Thus, the MCMIS injury and towaway crashes are subsets of the GES-eligible injury and property-damage-only crashes, and therefore are always less than the GES estimates.

II. CSA Data

Until the full implementation of the CSA program across all the States, the 100% CSA State activities are displayed separately from the States that are "phasing" the implementation. The reviews and interventions conducted by both groups add up to the "total reviews performed," but the activities differ between the two groups. The Safety Progress Report contains an array of pre- and post-investigation actions, such as warning letters, notices of violations, and out-of-service orders.

(July 12, 2012 release)