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Out-of-service rates may not be an accurate measure of the safety of the trucking industry, according to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, the international organization of state, provincial and federal truck safety inspectors.

Officers select trucks that look as if they may have a safety problem; they also target specific carriers that the computers show as poor safety performers. This focus “may initially increase the out-of-service rates,” CVSA officials said in a letter to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who has grown increasingly critical of trucking safety.

At a news conference Oct. 21, Mr. Wolf said “there is growing concern that trucks are dangerous” (TT, 10-26-98, p. 92). He also stated that “trucking accidents, fatalities and fatality rates have been increasing at an alarming rate,” and said he plans to launch an investigation into the current levels of truck inspections and carrier compliance reviews.

Harry Eubanks, president of CVSA and manager of motor carrier safety enforcement for the Oregon Department of Transportation, said there is room for improvement in the safety arena but the trucking industry is not dangerous.

“The raw numbers don’t tell the whole story,” Mr. Eubanks said. “What they say is that we have become better at targeting unsafe carriers.”

The day after Mr. Wolf’s news conference, the Washington Post reported that more than half the trucks inspected by Virginia State Police in 1997 were defective and that more than 20% were placed out of service. The Post said Virginia statistics were in line with the national 22% out-of-service rate.

According to the Federal Highway Administration, there were 4,572 fatal truck-involved crashes in 1997 compared with 4,413 in 1996. The number of fatalities from those crashes reached 5,355 last year, up from 5,142 in 1996.

American Trucking Associations officials said that until total mileage numbers are made available for last year, the significance of those numbers is unknown. The “fatal crash rate” is a better indicator of trucking safety, according to ATA. That rate is the number of fatal crashes per 100 million miles of truck travel.

Some state enforcement officers believe statistics are not the best way to gauge truck safety.

“It’s kind of subjective,” said Ray Walker, a state trooper for Maryland’s Motor Carrier Division. “There are a lot of trucking companies that are safety conscious and who absolutely do not want a violation. And there are others who don’t care.”

Sgt. David Feather of the Virginia State Police said Virginia’s numbers aren’t that bad. He said 7,000 trucks pass through the Dumfries scale each day. Over the course of a year, 14,000 trucks are inspected at the northern Virginia site.

In his opinion, he said, “it’s looking pretty good for the industry.”

When considering out-of-service rates, it’s important to keep in mind a variety of factors, one of which is the various levels of inspections, Mr. Walker of Maryland said. Out-of-service rates also don’t account for carriers who have been re-inspected, he said.

Richard Henderson, director of government affairs for CVSA, said inspections by their nature are apt to produce varying results.

“You could do 2 million inspections on a different set of vehicles and get a completely different outcome,” he said.

As far as the quality of inspections goes, Mr. Walker said his inspectors are top-notch and so is their work. “In Virginia we have an excellent program, and what we practice in Virginia is done nationwide,” he said. Mr. Walker is an associate staff member on OMC’s National Training Center, which promotes national inspection standards.