ATRI Research Highlights Evolving Truck Driver Demographics
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Your Truck’s Data Recording System: Part 1
Doug Marcello
Why It Matters
Every post-2000 truck is a rolling recording system capturing data that could save your company millions – or cost you everything in litigation.
The Big Picture
Your vehicle’s electronic control module (ECM) records digital documentation of operations: speed, braking patterns, clutch engagement, engine load, and cruise control activation.
How the Digital Witness Works
Continuous streaming: ECMs capture real-time data as trucks move, creating comprehensive records of vehicle performance and driver behavior.
Trigger events: The system preserves data when vehicles exceed G-force limits – hard braking, sudden impact, or dramatic speed/direction changes.
The preservation window: Manufacturers save several seconds of data on a fraction-of-a-second basis, showing exact speed approaching impact, brake application timing, and deceleration metrics.
The “last stop” feature: Some manufacturers maintain ongoing records of recent streaming data, preserving final moments even without triggering events.
The Data Destruction Trap
Here’s the problem: “Last stop” data disappears the moment you move your truck or activate the ECM post-accident.
Think about it: Once the vehicle moves or system activates, it’s no longer recording the “last stop” – data gets overwritten like recording over your wedding video.
The exception: Hard brake or sudden impact triggering events preserve data for that timeframe regardless of subsequent actions.
The vulnerability: Minor accidents—slow stops, sideswipes, minor impacts—may not trigger recording systems, leaving you without documentation when facing aggressive legal pursuit.
What’s At Stake
In today’s “jackpot justice” environment, this data represents the difference between proving minimal impact and facing inflated claims from billboard lawyers targeting minor accidents.
The Bottom Line
Your ECM data isn’t just diagnostic information – it’s your first line of defense against aggressive litigation. Every day without proper preservation protocols means gambling your company’s financial future on every mile your trucks travel.
Click on link below to see Doug’s video.
“RULES OF THE ROAD”-PLAINTIFFS’ MANUAL ATTACK
| Doug Marcello |
| WHY IT MATTERS: Plaintiffs target your driver manuals and policies to create standards against which your held and to then inflame the jury.
THE ATTACK: You’ve heard of the “Reptile Theory”. You can’t have trucking seminar unless you have a Reptile session. Kinda like a band in Texas requiring a fiddle player, But there is another plaintiff attack that has gotten little attention and can be no less lethal. It’s called “The Rules of the Road.” Like the “Reptile Theory”, it is spelled out in a book by the same title-“Rules of the Road”. Its purpose is to create a black-and-white definition of negligence for the jury. It seeks to create rules against which your driver and your company are measured. To make it automatically negligence if you don’t follow “your rule.” To make it like a traffic violation. If you run a stop sign, it’s a violation of a rule of the road. You see where the title comes from? The “rules” are parsed from your manual, policies, newsletter, webpages,… Anything you write or say. This becomes the standard against which you and your driver are measured. Moreover, these are the potential detonator of a nuclear verdict. Remember—nuclear verdicts rarely, if ever, come from the facts of the accident. They are denotated by plaintiff’s “proof” of systemic failures. Systemic failures, they argue, by failing to live up to what is in your manual or policies. “The trucking company doesn’t even follow its own rules. Only a big old verdict will get them to do so.” |
DOT calls for public input on regulations to remove, modify
Matt Cole
Following executive orders from President Donald Trump related to the administration’s deregulatory agenda, the Department of Transportation is asking for public input on existing regulations and other regulatory documents that can be modified or repealed to help meet the administration’s goals.
In a Federal Register notice published Thursday, the DOT said it is seeking “comments and information to assist DOT in identifying existing regulations, guidance, paperwork requirements, and other regulatory obligations that can be modified or repealed, consistent with law, to ensure that DOT administrative actions do not undermine the national interest and that DOT achieves meaningful burden reduction while continuing to meet statutory obligations and ensure the safety of the U.S. transportation system.”
Trump’s executive orders require:
- Unless prohibited by law, whenever an agency proposes a new regulation, it must identify at least 10 existing regulations to be repealed, a significant expansion of a similar executive order issued during Trump’s first term requiring just two regulations be repealed for any one promulgated.
- For fiscal year 2025, all agencies must ensure that the total incremental cost of all new regulations, including repealed regulations, being finalized is significantly less than zero, as determined by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), unless otherwise required by law or instructions from OMB
- Any new incremental costs associated with new regulations must, to the extent permitted by law, be offset by the elimination of existing costs associated with at least 10 prior regulations
Citing a February executive order relative to the “President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Deregulatory Agenda,” too, the DOT Federal Register notice outlined seven categories of regulation it was seeking to identify, as all federal agencies must report them to “the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget” for potential action:
- Unconstitutional regulations and those that raise serious constitutional difficulties, exceeding the intended scope of government power.
- Regs based on unlawful delegations of legislative power.
- Regs based on faulty interpretation of underlying statutory authority or prohibition.
- Those not authorized by clear statutory authority that implicate matters of social, political or economic significance.
- Rules that impose significant costs on private parties not outweighed by public benefits.
- Regs that harm the national interest by impeding technological innovation, infrastructure development, disaster response, inflation reduction, research and development, economic development, energy production, land use, and foreign policy objectives.
- Finally, regs that impose undue burdens on small business and impede private enterprise and entrepreneurship.
To implement the executive orders, DOT is taking two immediate steps: opening public comment as described here, and creating an email inbox at Transportation.RegulatoryInfo@dot.gov. Individuals can use that inbox to identify for DOT existing regulations, guidance, reporting requirements, and other regulatory obligations that they believe can be modified or repealed, consistent with law.
In the Request for Information (RFI) published Thursday, DOT is looking to identify “regulations, guidance or reporting requirements that are obsolete, unnecessary, unjustified, or simply no longer make sense.” It’s also looking to identify regs, guidance or reporting requirements that should be altered or eliminated.
In filing comments, commenters are asked to provide, to the extent possible, supporting data or other information such as cost information, and specific suggestions regarding repeal, replacement, or modification.
DOT has provided 12 questions related to Trump’s executive orders that commenters can respond to.
Comments can be filed online here, or by emailing Transportation.RegulatoryInfo@dot.gov, and including “Regulatory Reform RFI” in the subject line. Written comments and information are requested on or before May 5.
DOT’s call for input follows a request from Trump and Elon Musk’s new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, for Americans to inform the top levels of the executive branch on waste, fraud and abuse at federal agencies.
Overdrive polling about what truckers would like to see DOGE tackle highlighted ELDs, truck parking and temporary visa/permanent work programs for foreign/immigrant drivers as among top issues they’d like to see addressed, among other areas of interest.
During President Trump’s first term, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee was tasked with making recommendations for regulations that were “outdated, unnecessary or ineffective,” and those that “impose costs that exceed benefits,” FMCSA said at the time.
FMCSA brought its own ideas to the meeting where the committee considered the task, and both FMCSA’s and MCSAC members’ recommendations from that effort can be seen here in discussion notes. Among regulatory provisions that were eliminated as a result were 1-5 a.m. periods required in any 34-hour restart under the hours of service (suspended by Congress prior), likewise requirements related to filing/storing no-defect Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports.
Members of the public were invited to provide written and/or in-person ideas to that committee at the time, yet few such ideas are reflected in the discussion notes, and it’s unclear what, if any, made it into the final report on the task, accessible via this link.
As noted above, Trump’s executive order during that term called for the elimination of just two regs for every new one instead of the 10 required during this term. Discussion among stakeholders and the FMCSA at that time, according to the MCSAC meeting discussion notes, acknowledged that “removing an obsolete rule allows the agency to add more safety regulations.”
How (and why) trucks get picked for inspection
Rob Abbott
When drivers approach weigh stations on the Interstate, they know they might be directed to pull in and submit to a thorough truck inspection. If that happens, enforcement officials will typically conduct an exhaustive examination for defects. They’ll look for worn tires, brakes out of adjustment, and burned-out lightbulbs for starters. They will also scrutinize the driver’s license, medical certificate, permits, registration, bills of lading, and electronic logging device (ELD) records.
Of course, drivers don’t relish these inspections since they take time and present the potential for citations. Most wonder what caused them to be selected for these inspections and what they can do about it. The answer is a little complex but not impossible to understand.
While enforcement officials use various tools and criteria to select trucks and drivers for inspection, the fleet’s Inspection Selection System (ISS) score is the most common. The ISS score assigned by FMCSA primarily reflects the fleet’s performance as measured by FMCSA’s Compliance, Safety Accountability (CSA) Safety Measurement System (SMS). However, there is not a 1 to 1 relationship between the two. The ISS only considers SMS measurement categories that most logically can be addressed during roadside inspections – like hours-of-service compliance and vehicle maintenance.
Each motor carrier is assigned an ISS score ranging from 1-100, which guides inspectors in selecting vehicles. The system is necessary because there are 14 million trucks on the road, but FMCSA and state enforcement agencies only have sufficient personnel to conduct approximately 3.5 million inspections annually. Higher scores are generally assigned to those with the poorest performance, though fleets lacking enough data to be scored are also prioritized for inspection. Fleets that use a weigh station bypass program often get an in-cab notification about a mile before the inspection station, telling them they may bypass the site entirely. Those that don’t must pull in, wait in line, and keep their fingers crossed that they won’t be selected for inspection.
FMCSA encourages states to inspect any fleet with an ISS score greater than 75 and allow any fleet with a score below 50 to pass through. Those with scores in between are considered “optional.” However, here’s the catch: Not every fleet with a score over 75 will get inspected each time they approach a weigh station. The state enforcement agencies simply don’t have the resources to do so. Instead, each state has its suggested “pull in” rate based on its capacity to inspect vehicles. For instance, one state might pull in every truck operated by a fleet with a score of 95 or higher, while another state might pull in only one in four. It all depends on the state and its enforcement capacity.
Remember that trucks are pulled in for reasons beyond their ISS scores. Vehicles that exceed allowable weight limits, with expired registrations, or failing to comply with state tax requirements will also get pulled in. In addition, inspectors retain the option to pick vehicles based on their discretion. For instance, if an inspector spots obvious load securement violations on a flatbed, missing lug nuts on a wheel, or an underinflated tire, the truck is more likely to get pulled in. In many states, they may also select a vehicle at random.
Complete truck inspections usually take about an hour, but there are things drivers can do to help the process go more smoothly and efficiently. Having their documentation in order and easily accessible is one of them. They should also be familiar with the steps needed to transfer data from their ELD to the enforcement officer. And, of course, it always helps to be polite and cooperative. Drivers need to understand they play an important role in facilitating the inspection process.
Want to learn more? The full ISS methodology is available here for those brave enough to dive into it. However, Fleetworthy has created an easy-to-read explanation of the system, which is available here (Understanding Inspection Selection System PDF). Fleets can access their ISS scores by registering with FMCSA to obtain an account and access their records.
Safety Culture – Operating your Motor Carrier in safety and Compliance
The civil cases resulting in NUCLEAR VERDICTS sound the alarm for tort reform. Nuclear verdicts are increasing both in amounts and frequency and the need for tort reform across the nation, especially in so-called “judicial hellholes”. Motor carriers need to be operating safely and compliant. This calls for a “Safety Culture” attitude within the management and employees. It is imperative that drivers are WELL vetted, DQ files are current, and HOS regulations and FMCSRs are followed and obeyed by ALL employees.
The FMCSA Driver Violations In 2023 show that many drivers and motor carriers are not operating safely and in compliance.
Operating a CMV Without a CDL (53,317 OOS Orders)
ELD – No Record of Duty Status (ELD Required) (33,603 OOS Orders)
False Report of Driver’s Record of Duty Status (30,772 OOS Orders)
No Record of Duty Status When One Is Required (ELD Not Required) (13,075 OOS Orders)
Driver Does Not Have a Valid Operator’s License for the CMV Being Operated (8,569 OOS Orders)
Driver Failing to Retain Previous 7 Days Records of Duty Status (8,298 OOS Orders)
Operating a Property-Carrying Vehicle Without Possessing a Valid Medical Certificate (6,259 OOS Orders)
Driver Operating a CMV Without Proper Endorsements or in Violation of Restrictions (6,023 OOS Orders)
Prohibited From Performing Safety Sensitive Functions Per 382.501(a) in the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse (5,447 OOS Orders)
False Record of Duty Status – Improper Use of Personal Conveyance Exception (4,855 OOS Orders)
The same for CMV violations discovered in 2023.
Tire-Flat and/or Audible Air Leak 393.75A3 (98,922 OOS Orders)
Brakes Out of Service: The Number of Defective Brakes Is Equal to or Greater Than 20 Percent of the Service Brakes on the Vehicle or Combination 396.3ABOS (49,501 OOS Orders)
Inoperative Turn Signal 393.9TS (43,200 OOS Orders)
No/Improper Breakaway or Emergency Braking 393.43 (27,965 OOS Orders)
Flat Tire or Fabric Exposed 393.75A (23,127 OOS Orders)
Inoperative Brake Lamps 393.9BRKLAMP (22,893 OOS Orders)
Inoperable Required Lamp 393.9 (18,929 OOS Orders)
Brake Tubing and Hose Adequacy 393.45 (15,977 OOS Orders)
Axle Positioning Parts Defective/Missing 393.207A (12,574 OOS Orders)
Leaking/Spilling/Blowing/Falling Cargo 393.100B (12,518 OOS Orders)
These driver and vehicle violations indicate that many motor carriers are failing to adhere to the guiding star of compliance, the FMCSRs. The plaintiff attorneys do not have to look far for the portable ATMs for large payouts.
49CFR part 390.1(e) Knowledge of and compliance with the regulations;
(1) Every employer shall be knowledgeable of and comply with all regulations contained in this subchapter that are applicable to that motor carrier’s operations.
(2) Every driver and employee involved in motor carrier operations shall be instructed regarding, and shall comply with, all applicable regulations contained in this subchapter.
(3) All motor vehicle equipment and accessories required by this chapter shall be maintained in compliance with all applicable performance and design criteria set forth in this subchapter.