The FMCSRs contain detailed requirements for specific concerns such as hours of service (HOS) (49 CFR Part 395), but say little about the basic policies and procedures that are the foundation of a workplace safety program. The only required written procedures/policies are related to drug and alcohol testing (49 CFR Part 382) and a written security plan for hazardous materials (49 CFR Part 172.800). The regulations contain no requirements for a written crash/incident review policy, discipline procedure, driver hiring/orientation, and training in vehicle operation and inspection.

The regulations include some training requirements for drivers of longer combination vehicles, entry-level drivers and HazMat drivers, including retraining for HazMat drivers every 3 years (49 CFR Parts 380 and 397). However, there are no requirements for annual defensive driving training, HOS training, truck inspection training, or annual drug and alcohol training (although some initial training is required).

In the past, FMCSA rarely interacted with commercial fleets, with the exception of compliance reviews. This review is a full-blown audit that results in a rating of satisfactory, conditional or unsatisfactory. Fines can result, and an unsatisfactory rating could cause the motor carrier to be shut down. FMCSA also conducted safety reviews, typically after a significant event such as a fatality or too many serious crashes in a short period of time. Generally, however, few carriers interacted with the agency, and the number of drivers and carriers was far greater than the number of compliance reviews performed each year (FMCSA, 2013).

In 2010, FMCSA introduced the Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program (FMCSA, CSA). Its goal is to significantly reduce the number of large truck crashes and make this segment of highway transportation safer (Figure 1). The first phase of the CSA model is measurement. Violations are grouped into seven categories of similar violations, referred to as BASICs (behavioral analysis and safety improvement categories):

These categories are assigned weights as to the probability of causing a crash. Since development of the original model, FMCSA has made several changes: fatigue is now HOS; the cargo category is now a dedicated hazardous materials category; and load securement violations are now in the maintenance BASIC.

The middle phase of the model, intervention, makes ANSI/ASSE Z15.1 directly relevant to commercial fleets. FMCSA envisioned a broader array of intervention tools that would be applied directly or in a progressive fashion to motivate fleet operators to be more proactive in their safety efforts. These intervention tools include:

Under CSA, FMCSA is seeking more interactions with carriers that have problems as indicated by the safety measurement system (SMS), but the agency wants to use methods that are less intensive than traditional compliance reviews. One early contact intervention, warning letters (which are generated based on SMS scores), has drawn much attention from commercial fleet owners. For example, Nationwide’s regular customer service outreach includes a DOT compliance class that covers FMCSRs for motor carriers. Invitations were sent to a large number of carriers, but only a small percentage attended, unless they had recently received a warning letter.

Another intervention targets a company at the roadside, looking for specific violations as indicated by the SMS. This may include off-site and on-site reviews. For example, if the scores indicate that a carrier has HOS problems, agency investigators may visit a carrier’s main office, review HOS logs and take action based on the findings. In such a case, the investigators will likely review only HOS records, not other safety-related documents such as maintenance records or driver qualification files. This approach allows agency personnel to have contact with more carriers and to focus only on identified problem areas. The rationale is that more contact or increased potential for contact will prompt carriers to pay more attention to SMS scores and to make improvements in order to avoid fines.

The cooperative safety plan is a follow-on intervention under CSA. In some ways, it addresses a shortcoming of FMCSA’s approach: the lack of a model that allows the agency to work more cooperatively with carriers to reduce violations and improve performance. After intervening at a company, the agency may agree to withhold a notice of violation if the company can devise corrective action. FMCSA then either agrees or disagrees that the proposed actions represent a good-faith effort, and monitors progress.

This is where the gap in the federal regulations with regard to written policies and procedures is evident, and this is where ANSI/ASSE Z15.1-2012 comes into play. It is difficult to envision how FMCSA can be assured that a carrier will follow the cooperative safety plan in the absence of the policies and procedures needed for implementation and the documented training to show commitment and improvement. The answer is simple. To participate, a carrier must submit a written cooperative safety plan to FMCSA. Such a plan will need to be supported by a policies and procedures manual. Using Z15.1 as a guide will facilitate development of this manual.

FMCSA offers the safety management cycle (Figure 2) as a guide to help motor carriers develop safety plan documents. The cycle starts with the concept that policies and procedures are needed to move forward. The agency has created a document for each of the seven BASICs to help companies develop policies and procedures for that category in accordance with the safety management cycle (FMCSA, What Is).

The safe system approach to road safety management originated with the Vision Zero model developed in the Swedish Road Administration in the mid-1990s. Although road users are still expected to follow the rules of the road, Vision Zero makes designers responsible for continuously modifying the road system as situations in which human error leads to crash-related injuries are identified (Johansson, 2009). Traditional road safety approaches aimed at preventing crashes, while the Vision Zero goal is to eliminate death and serious injury. This model accepts that road users will inevitably make errors, so its aim is to engineer the road environment and the vehicle to be so forgiving of human error that deaths and serious injuries will be eliminated.

Although Vision Zero was formulated as a framework for managing the entire transport system, it also applies to management of road safety within companies and organizations. In the same way that it sees the road environment as a system that should be forgiving of human error, Vision Zero calls for a management system at the organizational level that is responsible for modifying work conditions to reduce, if not eliminate, the potential for road traffic injury. A primary contribution of this model is its support for shifting responsibility away from the individual driver toward the company or organization that employs the driver.

Similar road safety initiatives have been adopted in other countries, most prominently in the Netherlands (Sustainable Safety strategy) and Australia (Safe System model) (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2008). In 2009, the U.S. began to move in a similar direction with the launch of Toward Zero Deaths (http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/tzd), a strategy that conceptualized any injury or death on the road as unacceptable.

Another outgrowth of the safe system approach to road safety is ISO 39001:2012, Road Traffic Safety Management Systems—Requirements With Guidance for Use. Because the Swedish Standards Institute is secretariat for ISO 39001, this global consensus standard was strongly influenced by Vision Zero. This standard was designed for use by any public or private organization seeking to improve its road safety performance, develop and implement a road safety management system, and check its progress toward road safety targets. It is relevant for organizations that transport goods or people, or whose employees or contractors interact with the road system in any way in the course of doing business. Like ANSI/ASSE Z15.1, ISO 39001’s requirements are placed within a framework of roads, vehicles and users.

ANSI/ASSE Z15.1 is consistent with the safe system approach in several ways:

The global initiatives and ANSI/ASSE Z15.1 share common features that are especially relevant to the management of vehicles by companies and organizations:

The Haddon matrix is a tool that can be used in conjunction with ANSI/ASSE Z15.1 to identify program gaps. It was developed by American epidemiologist William Haddon Jr., a prominent advocate for crash prevention and injury control and the first administrator of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Haddon conceptualized injury prevention as a problem of reducing or eliminating the exchange of harmful mechanical energy (Haddon, 1968). The simplest version of the matrix is a 3 × 3 table (Figure 3, p. 54). The rows denote phases, or points in time when a hazard is present or an intervention can be put in place. The columns denote factors, or sources of risk or points of intervention to control the risk (Haddon, 1972).

Use of this matrix is not limited to road safety for the general population. The matrix can be expanded to fit the needs of any organization that operates motor vehicles, and this expansion can aid in implementing ANSI/ASSE Z15.1. Haddon (1968) showed how the human data cell could be separated into road user types such as drivers, pedestrians and motorcyclists, allowing a more refined assessment of risks and interventions.

For organizational users, research and policy documents have recommended the addition of columns to cover factors related to management and journeys (e.g., European Transport Safety Council). Addition of information on management reinforces ANSI/ASSE Z15.1, which covers the importance of leadership, management commitment and a strong administrative structure before discussing policies for the driver, vehicle and operating environment. Published case studies of successful fleet safety programs underscore the importance of having a steering committee charged with implementation and oversight. Doing so promotes broad buy-in across organizational units and guards against the danger of entrusting the program to a single individual whose departure could threaten the program’s future (Murray, Ison & Gallemore, 2009).

The Haddon matrix helps a company identify program gaps by asking these questions: “Which of these risks are we addressing?” and “Where are policies and procedures needed?” For identifying and implementing interventions, the matrix helps a firm to ask, What interventions can we put in place to reduce or eliminate these risks? Table 1 (p. 54) shows how the matrix might be used to assess program gaps or to check for compliance with ANSI/ASSE Z15.1 elements.

Several prominent policy documents have cited the Haddon matrix as a valuable tool for identifying problems and prioritizing interventions. Chief among these is the influential World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention (Peden, Scurfield, Sleet, et al., 2004). In addition, the plan of action developed for the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2010–2020 is based on five pillars: 1) road safety management; 2) safer vehicles; 3) safer roads and mobility; 4) safer road users; and 5) postcrash response (World Health Organization and UN Road Safety Collaboration, 2010). These pillars mirror both the Haddon matrix and sections 3 through 6 of ANSI/ASSE Z15.1. Finally, fleet and safety managers, fleet service providers and researchers have reported successfully using the matrix to assess program gaps (Darby, Murray & Raeside, 2009; Murray, et al., 2009; Wallington, Murray, Darby, et al., 2012).

For the rates suggested by ANSI/ASSE Z15.1-2012, the numerator is generally either the number of incidents or the number of incidents resulting in injury. The denominator is the exposure unit of interest. Key denominator data for tracking fleet safety performance are the number of vehicles and number of vehicle miles traveled. Depending on its operating environment, a carrier may elect to report rates based on units of service such as the number of deliveries or loads. Selected rates included in Appendix H are discussed here.

An incident rate based on the number of vehicles is essentially the percentage of the vehicle fleet involved in an incident over some predetermined period. It can help an organization assess the percentage of the fleet that may be out of service at any given time, and can also inform decisions about vehicle replacement.

Incident rate based on number of vehicles operated: Numberofincidents×100Numberofvehicles

Rates based on vehicle miles traveled are important measures because they are based on exposure to road traffic hazards. They may also be adapted to compare the rate of incidents for different types or models of vehicles in the fleet, or under different operating conditions.

Incident rate based on vehicle mileage: Numberofincidents×1,000,000Vehiclemilestraveled

The calculation of the rate of injury incidence is another good example of the flexibility afforded by ANSI/ASSE Z15.1. The numerator may be adjusted in several ways. At the outset, it is important to establish an organization-wide definition of an injury. Z15.1 defines an injury as “physical harm or damage to a person resulting in the marring of appearance, personal discomfort and/or bodily harm, impairment or death.” By design, this definition does not dictate specific criteria; instead, an organization may choose its own threshold. Common thresholds for classifying a case as an injury are the requirement for any kind of medical treatment, restricted work activity, or 4 or more hours of lost work time.

Once a clear definition of an injury is established, if the goal is to supplement data on lost productivity or workers’ compensation costs, the numerator might appropriately be the number of injury incidents for workers in the organization only. If the goal is to assess the number of incidents with potential liability, the numerator might be the number of incidents involving injury to a third party. If the goal is to assess overall exposure for the organization, the two numbers might be combined.

Injury incident rate: Numberofincidentswithinjury×1,000,000Vehiclemilestraveled

Basic rates listed in Appendix H of the standard are useful for summarizing an organization’s road safety performance and tracking progress over time. The standard can also help an organization set targets and track progress toward specific program goals and objectives. Again, elements of the standard, organized within the Haddon matrix, help an organization select the most appropriate KPIs and ensure that data are being collected to calculate these indicators.

When considering data collection related to management of a motor vehicle safety program, an employer must not lose sight of which data elements are essential and which are merely good to know. Data collection should be linked to specific reporting requirements: those needed to calculate basic rates described above and those that contribute to calculation of KPIs. (There are many other reporting requirements related to financial, human resources and regulatory compliance, but these are outside the scope of this article.) Data elements are generally a combination of process and outcome measures. Outcomes are important because they are the end points a program wants to achieve (e.g., a set level in reduction in crashes per million miles). The rates highlighted in the appendix are outcome measures.

Processes are also important because they represent milestones along the way to achieving outcomes, and they can pinpoint places in the management system where adjustments are needed to continue progress toward the desired outcome (Poister, 2004). A process indicator relevant to ANSI/ASSE Z15.1 might be the percentage of workers completing behind-the-wheel training within 6 months of hire.

The Haddon matrix example (Figure 3) can be a starting point for developing process and outcome KPIs for specific program areas. Figure 4 shows how an organization might determine what is needed to support a KPI related to distracted driving crashes. Some process-related measures are quantitative, while others will be based on more qualitative assessments and knowledge of the organization. It is important to note the distinction between a KPI and a target value for that indicator. A KPI is the measure, but the organization should also determine the value it wants to achieve for that KPI.