Do you drive
any differently when sharing the highway with a truck hauling gasoline? What if
you knew the truck in the lane next to you was hauling explosives…how would
your driving change then?
Driving a
commercial truck is a high-stress, difficult job as it is, but when truckers
haul security-sensitive materials like explosives, missiles or ammunition, the
job becomes far more stressful and downright dangerous, not just for the truck
drivers themselves, but for the rest of us sharing the road with them.
In the fiscal
year 2014, the Department of Defense (DOD) facilitated the transport of nearly
50,000 separate shipments of security-sensitive materials within the
continental United States. DOD contracts with private-sector trucking companies
to haul this sensitive material.
Not just any
trucking company can haul security-sensitive materials—the Department of
Defense uses safety performance data from the Department of Transportation
(DOT) as well as its own internal inspections to evaluate whether or not
carriers can properly transport high-risk material in accordance with the Transportation
Protective Service (TPS) program. In other words, there are requirements that
carriers have to meet and maintain in order to continue earning contracts to
haul security sensitive materials for the government.
The question
is, how stringent are these requirements?
According
to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, the DOT
safety performance information that DOD relies on to evaluate the safety
performance of commercial motor carriers that transport security sensitive
materials under the TPS program simply isn’t sufficient or reliable.
DOT uses data
from crash investigations, roadside inspections and other sources in order to
create safety ratings for commercial truck carriers. These scores are known as
Safety Measurement System (SMS) scores.
SMS scores
track a carrier’s safety performance in several key areas, including hazardous
materials compliance and vehicle maintenance. The scores can range anywhere
from zero to 100 (a score of 100 would be the worst relative safety performance
score, a zero would be the best relative safety performance score).
The GAO
report stated that between November 2012 and October 2014, DOD contracted with
55 TPS carriers.
Of those, seven did not even have a DOT safety rating. Twelve others had DOT
safety ratings that were 20 years or older.
DOD conducts
its own internal inspections of TPS carriers (using contractors), partially
compensating for this issue, and officials with
DOD told GAO that all inspected carriers passed. However, the GAO report
maintains that DOD is not using readily available violation data to evaluate
TPS carriers. For example, DOD doesn’t review data on violations related to the
use of controlled substances among drivers who transport hazardous materials.
Without reviewing the available violation data, DOD is not in a position to
effectively evaluate the carriers it contracts to transport security-sensitive
material, the report says.
Furthermore,
while DOD does collect data stemming from incidents involving the carriers it
contracts with, it doesn’t evaluate the data to determine if systemic trends
and/or patterns are linked to safety risks. It also doesn’t fully investigate incidents
to determine root causes, which doesn’t allow for appropriate safety
recommendations to be made in the wake of an incident (or series of related
incidents).
Crawfordville, Georgia - Truck Transporting Explosives Catches Fire
In September
of 2014, a truck caught fire while transporting explosives just outside of
Crawfordville, Georgia. The truck’s trailer was scorched and the tires were
completely burned off in the incident. Luckily (more precisely, miraculously),
no injuries were reported in this incident.
A DOD
investigation into the Crawfordville incident didn’t begin until February of
this year—more than four months after the fire occurred. Think of the
implications…how can a thorough investigation of an incident like this provide
definitive results when so many variables were allowed to change in the span of
all that time?
The
investigation report did not identify whether there was any damage to the
explosive materials in the trailer, which is unsettling in and of itself. While
the report on the Crawfordville incident contained findings, conclusions, and
recommendations, the DOD contractor that investigated the incident failed to determine the cause of
the incident because “no one was required to search for the root cause,”
according to the GAO report. Officials with
the U.S. Army agreed that the investigation was not completed because the cause
was never identified.
Huson, Montana - Trailer Fire
In December
of 2014, a trailer hauling security-sensitive materials caught fire in Huson,
Montana. Again, it took months for a DOD investigation to begin.
A DOD report
on the investigation did not contain the cause of the incident, findings
or conclusions on
what caused the fire, nor did the report include recommendations on corrective steps to be taken for
preventing similar
incidents from occurring.
17,280 Hand Grenades in a Broken Down Tractor Trailer
In May 2012,
a truck driver that was hauling 17,280 hand grenades had to make an unscheduled
stop to repair
satellite equipment. It was later revealed and reported that the DOD
transportation officer who inspected the truck knew that the satellite
equipment was not working before the truck driver left the loading dock. For
arms, ammunition, and explosives and other security-sensitive shipments that
require satellite equipment, DOD requires an inspector to ensure that the
satellite equipment is operable as part of the inspection prior to materials
being loaded onto the truck.
The GAO
report found that TPS carriers hauling high-risk materials experienced
mechanical breakdowns on 749 occasions between 2011 and 2014. In nearly all of
these breakdowns, the truck was stopped and out of service for more than 2
hours.
It’s Not What We Know…It’s What We Don’t Know That Frightens Us
This is the
heart of the problem—there are so many unknowns surrounding how and why these
incidents involving security-sensitive shipments are happening. DOD doesn’t
know if contracted carriers are truly safe because it isn’t asking the right
questions, nor is it utilizing all of the resources it has to properly monitor
and evaluate them. It also isn’t in a position to see if there are any trends
pinpointing why carrier incidents are happening because subsequent
investigations are inadequate.
The GAO’s
recommendations to DOD make sense:
- Address what actions
need to be
undertaken when carriers have absent or dated safety ratings, or if
poor safety scores exist.
- Document the consequences to be enforced
in the event that carriers fail
to meet program requirements.
- Require reviews of available
violation data.
- Fully investigate incidents.
The
consequences of doing nothing to address these concerns will not just affect
highway safety, it’ll also affect our national security. With the ever-present
threat of terrorism in the public consciousness, no one is comfortable knowing
there are serious safety issues that aren’t being addressed in the
transportation of security-sensitive materials across the country.
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