You Shouldn’t Take
Anything for Granted!

Sometimes I feel we must sound like a broken record, but there are those issues with such importance that it bears’ repeating, “Don’t take safety or your responsibilities for safety compliance for granted”!

Here at C-DATA (soon to be AADT-American Alliance Drug Testing), we interact daily with our client’s experiences, especially when it comes to their safety compliance and the CHP/DOT community as it relates to drug and alcohol testing.

We are committed to taking a lead within the industry through extensive staff training, participation in industry organizations, including the CVSA (Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance) and SAPPA (Substance Abuse Professionals Association) and our involvement and support with state and federal agencies. We track the latest industry and regulatory updates and associated news reports daily. We strongly feel there is a need to relay this knowledge and experience to our clients/members so they too don’t experience the same mistakes as those who are not provided this information by their current consortium/TPA or who have failed to heed the warnings.

Although we may find variations or unique interpretations within federal and states enforcement regulatory community whether it’s from inspector to inspector or from divisional area to divisional area, one thing is certain, “Ignorance is not always bliss and you shouldn’t take anything for granted”, you have to know what you’re doing in this industry to successfully survive.
Just because a Motor Carrier Specialist (MCS) or DOT Field Office Safety Investigator that performs your inspections may be familiar with you and your trucking business and they have been somewhat lapsed or easy in the past, this does not mean the next time around when they call or come out you will be treated the same way. During your future inspection, it may be a different inspector or your previous inspector’s expectations may have changed, or, and this is usually the case, there are changes in enforcement policy because there has been a change or clarification to the regulations.

• Recently, a client called in a panic, they were having a CHP BIT Inspection and Drug and Alcohol Compliance Review and although it was their usual inspector, he was asking for more documentation than in the past, so they did not have all their reports readily available. Apparently their previous inspector was training a new inspector so he was doing a comprehensive inspection completely by the book.
  Or
  
• We must not forget those client/members who have just been contacted by their BIT Inspector (CHP) to set-up an inspection within the next few days, so they are up most of the night over the course of the next few days trying to catch up on their maintenance records, even though they swore the last time they wouldn’t do that again….

So of course in both of these types of situations, understanding and making every effort possible to assure our client/members have everything needed to satisfy their inspector just further reinforces our commitment and support.

The bottom line is, that it’s very important that you always have all of your records in order and that you are following the requirements at all times, you never know when that one slight deviation may be the one that comes back to bite you. You can experience an unannounced inspection at any time. Although you do have 2-business days to have any required documentation pertaining to your drug and alcohol compliance available, this is not the case for your vehicle maintenance and driving records. Or in worse cases, you never know when a tragedy may occur such as in the example of the article below.

The Importance of Having A Human
Resource Person Who Understands
Safety Regulations - A Tragic Example

Many of you may already be aware of the semi tractor (K.W. Express) involved in the South Orange County freeway crash (5-Freeway in May) that killed three young children and seriously injured their mother and grandmother. That company did fail its federal and state safety inspections and risks being been shut down by regulators.

U.S. Department of Transportation agents found 15 safety violations at K.W. Express located in Carson (based in Michigan) following the May 4th tragic accident according to federal documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Among the violations:

• Five drivers were allowed to work before the company received the results of their pre-employment drug tests.
  
• Some reports involving duty status, that is, where and how far drivers had traveled were falsified. Thirteen examples were found among 111 records.
  
• There was no written policy for drug or alcohol abuse.
  
• Records were not kept for inspection and vehicle maintenance.
  
• In 60 cases, drivers did not prepare a vehicle inspection report.
  
• The only direct violation related to the crash was that the company failed to require Romero to take a drug and alcohol test afterwards. Under the guidelines, an alcohol test should have been administered within 8 hours and a drug test within 32 hours. The company thought Romero did not have to be tested because he passed breath and blood tests given by the CHP after the accident.

Results of the separate state inspection have not been released publicly, but a spokesman for K.W. Express acknowledged the company received an “unsatisfactory” rating in that inspection as well.

Bill Furlow, spokesman for K.W. Express, said the firm has corrected the deficiencies and expects both state and federal transportation agencies to sign off on them. Furlow said the problem was that officials at K.W. Express were not aware of the rules.
“What existed was an innocent ignorance of certain requirements,” Furlow said. “The company did not have a record keeper ensuring that logs and other records were properly filed and maintained and that all rules were being followed properly”. And no one is suggesting that it is acceptable.”

For instance, Furlow said that since drivers were independent contractors, the company didn’t realize it had to drug test them.

More violations, including not having the required insurance coverage were found with the company’s parent firm, K.W. International, which employs four drivers. However, that firm narrowly passed the federal safety inspection.

K.W. Express landed in the public eye when one of its trucks slammed into the back of the Coble family’s 2006 minivan on the southbound Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway, north of Oso Parkway. The three children, Kyle, 5, Emma, 4, and Katie, 2, were strapped into car seats in the back of the minivan.

CHP investigators identified the truck driver as Jorge Miguel Romero, 37. He was said to be traveling 55 to 60 mph just before the crash in the freeway’s slow lane when traffic suddenly halted and he couldn’t stop in time. The CHP investigation is still underway.

In a letter dated May 22nd to K.W. Express official, Sun K. Cho, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration wrote: “Your Company does not have adequate safety management controls in place to ensure compliance with the (federal) safety fitness standard….your Company is operating at an unacceptable level of compliance.”

K.W. Express has been given until September 20th to file an appeal or bring its business under compliance. Federal authorities have already acknowledged that the company is making a good faith effort. Parent firm K.W. International was ordered to make some improvements as well. The firm was given a “conditional” safety rating.

Federal agents found that K.W. International did not have the required insurance coverage of $750,000 and did not have a drug and alcohol testing program.

Moreover, an earlier inspection found that K.W. International had used a driver beyond the 14-hour per day limit and was operating without required registration from the Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Informational sources provided by the FMCSA office of communications daily clips dated 7/20 and L.A Times.