Recently, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”) released a crash accountability study that focused on whether incorporating Police Accident Reports (“PARs”) in its crash fault weighting system would improve the Agency’s ability to target carriers most at-risk for crashes.

The report focused on crash accountability in the FMCSA’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability (“CSA”) Program.  CSA safety is analyzed through the Safety Measurement System (“SMS”), which quantifies the safety performance of motor carriers through State-reported crash and inspection data.

After reviewing 10,892 PARs, the FMCSA concluded that PARs are useful for determining fault in fatal crashes.  However, the study determined that PARs are not useful for determining a motor carrier’s future crash risk.