New Audit Announcements

While the commercial motor carrier industry plays a vital role in the Nation’s economy, as the number of large trucks and buses on the roads has increased, so have the related safety issues. Fatalities in crashes involving large trucks or buses grew by 10.2 percent between 2012 and 2017. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) monitors motor carrier safety through its Compliance, Safety, and Accountability Program (CSA) and uses its Safety Measurement System (SMS) to evaluate information obtained from roadside inspections, crash reports, compliance reviews, and other data. As required by the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act of 2015 (FAST Act), FMCSA commissioned the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to evaluate the SMS within the CSA program. NAS made six recommendations to help FMCSA improve its data, methodology, and transparency.

 

The FAST Act also required OIG to review the correction action plan FMCSA developed in response to the NAS recommendations—as well as earlier recommendations issued by OIG and the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—and submit a report to Congress. Accordingly, our audit objectives are to (1) assess the extent to which FMCSA’s corrective action plan addresses the NAS recommendations and relevant OIG and GAO recommendations and (2) identify challenges FMCSA may face when implementing the corrective action plan.