Source: http://sd.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20160802_0001084.C08.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2017-06-28 10:36:51
Document Index: 319252625

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 31136', '§\n31144', '§ 1', '§ 31136', '§ 553', '§ 385', '§ 385', '§\n385']

| Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, Inc. v. United States Department of Transportation
Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, Inc., also known as OOIDA; Kuehl Trucking, LLC, Petitioners,v.United States Department of Transportation; Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration; Anthony Foxx, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation; T. F. Scott Darling, III, Chief Counsel of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration; United States of America, Respondents.
for Review of an Action of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
COLLOTON, GRUENDER, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.
Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and one of its
members, Kuehl Trucking, LLC, petition for review of
regulatory guidance issued by the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration. The guidance exempts from federal
accident-reporting regulations certain accidents involving
commercial motor vehicles known as attenuator trucks. Because
petitioners have failed to identify a concrete and
particularized injury that would give them standing to
proceed, we dismiss the petition for lack of an Article III
has directed the Secretary of Transportation to
"prescribe minimum safety standards for commercial motor
vehicles" and to determine whether individual owners and
operators are "fit to operate safely commercial motor
vehicles." 49 U.S.C. §§ 31136(a), 31144(a)(1).
In assessing owner-operator safety, the Secretary is
instructed to consider, inter alia, an owner or
operator's accident record. Id. §
31144(a)(1). The Secretary has delegated his authority to
implement these safety standards to the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration, an agency within the Department of
Transportation. 49 C.F.R. §§ 1.86(a), 1.87(f).
Regulations issued by the Administration must be promulgated
under the informal rulemaking procedures of the
Administrative Procedure Act. 49 U.S.C. § 31136(c)
(incorporating 5 U.S.C. § 553).
this delegated authority, the Administration has developed a
comprehensive system for evaluating the safety fitness of
commercial motor carriers. 49 C.F.R. § 385.1 et
seq. Following an on-site examination of the
carrier's operations, the Administration rates each
carrier as "satisfactory, " "conditional,
" or "unsatisfactory." Id.
§§ 385.3, 385.9. Carriers that receive an
unsatisfactory safety-fitness rating are prohibited from
operating commercial motor vehicles. Id. §
385.13(a).
addition to assigning safety-fitness ratings, the
Administration maintains the Carrier Safety Measurement
System, a database of carrier safety-performance data.
See Withdrawal of Proposed Improvements to the Motor
Carrier Safety Status Measurement System (SafeStat) and
Implementation of a New Carrier Safety Measurement System
(CSMS), 75 Fed. Reg. 18, 256-02 (Apr. 9, 2010). The System
scores carriers' performance in seven safety categories:
unsafe driving, hours of service, driver fitness, drug or
alcohol violations, vehicle maintenance, hazardous-materials
handling, and crash history. The Administration uses scores
generated by the System to identify high-risk carriers for
on-site compliance reviews and other enforcement
interventions, but these scores do not affect a carrier's
safety-fitness ratings. Id. at 18, 257.
System defines a carrier's "Crash Indicator"
measure to quantify "[h]istories or patterns of high
crash involvement." A carrier's Crash Indicator has
two components: a raw measure of the carrier's crash
history and a ranking against comparable commercial carriers.
A carrier's Crash Indicator measure is the number of
accidents per vehicle, with adjustments made based on the
severity and recency of accidents and the miles driven per
carrier is then placed into a safety-event group of
comparable carriers. Safety-event groups are based on two
factors. The first is whether the carrier is in the
straight-truck or combination-truck segment. A straight truck
has all of its axles attached to a single frame, while a
combination or "combo" truck consists of two or
more frames joined by couplings. A carrier is placed in the
combination-truck segment if combination trucks constitute at
least 70% of its fleet and in the straight-truck segment if
more than 30% of its trucks are straight trucks. The second
factor is how many accidents the carrier has sustained over
the previous twenty-four months.
Safety-event
Safety-Event Group
4 17-45
5 $ 46
4 9-26
Administration ranks the carriers within each safety-event
group by their Crash Indicator measure. Carriers are ranked
on a percentile basis in ascending order. This means that a
carrier with a Crash Indicator ranking of 40 has a higher
Crash Indicator measure than 40% of the carriers in its
safety-event group. Carriers with fewer than two accidents
within the last twenty-four months are not placed within any
safety-event group. Any carrier that has been accident-free
for the previous twelve months is removed from the rankings.
Pet'rs' App. 31-34.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Carriers
with a Crash Indicator ranking greater than or equal to 65
are identified by the Administration for potential
interventions, including warning letters, roadside
inspections, investigations, and removal from service.
Id. at 14; Frequently Asked Questions, Fed.
Motor Carrier Safety Admin., https://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/faqs.
aspx?faqid=1561 (as visited July 28, 2016, and on file with
clerk of court). A subset of a carrier&#39;s System data,
including its number of accidents, is available on the
agency&#39;s public website. See Safety ...