By Ilana R. Morady and Craig B. Simonsen

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has just issued a notice and request for comment on “The Impact of Driver Compensation on Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety.” 80 Fed. Reg. 6159 (February 4, 2015).

The FMCSA has been studying the relationship between commercial motor vehicle (CMV) driver compensation and safety. The most widely-used system for paying CMV drivers is “pay per mile” (i.e., drivers receive a set amount of money for each mile driven). It is suggested in the question that a safety consequence of the pay-per-mile system is that it may reward drivers for speeding and for driving excessive miles.

In 2012, FMCSA awarded an $800,000 contract for the study. In August 2014, FMCSA published a notice and request for comments (79 Fed. Reg. 51638) on this issue, seeking information, data, and comments on topics such as the average length of hauls, and the average driving experience of drivers working for companies included in the sample.

In response to the August 2014 request for comments the Agency received forty-seven unique public comments which have been reviewed and grouped by common themes. The FMCSA responses to the 2014 public comments are published in this new notice. The study report is due in September 2015.

Comments may be submitted on the notice to Docket No. FMCSA–2014–0325, by March 6, 2015.