Several more trucking groups have called on DOT head Anthony Foxx to remove carriers’ safety data and Compliance, Safety, Accountability rankings from public view.

The groups say the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration uses data that has “statistical flaws” to produce the Safety Measurement System rankings within CSA. Furthermore, the groups allege, the flaws have been made known to FMCSA numerous times, which the agency “shamelessly and repeatedly ignored.”

The joint letter came from the Alliance for Safety, Efficient and Competitive Truck Transportation, the National Association of Small Trucking Companies, California Construction Trucking Association, the Expedite Association of North America, Auto Haulers Association of America and others.

The petition comes less than a month after American Trucking Associations and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association made a similar appeal to Foxx regarding the presentation of carrier Compliance, Safety, Accountability scores on the FMCSA website.

The latest letter points to several studies done on CSA that show the flaws in the agency’s scoring methods, including ones that show no correlation between the SMS data and future crash risk.

Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills in his ongoing CSA’s Data Trail series points out flaws in the agency’s data, along with the data’s bias against small carriers and owner-operators. Click here to see those articles.

The letter from ASECTT says FMCSA has “played mere lip service” to its disclaimer that SMS scores are not safety ratings. “Instead, the agency has continued to tout unproven SMS methodology as an alternative standard to be used by the public in selecting carriers. The agency’s advocacy of SMS has been seized upon by the plaintiffs’ personal injury bar, thereby causing great harm to shippers, brokers and carriers.”

ASECTT brought an unsuccessful suit against FMCSA in an attempt to have carrier scores removed from public view, since the agency has promoted them as de facto safety ratings. But the case was dismissed in June.