Two U.S. senators are calling into question the accuracy of crash data collected by the federal agency overseeing the trucking industry.
Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), sent a letter Wednesday, July 29 to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Administrator Derek Barrs requesting information on the agency’s tracking of large truck and bus crashes. Their request follows a ProPublica/WBUR investigative report that said crash data is not being properly received and recorded. The senators' letter said this lack of accurate data makes it difficult for FMCSA to appropriately sanction companies that put the public at risk.
“According to the most recent data available, nearly 5,000 people were killed in crashes involving large trucks and buses in 2024,” wrote the Senators. “The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration uses information from these crashes to identify specific truck and bus companies for targeted enforcement, which can range from a warning letter to being placed out-of-service.
"On June 8 ProPublica and WBUR reported their investigation found that FMCSA is missing critical crash data for a company that operates school buses, making it impossible for the agency to accurately identify and target high-risk motor carriers like these.”
A statement from the two senators said the ProPublica/WBUR investigation centered on an April 2025 school bus accident in Boston that killed a kindergartner after he was dropped off on the wrong side of the street. The driver was hired and trained by transnational bus company Transdev, and the investigation found that 42 fatal crashes involving Transdev over the past 10 years were missing from FMCSA records, according to Cantwell and Markey.
ProPublica and WBUR also found that FMCSA’s own instructions to law enforcement about the attribution of a crash to a particular company was left to the discretion of the individual police officer, directly contributing to highly variable and unreliable records, the senators wrote.
“This raises serious concerns that FMCSA may be undercounting crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving large trucks and buses, and thus jeopardizing its mission to reduce such incidents and protect the safety of Americans,” wrote the Senators.
The text of the letter can be found below and HERE.
