GAO: PRISM implementation effective overall

GAO: PRISM implementation effective overall    A congressional watchdog agency said an evaluation of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's voluntary commercial vehicle registration program by 25 states shows 'some improved safety' and 'could have contributed to lower crash rates.'
   The so-called Performance and Registration Information Systems Management (PRISM) helps states connect electronically to the FMCSA's database in order to keep carriers that have been ordered by the federal agency out of service from obtaining or maintaining vehicle registrations. FMCSA's data shows that vehicles associated with 972 out-of-service carriers in 2008 had registrations denied, suspended or revoked.
   However, the Government Accountability Office warned in its report released Tuesday that isolating PRISM's actual impact on motor carrier safety and crash reductions is difficult, and that many states with the greatest numbers of registered commercial motor vehicles have yet to implement the system.
   'National implementation may not occur for years if PRISM continues as a voluntary program,' the GAO said. 'FMCSA data show that, on average, it took states about three years and four months to get to the point where they could deny, suspend, or revoke registrations once they decided to implement PRISM — a process that took as little as 10 months to more than seven years.'
   Some state officials and safety associations told the GAO that Congress should mandate PRISM implementation 'so that no state becomes a refuge for registering out-of-service carriers.' The GAO doesn't support mandatory PRISM implementation mainly because some states would require substantial money to adapt their information systems to make the system work.
   For now, the GAO recommends that the FMCSA measure PRISM's effectiveness when a sufficient number of states have the ability to deny, suspend or revoke registrations to out-of-service carriers.
   The GAO report is available online.