William B. Cassidy, Senior Editor | Mar 30, 2012 3:39PM EDT
Federal regulators shut down trucking firm Reliable Transportation, citing the carrier and its owner for “countless” violations of driver work and truck safety rules.
The Western trucking company was involved in seven crashes within the past year, and six since December, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said.
In an investigation, the FMCSA found Reliable to be anything but reliable when it came to keeping driver logs, maintaining vehicles and placarding trailers.
The FMCSA found multiple violations of hazardous materials regulations, six violations of drug and alcohol testing rules, and no driver logbooks.
“Reliable Transportation does not require drivers to submit records of duty status, does not monitor records of duty status and does not maintain” such records, said the FMCSA. The company also didn’t maintain vehicle maintenance records.
“In the past year, you used at least three drivers who were cited for alcohol-related violations during roadside inspections,” said the FMCSA out-of-service order.
Read through the out-of-service order (PDF) and it’s hard to find a safety rule Reliable didn’t break. The company also falsified some records, the FMCSA said.
The violations were so widespread “as to demonstrate a continuing and flagrant disregard” for regulatory compliance and a management “indifferent” to safety.
The company’s CSA scores were substantially above BASIC thresholds requiring intervention in Unsafe Driving, Fatigued Driving and Driver Fitness.
Reliable’s transgressions seemed familiar to the FMCSA because its owner previously managed another motor carrier that was ordered off the highway.
The FMCSA said Reliable’s owner, Jay Zachary Barber, started Reliable shortly after his previous company, Factory Direct Foods, was shut down in January 2010.
That implies it’s likely Reliable is a “reincarnated carrier” started to avoid the earlier shutdown order by changing the name and some details of the company.
Reliable is the second trucking outfit shuttered by the FMCSA this year. In February, the Department of Transportation agency closed U&D Services of Indianapolis.
The FMCSA shut down two related companies in November, Gunther Transport and Clock Transport. All had significant hours-of-service violations.
Contact William B. Cassidy at wcassidy@joc.com. Follow him on Twitter @wbcassidy_joc.