Masking Statute and Regulations Policy

The Masking Statute and Regulations put the onus on the Lead MCSAP State Agency to assure that masking does not occur. There are no Lead State Agency's (LSAs) that have enforcement authority over Magistrates, Judges, or District/Prosecuting Attorneys yet the repercussions for non-compliance falls to the LSA by way of FMCSA withholding funding. However, the LSAs have authority over the DATA Qs program. When Masking is identified during the adjudicated violations process, the LSA may not deny a request to process it according to FMCSA policy.

The FMCSA policy is forcing the LSA to be a party to Masking. When CDL driver's unsafe driving violations are Masked, the safety data is skewed. According to data published on CVSA's Operation Safe Driver website, convictions for unsafe driving violations are a major indicator of likeliness of crash involvement. In fact, certain violations guarantee that the subject driver will crash. Having a more reasonable interpretation of how the adjudication process is carried out is in conformance with the mission of FMCSA and CVSA to reduced fatal and serious injury crashes.

Petition the FMCSA to change their adjudicated violations policy to allow LSAs to make a Masking determination and deny such requests for data changes.