Unregistered Carriers on 01/29/2009 - 1031
Unregistered Carriers on 01/30/2010 - 1006
Illinois - 95.34%
Maine - 93.37%
On January 21st, I wrote that I thought it would take us about a month to get to from 95% to 96%. So far, we are on right on target, although you never know what's going to happen on the other side of the weekend FMCSA updates.
Since tomorrow is the end of the month - and I don't expect anybody to be coming in this weekend - I feel safe in reporting the January stats to you.
For the month of January, we registered 263 carriers and collected $18,289 for an average of just under $70 per registration. Perhaps more importantly, we removed 295 carriers from our unregistered list. This jives with the pace of getting from 95% to 96% that I described above. What was our registration percentage on 12/31? Believe it or not, it was 93.97%!
Have a great weekend!
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
What Does The MCMIS "Active" Status Really Mean?
Unregistered Carriers on 01/28/2009 - 1040
Unregistered Carriers on 01/29/2010 - 1031
Illinois - 95.22%
Maine - 93.31%
Perhaps the question should include the words "... and to whom"?
We are on the verge of trying to answer this question with both the FMCSA office here in Illinois and the folks in Washington. I'm going to venture a couple of observations that are strictly my own - nobody told me this stuff.
From Washington's perspective, it seems to me that they are trying to figure out whether they have 750,000 carriers ... or 650,000 carriers ... or 550,000 carriers ... you get the idea. Maybe the last time they heard from a guy was 1992, but their default mode is to assume he's still active unless they hear otherwise from the carrier. Not only that, but when it comes to funding, probably look better. Again, my observation ... not a criticism and not necessarily fact. Err on the side of keeping the carrier active because once he's gone, he's off the radar.
From the state FMCSA office perspective, they are trying to figure out how many carriers they are responsible for ... and exactly who and where they are. Illinois has over 30,000 MCMIS records - notice I didn't say carriers - domiciled here. How'd you like to be the person responsible for making sure that all 30,000+ of them are safe and up-to-date on their safety records, etc. The state office doesn't necessarily want to see "ambiguous" carrier records deactivated, because deactivation "takes them out of the program", to use their words.
From our perspective, we're responsible for registering all of the "active" carriers that have shown certain kinds of activity in the last year. Those carrier records "count against us" if we don't register them, so we have a vested interest in identifying and deactivating any carriers in our UCR Universe who "aren't really there". Defining "aren't really there" is frequently done from the perspective of the beholder, which has been a point of disagreement in many states.
Finally, there are the "active" MCMIS records that haven't had any activity in two years ... or more. Those are the guys I wrote about the other day. We have 11,000+ of them here in Illinois! Are they really active or not?
As I said, we are on the verge of moving this discussion forward. From my perspective, it's all good!
Unregistered Carriers on 01/29/2010 - 1031
Illinois - 95.22%
Maine - 93.31%
Perhaps the question should include the words "... and to whom"?
We are on the verge of trying to answer this question with both the FMCSA office here in Illinois and the folks in Washington. I'm going to venture a couple of observations that are strictly my own - nobody told me this stuff.
From Washington's perspective, it seems to me that they are trying to figure out whether they have 750,000 carriers ... or 650,000 carriers ... or 550,000 carriers ... you get the idea. Maybe the last time they heard from a guy was 1992, but their default mode is to assume he's still active unless they hear otherwise from the carrier. Not only that, but when it comes to funding, probably look better. Again, my observation ... not a criticism and not necessarily fact. Err on the side of keeping the carrier active because once he's gone, he's off the radar.
From the state FMCSA office perspective, they are trying to figure out how many carriers they are responsible for ... and exactly who and where they are. Illinois has over 30,000 MCMIS records - notice I didn't say carriers - domiciled here. How'd you like to be the person responsible for making sure that all 30,000+ of them are safe and up-to-date on their safety records, etc. The state office doesn't necessarily want to see "ambiguous" carrier records deactivated, because deactivation "takes them out of the program", to use their words.
From our perspective, we're responsible for registering all of the "active" carriers that have shown certain kinds of activity in the last year. Those carrier records "count against us" if we don't register them, so we have a vested interest in identifying and deactivating any carriers in our UCR Universe who "aren't really there". Defining "aren't really there" is frequently done from the perspective of the beholder, which has been a point of disagreement in many states.
Finally, there are the "active" MCMIS records that haven't had any activity in two years ... or more. Those are the guys I wrote about the other day. We have 11,000+ of them here in Illinois! Are they really active or not?
As I said, we are on the verge of moving this discussion forward. From my perspective, it's all good!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Looking At Maine In The Rear-View Mirror
Unregistered Carriers on 01/25/2009 - 1068
Unregistered Carriers on 01/28/2010 - 1040
Illinois - 95.18%
Maine - 93.34%
It's hard for me to believe that we are now almost two full percentage points ahead of Maine. As predicted, their percentage hasn't budged since the end of November. No IRP - no UCR.
Meanwhile, congratulations to Indiana for being on the verge of breaking the 91% mark. Moving up a percentage point when we're at this point in the registration cycle is tough work!
Scott Morris pointed out the other day that the top 9 states have an overall registration rate of 90.15% The top 24 states have an overall registration rate of 85.15%. The overall national rate as of this morning is 75.53%. I think those are pretty impressive numbers. I'm also guessing that the bottom nine states are averaging somewhere close to 65%. We won't belabor South Carolina.
Unregistered Carriers on 01/28/2010 - 1040
Illinois - 95.18%
Maine - 93.34%
It's hard for me to believe that we are now almost two full percentage points ahead of Maine. As predicted, their percentage hasn't budged since the end of November. No IRP - no UCR.
Meanwhile, congratulations to Indiana for being on the verge of breaking the 91% mark. Moving up a percentage point when we're at this point in the registration cycle is tough work!
Scott Morris pointed out the other day that the top 9 states have an overall registration rate of 90.15% The top 24 states have an overall registration rate of 85.15%. The overall national rate as of this morning is 75.53%. I think those are pretty impressive numbers. I'm also guessing that the bottom nine states are averaging somewhere close to 65%. We won't belabor South Carolina.
Monday, January 25, 2010
What's Wrong With This Picture?
Unregistered Carriers on 01/22/2009 - 1064
Unregistered Carriers on 01/25/2010 - 1068
Illinois - 95.05%
Maine - 93.40%
One of the really beautiful reports that comes out of UCR-Link is the Mail Merge report. I've talked about this report before, but I'll mention it again now as a precursor to today's comments.
The mail merge report is run against MCMIS and shows us all of the MCMIS records that are currently represented as "Active Interstate Carriers" - without regard to whether or not they fall into our "UCR Universe".
In Illinois, we show 11,400 motor carriers that are not in our UCR Universe, but which MCMIS shows as Active Interstate Carriers. This means that these records show a carrier as active, but these carriers show no record of an inspection, a crash, an MCS-150 update or a UCR registration in the past 15 months.
So, what's wrong with this picture?
If we went to the folks at FMCSA and said, "Well, apparently these carriers are inactive because you haven't heard from them or seen them, so let's deactivate them", FMCSA would have a cow! We all know that's true. And I would agree with them. But, at the same time, if we ask them to explain the status of these carriers, they would have to say they don't know ... because they literally don't know.
Apparently, between Washington, the FMCSA field office, CVISN, PRISM, MCSAP, IRP, and IFTA - all of the major motor carrier programs - we still have thousands of motor carrier records that nobody knows anything about. So, either we have tens of thousand of motor carriers operating "under the radar" (no pun intended), or we have a lot of data that is bogus and out-of-date. Our experience to date tells us that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Is this a problem? Only if your mission is motor carrier safety. How do you know these carriers are safe if you don't even know their current status ... or whereabouts?
I don't raise this issue to point any fingers. I raise this issue because I think there are holes in the data big enough to drive a truck through (darned, there I go again!) and because UCR is, in my opinion, the FMCSA's best hope for cleaning up their data. And, for anybody who wants to debate the issue, please don't tell me that putting more money into MCSAP (or any other program I listed) is going to remedy this problem. All of those programs are getting "long in the tooth" and we still have 100,000 (or more) motor carriers nationally whose status is basically a mystery. I call that a problem ... and I suspect that every FMCSA State Director lives in fear of one of these "mystery carriers" from their state getting in a nasty crash.
And, if you still don't see what's wrong with this picture ... I'm afraid I can't help you.
Unregistered Carriers on 01/25/2010 - 1068
Illinois - 95.05%
Maine - 93.40%
One of the really beautiful reports that comes out of UCR-Link is the Mail Merge report. I've talked about this report before, but I'll mention it again now as a precursor to today's comments.
The mail merge report is run against MCMIS and shows us all of the MCMIS records that are currently represented as "Active Interstate Carriers" - without regard to whether or not they fall into our "UCR Universe".
In Illinois, we show 11,400 motor carriers that are not in our UCR Universe, but which MCMIS shows as Active Interstate Carriers. This means that these records show a carrier as active, but these carriers show no record of an inspection, a crash, an MCS-150 update or a UCR registration in the past 15 months.
So, what's wrong with this picture?
If we went to the folks at FMCSA and said, "Well, apparently these carriers are inactive because you haven't heard from them or seen them, so let's deactivate them", FMCSA would have a cow! We all know that's true. And I would agree with them. But, at the same time, if we ask them to explain the status of these carriers, they would have to say they don't know ... because they literally don't know.
Apparently, between Washington, the FMCSA field office, CVISN, PRISM, MCSAP, IRP, and IFTA - all of the major motor carrier programs - we still have thousands of motor carrier records that nobody knows anything about. So, either we have tens of thousand of motor carriers operating "under the radar" (no pun intended), or we have a lot of data that is bogus and out-of-date. Our experience to date tells us that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Is this a problem? Only if your mission is motor carrier safety. How do you know these carriers are safe if you don't even know their current status ... or whereabouts?
I don't raise this issue to point any fingers. I raise this issue because I think there are holes in the data big enough to drive a truck through (darned, there I go again!) and because UCR is, in my opinion, the FMCSA's best hope for cleaning up their data. And, for anybody who wants to debate the issue, please don't tell me that putting more money into MCSAP (or any other program I listed) is going to remedy this problem. All of those programs are getting "long in the tooth" and we still have 100,000 (or more) motor carriers nationally whose status is basically a mystery. I call that a problem ... and I suspect that every FMCSA State Director lives in fear of one of these "mystery carriers" from their state getting in a nasty crash.
And, if you still don't see what's wrong with this picture ... I'm afraid I can't help you.
Friday, January 22, 2010
I challenge you!!!
Unregistered Carriers on 01/21/2009 - 1078
Unregistered Carriers on 01/22/2010 - 1064
Illinois - 95.06%
Maine - 93.43%
I would like to propose a challenge to all States. Here it is:
I believe that, starting today, we will register more of our own state's carriers for the 2009 UCR registration year in the next 30 days than any other state.
You can use whatever means you want - mailings, phone calls, emails or personal visits.
Consider the gauntlet thrown down --- and have a great weekend!
Unregistered Carriers on 01/22/2010 - 1064
Illinois - 95.06%
Maine - 93.43%
I would like to propose a challenge to all States. Here it is:
I believe that, starting today, we will register more of our own state's carriers for the 2009 UCR registration year in the next 30 days than any other state.
You can use whatever means you want - mailings, phone calls, emails or personal visits.
Consider the gauntlet thrown down --- and have a great weekend!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
95% ... and Beyond!!
Unregistered Carriers on 01/20/2009 - 1091
Unregistered Carriers on 01/21/2010 - 1078
Illinois - 95.00%
Maine - 93.40%
Today, we hit 95% registration. This achievement, of course, led me to wonder what it will take to get to 96%. It's not an easy calculation, but that never prevents me from trying. In fact, Bill Leonard recently told me that some days I sound like the "Rain Man" in this blog. But I digress ...
First, remember that the registration percentage calculation is:
# Registrations / (# Registration + # Unregistered Universe Carriers)
We generally assume that about 80% of our registrations are carriers that are actually on the Unregistered Universe list, but that's just an average.
This calculation is manageable ... unless you factor in the next variable - "new adds". The Unregistered Universe list expands and contracts, so if, on a given day, we registered nobody but we got a "new add", our percentage would actually go down for that day. Nothing's easy.
Our last variable is de-activations, where we don't have to register anybody on a given day in order to make our percentage go up. So, if, on the aforementioned day, we register nobody, we deactivate two carriers and we have one "new add", our percentage would still go up ... without registering one single carrier.
So how do we put all this stuff together and estimate the effort needed to get to 96%? Beats me!
I've got a spreadsheet called a UCR Daily Activity Calculator, however, that functions like a mixing bowl: I put in today's beginning numbers, I plug in my assumptions for the day about registrations, new adds, deactivations, resends (peculiar to UCR Link) and voila ... out comes my anticipated percentage for tomorrow morning. It's usually pretty close but rarely "spot on" because I have no way to accurately anticipate how many new adds I'm going to get from FMCSA.
My gut feeling: we need about 300 more registrations and our average number of new adds and deactivations to get to 96%. With any luck, we can do it in about a month.
Let's see how close I get.
Unregistered Carriers on 01/21/2010 - 1078
Illinois - 95.00%
Maine - 93.40%
Today, we hit 95% registration. This achievement, of course, led me to wonder what it will take to get to 96%. It's not an easy calculation, but that never prevents me from trying. In fact, Bill Leonard recently told me that some days I sound like the "Rain Man" in this blog. But I digress ...
First, remember that the registration percentage calculation is:
# Registrations / (# Registration + # Unregistered Universe Carriers)
We generally assume that about 80% of our registrations are carriers that are actually on the Unregistered Universe list, but that's just an average.
This calculation is manageable ... unless you factor in the next variable - "new adds". The Unregistered Universe list expands and contracts, so if, on a given day, we registered nobody but we got a "new add", our percentage would actually go down for that day. Nothing's easy.
Our last variable is de-activations, where we don't have to register anybody on a given day in order to make our percentage go up. So, if, on the aforementioned day, we register nobody, we deactivate two carriers and we have one "new add", our percentage would still go up ... without registering one single carrier.
So how do we put all this stuff together and estimate the effort needed to get to 96%? Beats me!
I've got a spreadsheet called a UCR Daily Activity Calculator, however, that functions like a mixing bowl: I put in today's beginning numbers, I plug in my assumptions for the day about registrations, new adds, deactivations, resends (peculiar to UCR Link) and voila ... out comes my anticipated percentage for tomorrow morning. It's usually pretty close but rarely "spot on" because I have no way to accurately anticipate how many new adds I'm going to get from FMCSA.
My gut feeling: we need about 300 more registrations and our average number of new adds and deactivations to get to 96%. With any luck, we can do it in about a month.
Let's see how close I get.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Quit Picking On South Carolina!!!
Unregistered Carriers on 01/19/2009 - 1091
Unregistered Carriers on 01/20/2010 - 1091
Illinois - 94.93%
Maine - 93.34%
At the UCR Board meeting last week, I showed a few people the latest list of State UCR Registration Percentages sorted from highest percentage to lowest percentage. Interestingly, most people looked for their state and then looked to see which state had the lowest percentage. Several of them exclaimed, "Look at South Carolina! 56%! What's wrong with them???" NOBODY looked up a few lines to North Carolina and said "Look at North Carolina! 63%! What's wrong with them???"
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with North Carolina ... or South Carolina, for that matter. In fact, I'm kind of wondering if anybody would have said anything about South Carolina if another state had been in the 40+% range.
By the same token, nobody looked at the highest percentage and said, "Well, I'm not at the top, so I must not be doing very well." But they did say things to the effect of "I'm at 71% (15 points higher than South Carolina). That's better than I thought we were doing! I guess we're OK."
The moral of the story is that everybody seems to want to punish SOMEBODY, but lacking a specific standard of performance, I would hazard a guess that the "punishers" will want to punish the states who are registering carriers at a pace somewhat below their own percentage (except for South Carolina, of course, who would probably wonder why we can't all just get along).
So, instead of chastising South Carolina, I think we should all be saying "Thank God for South Carolina!!!" To paraphrase an old adage, "First, they come for South Carolina, then they come for me." Or how about the old joke that ends with the punch line, "I don't have to run faster than the bear. I just have to run faster than you!"
Unregistered Carriers on 01/20/2010 - 1091
Illinois - 94.93%
Maine - 93.34%
At the UCR Board meeting last week, I showed a few people the latest list of State UCR Registration Percentages sorted from highest percentage to lowest percentage. Interestingly, most people looked for their state and then looked to see which state had the lowest percentage. Several of them exclaimed, "Look at South Carolina! 56%! What's wrong with them???" NOBODY looked up a few lines to North Carolina and said "Look at North Carolina! 63%! What's wrong with them???"
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with North Carolina ... or South Carolina, for that matter. In fact, I'm kind of wondering if anybody would have said anything about South Carolina if another state had been in the 40+% range.
By the same token, nobody looked at the highest percentage and said, "Well, I'm not at the top, so I must not be doing very well." But they did say things to the effect of "I'm at 71% (15 points higher than South Carolina). That's better than I thought we were doing! I guess we're OK."
The moral of the story is that everybody seems to want to punish SOMEBODY, but lacking a specific standard of performance, I would hazard a guess that the "punishers" will want to punish the states who are registering carriers at a pace somewhat below their own percentage (except for South Carolina, of course, who would probably wonder why we can't all just get along).
So, instead of chastising South Carolina, I think we should all be saying "Thank God for South Carolina!!!" To paraphrase an old adage, "First, they come for South Carolina, then they come for me." Or how about the old joke that ends with the punch line, "I don't have to run faster than the bear. I just have to run faster than you!"
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Can Your State Achieve "Top State" Status?
Unregistered Carriers on 01/18/2009 - 1094
Unregistered Carriers on 01/19/2010 - 1091
Illinois - 94.93%
Maine - 93.34%
In order to answer the question I posed in the title of this post, we have to first define what "Top State" means - which takes us directly to the issue of UCR "performance".
As I mentioned at the last Board meeting, there are rumblings about punishing states that aren't performing. In my Board comments, I maintained that we needed to be careful with that idea, because we have never defined performance. The closest definition we seem to tacetly agree on is State Registration Percentage. To be clear, this is the percentage of the carriers domiciled in your own state that have registered. Everybody's on equal footing with that definition.
So, the question becomes: could your state achieve the highest registration percentage? The answer for your state - in theory, at least - is "Yes".
Personally, I like this definition, because it means that all of the elements of performance are in our hands. We have a registration mechanism, we have a list of unregistered carriers in our state (if we choose to avail ourselves of that list) and we have at least a few resources to get the job done. Some of us have other "advantages" like IRP and IFTA.
So, I'll ask the question again. "Could your state achieve the highest registration percentage of any state?"
If your answer is "Yes", good for you. Call me if you need help.
If your answer is "No", ask yourself "why?" If the answer to that question is "because I'm not really into UCR registration", maybe you're a candidate for penalties.
Unregistered Carriers on 01/19/2010 - 1091
Illinois - 94.93%
Maine - 93.34%
In order to answer the question I posed in the title of this post, we have to first define what "Top State" means - which takes us directly to the issue of UCR "performance".
As I mentioned at the last Board meeting, there are rumblings about punishing states that aren't performing. In my Board comments, I maintained that we needed to be careful with that idea, because we have never defined performance. The closest definition we seem to tacetly agree on is State Registration Percentage. To be clear, this is the percentage of the carriers domiciled in your own state that have registered. Everybody's on equal footing with that definition.
So, the question becomes: could your state achieve the highest registration percentage? The answer for your state - in theory, at least - is "Yes".
Personally, I like this definition, because it means that all of the elements of performance are in our hands. We have a registration mechanism, we have a list of unregistered carriers in our state (if we choose to avail ourselves of that list) and we have at least a few resources to get the job done. Some of us have other "advantages" like IRP and IFTA.
So, I'll ask the question again. "Could your state achieve the highest registration percentage of any state?"
If your answer is "Yes", good for you. Call me if you need help.
If your answer is "No", ask yourself "why?" If the answer to that question is "because I'm not really into UCR registration", maybe you're a candidate for penalties.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Making a Hard Push to 95% Registration
Unregistered Carriers on 01/15/2009 - 1152
Unregistered Carriers on 01/18/2010 - 1094
Illinois - 94.92%
Maine - 93.34%
We are about 20 carriers shy of 95% thanks to a busy week here in IL. We had 15 new "sideways" adds since Friday, which is a lot compared to what we get most days. Hopefully we'll push into the 95's this week. I'd also like to get that unregistered number below 1,000 in the next week or two.
For analytical purposes, I want to point out Maine has hardly left the gate since my post a couple of months ago when I predicted they wouldn't get much above 93.29 or 93.32 or whatever it was. The reason is that there are no more "forced" registrations for 2009 - in other words, new USDOT carriers don't have to register for 2009, so the only way they are going to meaningfully improve their percentage is to work their 2009 unregistered list .... which I don't believe they have. In fact, if they are not careful, they may go backward because of future "sideways" additions.
Unregistered Carriers on 01/18/2010 - 1094
Illinois - 94.92%
Maine - 93.34%
We are about 20 carriers shy of 95% thanks to a busy week here in IL. We had 15 new "sideways" adds since Friday, which is a lot compared to what we get most days. Hopefully we'll push into the 95's this week. I'd also like to get that unregistered number below 1,000 in the next week or two.
For analytical purposes, I want to point out Maine has hardly left the gate since my post a couple of months ago when I predicted they wouldn't get much above 93.29 or 93.32 or whatever it was. The reason is that there are no more "forced" registrations for 2009 - in other words, new USDOT carriers don't have to register for 2009, so the only way they are going to meaningfully improve their percentage is to work their 2009 unregistered list .... which I don't believe they have. In fact, if they are not careful, they may go backward because of future "sideways" additions.
Friday, January 15, 2010
I'm Back --- Miss Me???
Unregistered Carriers on 01/05/2009 - 1235
Unregistered Carriers on 01/15/2010 - 1152
Illinois - 94.66%
Maine - 93.52%
Hello, again! I just flew in from San Diego .... and my arms are really tired! Sorry, every once in a while I accidentally channel Red Skelton.
A lot has happened since we talked last. Perhaps the most important thing is that the Office and Management and Budget has decided the 2010 fee rulemaking is "significant" after all ... and this will result in a further delay of 2010 fees while they do their own analysis.
If there's any good news to this --- and I'm "scraping the bottom of the barrel" for good news here --- it's that we (here in Illinois) can now devote more of our UCR efforts to "getting to zero".
On another note, we are hoping to get the Collaboration site up and running next week. Once we get operational, the first thing we're going to do is start posting some daily UCR reports there. Heck, I might even move the blog there! I'm looking forward to putting more supporting documents out there that I can then refer to in the blog.
Have a great weekend!
Unregistered Carriers on 01/15/2010 - 1152
Illinois - 94.66%
Maine - 93.52%
Hello, again! I just flew in from San Diego .... and my arms are really tired! Sorry, every once in a while I accidentally channel Red Skelton.
A lot has happened since we talked last. Perhaps the most important thing is that the Office and Management and Budget has decided the 2010 fee rulemaking is "significant" after all ... and this will result in a further delay of 2010 fees while they do their own analysis.
If there's any good news to this --- and I'm "scraping the bottom of the barrel" for good news here --- it's that we (here in Illinois) can now devote more of our UCR efforts to "getting to zero".
On another note, we are hoping to get the Collaboration site up and running next week. Once we get operational, the first thing we're going to do is start posting some daily UCR reports there. Heck, I might even move the blog there! I'm looking forward to putting more supporting documents out there that I can then refer to in the blog.
Have a great weekend!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
2010 Fits and Starts
Unregistered Carriers on 01/05/2009 - 1235
Unregistered Carriers on 01/06/2010 - 1229
Illinois - 94.30%
Maine - 93.42%
We have had a bunch of people calling about 2010 UCR registration. Considering all the work that the Board, the R&F Committee and FMCSA did to make sure that we had a timely registration year, I think it's unconscionable that the rulemaking is hung up "somewhere" in Washington.
We've also had several calls from carriers who have been stopped and either ticketed or threatened with tickets for not having a 2010 UCR registration. Apparently, the CVSA bulletin hasn't reached everybody yet.
Finally, we've had quite a few carriers who got USDOT numbers in 2010 who sent in 2009 UCR registrations. I'm not aware of any prohibitions against registering these carriers, but I can certainly understand a "take no chances" approach on the part of carriers and permit agents who would rather be "safe than sorry". We're accepting the registrations since we didn't solicit them. Oddly enough, they don't reduce our unregistered list for 2009.
Unregistered Carriers on 01/06/2010 - 1229
Illinois - 94.30%
Maine - 93.42%
We have had a bunch of people calling about 2010 UCR registration. Considering all the work that the Board, the R&F Committee and FMCSA did to make sure that we had a timely registration year, I think it's unconscionable that the rulemaking is hung up "somewhere" in Washington.
We've also had several calls from carriers who have been stopped and either ticketed or threatened with tickets for not having a 2010 UCR registration. Apparently, the CVSA bulletin hasn't reached everybody yet.
Finally, we've had quite a few carriers who got USDOT numbers in 2010 who sent in 2009 UCR registrations. I'm not aware of any prohibitions against registering these carriers, but I can certainly understand a "take no chances" approach on the part of carriers and permit agents who would rather be "safe than sorry". We're accepting the registrations since we didn't solicit them. Oddly enough, they don't reduce our unregistered list for 2009.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Making the Registration Numbers Move Some More - January Plan
Unregistered Carriers on 01/04/2009 - 1257
Unregistered Carriers on 01/05/2010 - 1235
Illinois - 94.27%
Maine - 93.42%
We are now in a very interesting period with regard to 2009 UCR registration. I like to call it the "haymaking period".
First, we are no longer adding new 2009 USDOT numbers. All of the "new" numbers are 2010 USDOT numbers. The only adds we are seeing are the "sideways" adds that we've discussed at length in past posts. 2010 USDOT numbers will not, in most cases, need to register for 2009 - although we probably won't turn them away if they want to register because of potential enforcement hassles on the road.
Second, you can't meaningfully increase your registration percentage without going after your unregistered list ... which means you have to HAVE an unregistered list in front of you to go after. Most states still aren't working off an unregistered list.
So .... here's my plan: go after the unregistered list with gusto.
You may have noticed that we have quietly put almost a percentage point of distance between ourselves and Maine. That's because Maine, as predicted, hardly moved last month, while we increased our registration percentage about 1.5%.
Look for more of the same this month.
Unregistered Carriers on 01/05/2010 - 1235
Illinois - 94.27%
Maine - 93.42%
We are now in a very interesting period with regard to 2009 UCR registration. I like to call it the "haymaking period".
First, we are no longer adding new 2009 USDOT numbers. All of the "new" numbers are 2010 USDOT numbers. The only adds we are seeing are the "sideways" adds that we've discussed at length in past posts. 2010 USDOT numbers will not, in most cases, need to register for 2009 - although we probably won't turn them away if they want to register because of potential enforcement hassles on the road.
Second, you can't meaningfully increase your registration percentage without going after your unregistered list ... which means you have to HAVE an unregistered list in front of you to go after. Most states still aren't working off an unregistered list.
So .... here's my plan: go after the unregistered list with gusto.
You may have noticed that we have quietly put almost a percentage point of distance between ourselves and Maine. That's because Maine, as predicted, hardly moved last month, while we increased our registration percentage about 1.5%.
Look for more of the same this month.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Happy New Year! Reviewing December and 2009
Unregistered Carriers on 12/31/2009 - 1302
Unregistered Carriers on 01/04/2010 - 1257
Illinois - 94.17%
Maine - 93.42%
I hope everybody had a safe and fun New Year. 2009 is now in the record books ... except, of course, for 2009 UCR registration, which is still alive and well!
For December, we registered 371 carriers and collected $27,765 for an average registration of just under $75. Always very consistent.
For the 2009 registration year, we have registered 20,295 Illinois carriers and, as you can see, we still have 1,257 unregistered carriers.
If there's any good news in the 2010 fee delay - and I'm stretching here - it's that we can continue to focus on 2009 registrations. Part of me really wants to "get to zero" ---- but most of me wants to get those fees and get moving!
Unregistered Carriers on 01/04/2010 - 1257
Illinois - 94.17%
Maine - 93.42%
I hope everybody had a safe and fun New Year. 2009 is now in the record books ... except, of course, for 2009 UCR registration, which is still alive and well!
For December, we registered 371 carriers and collected $27,765 for an average registration of just under $75. Always very consistent.
For the 2009 registration year, we have registered 20,295 Illinois carriers and, as you can see, we still have 1,257 unregistered carriers.
If there's any good news in the 2010 fee delay - and I'm stretching here - it's that we can continue to focus on 2009 registrations. Part of me really wants to "get to zero" ---- but most of me wants to get those fees and get moving!
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