Access Type

Open Access Dissertation

Date of Award

January 2019

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Economics

First Advisor

Michael H. Belzer

Abstract

Truck drivers are under financial pressure due to inadequacy in their compensation. Thus, they have strong incentives to work more legally or illegally in pursuing a higher income, which leads to fatigue and HOS violations and ultimately causes crashes. On the other hand, FMCSA oversees the motor carrier’s safety performance and tries to improve the current safety measurement since everyone pays a share of the economic costs due to the externality. This dissertation aims to explore the complex relationship between BASICs violations, pay incentives and crashes, to raise the importance of economic impact on carrier’s safety, and to test the effectiveness of the current FMCSA crash measurement and provide alternative statistical methods to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the enforcement.

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