FMCSA Approves Two More Intellistop Five-Year Exemptions

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has granted a petroleum company and a large convenience store chain five-year exemptions to operate their trucks using a pulsating brake light system equipped with a module manufactured by Intellistop Inc., an Arkansas firm that in recent years has been fighting a drawn-out battle with regulators.

Coffeyville Resources Crude Transportation, based in Oklahoma, said it is planning to equip up to 80 trucks with the system. It works when a truck’s brakes are applied; the lights flash four times in 2 seconds and then maintain their normal level of illumination until the brakes are released and reapplied. Coffeyville, an oil and gas operator and marketing distributor, is a subsidiary of Fortune 500 company CVR Energy Inc.

Casey’s Services Co., a large chain headquartered in Ankeny, Iowa, also received the exemption for its trucks.

For nearly five years, Intellistop CEO Michelle Hanby has faced challenges in securing federal approval of Intellistop’s system for all types of heavy trucks and trailers.

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Hanby 

Hanby, in a separate letter sent last month to FMCSA Chief Safety Officer Sue Lawless, noted that six carriers (now eight) have been granted five-year exemptions to use the Intellistop technology and that her company is contacted weekly by companies looking to secure similar exemptions.

Hanby believes that the Intellistop module will save lives.

Rear-end crashes account for approximately 30% of all crashes, according to federal regulators. They often result from a failure to respond (or delays in responding) to a stopped or decelerating lead vehicle. Data on crashes that occurred between 2010 and 2016 show that large trucks are three times more likely than other vehicles to be struck in the rear in two-vehicle fatal accidents.

The eight businesses with trucks have been given individual exemptions by the agency, but there has been no industrywide exemption. Hanby told Transport Topics that by her latest count an estimated 60 carriers are looking to use her system.

Last month, Hanby asked for reconsideration of a petition denied by FMCSA in 2022 that would have allowed broader use of the company’s technology. Hanby is now requesting industrywide blanket five-year exemptions for various types of equipment, including tank trucks, flatbed trailers and straight trucks.

In its April 16 Federal Register announcement, FMCSA said the Intellistop system “would likely achieve a level of safety equivalent to, or greater than,” the level of safety achieved by current steady burning brake lights. However, the agency noted that exemptions more limited in scope allow the agency to ensure compliance with all relevant FMCSA regulations because the individual exemption “would be easily identifiable and its compliance with applicable regulations could be monitored.”

In its exemption request last year, Coffeyville stated that previous research demonstrated that use of pulsating brake-activated lamps increases the visibility of vehicles and should lead to a significant decrease in rear-end crashes. In support of its application, Coffeyville cited the similar exemption granted to Gemini Motor Transport that relied on several reports of research conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on the issues of rear-end crashes, distracted driving and braking signals.

“I’m not going to give up the fight, obviously,” Hanby said. “The cookie-cutter exemption making carriers submit individually is just ridiculous. There is no sense or rhyme or reason to it.”

Hanby disagrees with the agency’s assertion that it could not monitor how the system is working if there was a blanket exemption.

“To my knowledge, they’re not monitoring any of it anyway,” she said. “I’m going to get it across the finish line.”