The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has ordered Laredo, Texas-based Redco Transport to immediately cease its trucking operations, declaring the company to be an imminent hazard to public safety.

On August 12, a truck operated by Redco crashed into a van stopped on the shoulder of Interstate 20 in Louisiana. Three people, including the truck driver, were killed. Within hours of the crash, FMCSA launched an investigation into Redco and found the company had routinely failed to ensure its drivers comply with federal hours-of-service regulations designed to prevent fatigue, including limitations on daily driving and maximum on-duty hours. The investigation also found that Redco failed to ensure its drivers complied with controlled substances and alcohol use and testing regulations, and failed to ensure its drivers were properly qualified. In some instances, drivers were dispatched before federally required pre-employment drug test results were received.

The FMCSA order states the crash was the company’s fourth recordable one in six months and its twelfth in the last 24 months. A recent compliance review discovered Redco significantly falsified nearly a quarter of the record of duty status documents, more than double the violation rate that FMCSA deems to be a critical pattern of non compliance.

Redco operates a fleet of 112 trucks transporting general freight. A snapshot of the company’s Compliance Safety and Accountability record shows in the driver fitness category, its performance far exceeded the FMCSA intervention threshold. In 2012, Redco trucks travelled a total of nearly 5 million miles.

Since the beginning of 2013, FMCSA has issued out-of-service orders to a total of 10 trucking companies and 25 bus companies. The agency has also declared seven commercial driver's license holders as imminent hazards, blocking them from operating in interstate commerce.

A copy of the imminent hazard out-of-service order can be viewed at www.fmcsa.dot.gov/documents/about/news/2013/REDCOTransport.pdf