The FMCSA’s new safety program, CSA, went live over the weekend of December 12th. The general public now has access to most of the Motor Carrier Safety Measurement System (SMS) data for each carrier after a federal appeals court denied a suit to prevent the release of the CSA safety data.
With this official rollout, the program is now known as Compliance, Safety, Accountability – rather than its previous name Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010, or CSA 2010.
The key component of CSA is the SMS data, which analyzes all safety-based violations from inspections and crash data to determine a commercial motor carrier's on-road performance. The SMS uses seven safety improvement categories, called BASICs, to examine a carrier's on-road performance and potential crash risk. CSA officially replaces Safestat, FMCSA's former measurement system, which assessed carrier performance in only four broad categories. For a more detailed background on CSA, click here.
The general public can now go to http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/sms and view SMS data for a carrier by entering a carrier’s DOT or MC number. The search will reveal data that includes the carrier's BASICs scores in five of the seven categories (2 categories – Crash BASIC and Cargo Related BASIC are not currently accessible to the public). Below is an example of a search that reveals less than desirable scores (notice 4 “alerts”):
According to recent analysis by Commercial Carrier Journal, barely 12 percent of active motor carriers are ranked in any of the five publicly available BASICs. The majority of carriers are unranked because FMCSA set minimum thresholds of inspections to be considered within BASIC safety event groups. Those floors vary, but generally carriers must have three to five inspections in the past 24 months to be ranked in a BASIC.
More than half the carriers that are ranked have at least one “alert”, meaning they exceed the threshold for intervention. A majority of those alerts are in the Fatigued Driving BASIC. FMCSA plans to use those rankings to target interventions under its new graduated process, which starts with warning letters and escalates potentially to full-blown compliance reviews.
To help minimize the inappropriate use of SMS data to possibly characterize a carrier as unsafe or noncompliant, the FMCSA has posted a disclaimer on the SMS website indicating that the system does not represent a Safety Fitness Determination (SFD), is not a Safety Rating pursuant to 49 C.F.R. Part 385, and does not represent FMCSA’s final determination regarding the accuracy of the data contained in the SMS.
The FMCSA continues to highly recommend that all motor carriers periodically review the SMS data system and when necessary verify the accuracy of their SMS data through DataQs, an electronic data correcting system in which carriers can request a data review. The DataQ system is available online at http://dataqs.fmcsa.dot.gov/.
FMCSA also provides Safety Improvement Resources (SIRs) – a compilation of articles, reports, and other tools designed to assist motor carriers with improving their current safety management practices.
Driving Ambition is a premier CDL truck driver staffing company serving Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Since 2001, we have specialized in matching safe, experienced CDL drivers for our customers and great job opportunities for our professional truck drivers.
Our commitment to safety and building solid working relationships with both customers and CDL drivers has allowed us to earn an unparalleled reputation with our Proven Drivers and Exceptional Service.
Throughout the trucking industry, 2010 proved to be a year full of safety and regulatory changes – from driver distraction and a ban on texting to CSA 2010 and a mandate for electronic logs.
This Year in Review highlights some of the most widely followed topics throughout the year.
CSA 2010
Distracted Driving
Electronic Onboard Recorders (EOBRs)
Hours of Service (HOS)
Pre-employment Screening Program (PSP)
Sleep Apnea
Various
Driving Ambition is a premier CDL truck driver staffing company serving Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Since 2001, we have specialized in matching safe, experienced CDL drivers for our customers and great job opportunities for our professional truck drivers.
Our commitment to safety and building solid working relationships with both customers and CDL drivers has allowed us to earn an unparalleled reputation with our Proven Drivers and Exceptional Service.
As of the time this article is released, we have yet to see a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for a revision to the Hours of Service (HOS) rule. However, publication is expected at any time. The White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) has been reviewing the proposed change since July 26th.
In a recent article in Transport Topics (Nov. 29, 2010), trucking industry officials said they question whether the FMCSA will be able to complete its work on a new Hours-of-Service (HOS) rule in time to comply with a court order date of July 26, 2011. Once an NPRM is published, the public will have sixty days to comment. It’s widely expected that we’ll see a significant number of public comments on the controversial rule, which will likely take a considerable amount of time for the FMCSA to digest them all.
The longer the delay, the less time the FMCSA will have to review, understand and act upon the public comments. The FMCSA, however, has continued to insist that the court-ordered deadline to publish a final HOS rule will be met.
Although we have no insight as to what the FMCSA is proposing for HOS, it’s widely speculated that the number of hours allowed to drive in a day will drop from 11 to 10, a rest period will be required for each shift, and the “34-hour restart” will increase to between 44-48 hours.
Ahead of the NPRM publication, the American Trucking Associations (ATA) is “mobilizing the troops” in the form of a white paper and a new website (http://www.safedriverhours.com/) highlighting the successes of the current HOS regulations.
The white paper points out that a reduction in driving time and major changes to the restart provision could cost the industry $2.25 billion annually. In addition, ATA maintains such changes will require the use of more inexperienced drivers, which will likely increase accident rates.
The White Paper also points to union influence on the Obama administration. Any rule change is “being driven principally by politics and not by any factual data or evidence that the current rule has been anything but safe," said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves.
Most importantly, the white paper highlights the industry’s significant safety gains under the current HOS rules that went into effect seven years ago. Since then, truck-involved highway crash fatalities decreased 33 percent and crash rates are the lowest they have been since DOT began keeping records in 1975.
ATA believes that DOT may cite improvements in driver health as justification for the changes in the rule. The white paper suggests this approach would be "specious" since the "FMCSA has consistently gone on record over the past five years that the current HOS rules are having no deleterious effect on driver health”. The question of driver health was at the heart of the legal dispute that began when the agency first published the rule in 2003.
The ATA is calling for retention of the current HOS rules, with the exception of greater flexibility in the sleeper berth. "I would encourage FMCSA and the Department of Justice to do their jobs and defend the rule. I mean, it is their rule and has been now since 2003," said Graves.
Links to recent related HOS articles:
http://www.drivingambitioninc.com/blog/bid/49190/New-Driver-Hours-of-Service-Rule-Delayed
http://www.drivingambitioninc.com/blog/bid/43537/A-CHANGE-TO-DRIVERS-HOURS-OF-SERVICE
Driving Ambition is a premier CDL truck driver staffing company serving Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Since 2001, we have specialized in matching safe, experienced CDL drivers for our customers and great job opportunities for our professional truck drivers.
Our commitment to safety and building solid working relationships with both customers and CDL drivers has allowed us to earn an unparalleled reputation with our Proven Drivers and Exceptional Service.
Originally scheduled for a national rollout on Monday, December 5, the FMCSA’s new Compliance Safety Accountability (CSA) program will be pushed back at least one more week – with a scheduled date of December 12.
Public Access to Carrier Safety Scores
As the FMCSA continues to fine-tune various aspects of the program, it is facing a motion filed in U.S. District Court by several trucking groups to block public access to carrier performance data that will be available on the CSA’s website once CSA is fully implemented in December. The groups want the FMCSA to develop a new carrier Safety Fitness Determination (SFD) rating system before making their BASIC scores performance data available to shippers and brokers.
In a recent letter in support of delaying public access, ATA’s manager of safety & security operations, Boyd Stephenson, stated, “Until FMCSA can confirm that the system accurately identifies unsafe carriers in a category, it is inappropriate to make carriers’ scores in that category publicly available, as they may erroneously label safe, responsible carriers as unsafe."
Emergency Stay
A handful of other trucking groups, The National Association of Small Trucking Companies (NASTC), the Expedite Alliance of North America, and the Air & Expedited Carriers Association, have taken it a step further by filing a motion seeking an “emergency stay” of CSA’s national implementation. Their argument is that “implementation of the rule embodied in CSA…will result in irreparable competitive and economic harm to motor carriers and freight brokers.” They go on to argue that a delay will cause “no harm to the agency or the public” since FMCSA already has a “successful safety monitoring and enforcement program currently in effect.”
Safety groups, however, are concerned about long-term delays for CSA as they believe this new safety initiative by FMCSA holds much promise for weeding out more of the “bad apples” within the trucking industry.
To stay tuned for more news on the FMCSA’s new safety initiative, and whether we will see any further delays, you can subscribe to updates on the CSA 2010 website, or Driving Ambition’s Blog and Facebook Fan Page.
Driving Ambition is a premier CDL truck driver staffing company serving Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Since 2001, we have specialized in matching safe, experienced CDL drivers for our customers and great job opportunities for our professional truck drivers.
Our commitment to safety and building solid working relationships with both customers and CDL drivers has allowed us to earn an unparalleled reputation with our Proven Drivers and Exceptional Service.
After listening to industry feedback, the FMCSA announced last month that it would make a couple changes to its new safety program, CSA. One of the changes concerns the way data is displayed in the CSA Safety Management System. The other change will allow for a recalibration of the severity weighting in the Cargo-Related category, which measures compliance with load securement procedures and hazardous materials requirements.
From “Deficient” to “Alert”
The FMCSA will no longer use the term "deficient" to identify when a motor carrier’s score in one or more BASICs is above the FMCSA threshold for intervention - it will instead say "alert." The intent is to clarify that percentiles above the intervention threshold indicate that the carrier is in line for intervention, and do not imply that a safety rating or safety fitness determination has been determined already. This change should help minimize the negative impact that Safety Measurement System (SMS) data will have in litigation to attempt to prove that a motor carrier is non-compliant or unsafe based on the “deficient” label. In addition, the highlight color was changed from red to orange.
Cargo-Related BASIC
Until the FMCSA can craft a more accurate methodology for reporting Cargo-Related BASIC scores, it decided to remove this BASIC from public view. The FMCSA acknowledged that this particular score created a misleading safety alert warning for certain industry segments, particularly for flatbed and hazardous material carriers. With this change, shippers, insurers and other members of the public will not be able to view a carrier’s Cargo-Related, in addition to Crash BASIC, on the FMCSA’s CSA website once fully implemented in December. These BASIC scores will still be available to carriers and enforcement personnel.
Carriers who have not already done so are strongly urged to review their safety data on the CSA website and, whenever possible, challenge questionable violations through the FMCSA’s DataQ System. For more information on what carriers should do, click here.
Driving Ambition is a premier CDL truck driver staffing company serving Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Since 2001, we have specialized in matching safe, experienced CDL drivers for our customers and great job opportunities for our professional truck drivers.
Our commitment to safety and building solid working relationships with both customers and CDL drivers has allowed us to earn an unparalleled reputation with our Proven Drivers and Exceptional Service.