FAQ

Why is CSA being implemented?

FMCSA’s mission is to improve safety by reducing crashes. Over the past few years, the rate of crash reduction  has slowed, prompting FMCSA to take a fresh look at how the agency evaluates the safety of motor carriers and drivers and to explore ways to improve its safety monitoring, evaluation and intervention processes. CSA 2010 is the result of this comprehensive examination. CSA will enable FMCSA and its state partners to assess the safety performance of a greater segment of the industry and to intervene with more carriers to change unsafe behavior early.

How does a driver’s violation history impact a carrier’s Safety Measurement System (SMS) evaluation?

Carriers are only evaluated on inspections and crashes associated with their own DOT number, so only violations that a driver receives while working for a carrier apply to that carrier’s SMS evaluation.  Therefore, the driver’s violation history before the driver is hired and after the driver’s employment is terminated will not impact a carrier’s SMS results.  However, even if a carrier terminates a driver, all of the driver’s crashes and inspection results that s/he received while operating for that carrier still apply to the carrier’s SMS evaluation for 24 months from the date of occurrence. Because the data is time-weighted, the effect of those occurrences on the carrier’s score will diminish over the course of the 24 months.

Will everyone be able to see my driver score?

Driver scores will only be visible to enforcement officers.  It won’t be available to the public.  The FMCSA will aggressively watch the “red-listed” (worse) drivers.  They’ve committed one of the 11 worse violations.  Obviously it’s important for carriers to not hire them or they’ll be watched carefully.

How will the scores affect my business?

Pre-Employment Screening may cause a shortage of drivers.  Carriers are letting bad drivers go in order to improve their score and then having a hard time replacing them.

Can I be disqualified if I have a low score?

The DOT won’t automatically disqualify drivers or carriers.   It will be like the system currently is.

For new carriers without scores, what do you do to qualify them?

Ensure that they have authority and insurance in place.  Ask if they have a New Entry Audit.  Gather info from them.  “ Give us some assurance that you do X, Y and Z.”  TIA provides an example for this.

What about those businesses that close and reopen under a different name to clear a poor safety score?

FMCSA tries to identify “chameleon” carriers.  Those are carriers who close and reopen in order to wash themselves of their poor safety scores.  FMCSA looks for:  Same owner name, same address, same equipment, etc.  If the FMCSA can show they are the same carrier, they’ll assign them their old FMCSA data.