What CSA 2010 & The Managing of Risk Will Mean to Your Company

Shipping your goods over the nation’s highways just got a whole lot more complicated. Why?

Compliance Safety Accountability 2010 (CSA 2010), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), together with state partners and industry will work to further reduce commercial vehicle (CMV) crashes, fatalities, and injuries on our Nation’s highways.

CSA 2010 is a fundamental change in reporting of safety, compliance, vehicle, driver and regulatory violations. The FMCSA’s SAFESTAT reporting algorithm was the standard in deciding what a negligent carrier was and who was performing at their best. Now with the roll out of CSA 2010 the game has changed. SAFESTAT was a culmination of driver scores 74 or below was a satisfactory carrier, Vehicle scores would be the culmination again of 74 or below being satisfactory anything higher is unsatisfactory.

CSA 2010 takes it further by breaking the scoring to 7 basic principles. (BASICS)

• Unsafe Driving — Operation of commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) by drivers in a dangerous or careless manner. Example Violations: Speeding, reckless driving, improper lane change, and inattention. (FMCSR Parts 392 and 397)
• Fatigued Driving (Hours-of-Service) — Operation of CMVs by drivers who are ill, fatigued, or in non-compliance with the Hours-of-Service (HOS) regulations. This BASIC includes violations of regulations pertaining to logbooks as they relate to HOS requirements and the management of CMV driver fatigue. Example Violations: HOS, logbook, and operating a CMV while ill or fatigued. (FMCSR Parts 392 and 395)
• Driver Fitness — Operation of CMVs by drivers who are unfit to operate a CMV due to lack of training, experience, or medical qualifications. Example Violations: Failure to have a valid and appropriate commercial driver’s license and being medically unqualified to operate a CMV. (FMCSR Parts 383 and 391)
• Controlled Substances/Alcohol — Operation of CMVs by drivers who are impaired due to alcohol, illegal drugs, and misuse of prescription or over-the-counter medications. Example Violations: Use or possession of controlled substances/alcohol. (FMCSR Parts 382 and 392)
• Vehicle Maintenance — Failure to properly maintain a CMV. Example Violations: Brakes, lights, and other mechanical defects, and failure to make required repairs. (FMCSR Parts 393 and 396)
• Cargo-Related — Failure to properly prevent shifting loads, spilled or dropped cargo, overloading, and unsafe handling of hazardous materials on a CMV. Example Violations: Improper load securement, cargo retention, size and weight, and hazardous material handling. (FMCSR Parts 392, 393, 397 and HM Violations)
• Crash Indicator— Histories or patterns of high crash involvement, including frequency and severity. It is based on information from State-reported crashes.

Deficiencies will be more meticulously scrutinized then before. The burden is solely on the carrier to take corrective action. This plan will also enable the DOT and FMCSA to monitor more problem carriers than before.

A carrier’s measurement for each BASIC depends on:

• The number of adverse safety events (violations related to that BASIC or crashes)
• The severity of violations or crashes
• When the adverse safety events occurred (more recent events are weighted more heavily).

After a measurement is determined, the carrier is then placed in a peer group (e.g., other carriers with similar numbers of inspections). Percentiles from 0 to 100 are then determined by comparing the BASIC measurements of the carrier to the measurements of other carriers in the peer group. 100 indicate the worst performance.

** Sound Complicated?? Well It is. **

What CSA 2010 means to you, if you are a Shipper?
If you are a shipper using motor carriers to transport your products then you need to be knowledgeable about CSA 2010 as possible or you need to be utilizing a 3PL with a Compliance Department to protect you from hiring carriers with deficient scores and violations.

Access America Transport has a staff of compliance professionals that monitors these scores and regulatory requirements so the shippers don’t have to. Most transportation contracts stipulate that their shipments be transported safely with qualified carriers. Access America Transport has the means, the staffing and the know how to manage the risk and compliance for you.

Due to the fact that the scoring will change even top rated carriers, there is to be an expected reduction in motor carriers and qualified drivers on the road. Experts believe up to 75 thousand drivers could be out of business and the good ones are going to charge a whole lot more. Access America Transport can mitigate some of those increases because of its own economies of scale. Several hundred shipments a year is far less than the tens of thousands we do annually.

Gary Shostak
Director of Compliance and Risk Management
Access America Transport Inc.