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Assessing compliance review information assists the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in determining a motor carrier’s safety rating.
These regulations apply to all motor carriers, drivers, and commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) that transport property or passengers in interstate commerce.
Parts of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations and Hazardous Materials Regulations having similar characteristics are combined together into five regulatory factors and an accident factor. The factors, evaluated on the basis of the adequacy of the carrier’s safety management controls, are:
Factor | Description | Regulatory citation |
---|---|---|
Factor 1 | General | Parts 387 and 390 |
Factor 2 | Driver | Parts 382, 383, and 391 |
Factor 3 | Operational | Parts 392 and 395 |
Factor 4 | Vehicle | Parts 393 and 396 |
Factor 5 | Hazardous Materials | Parts 397, 171, 177, and 180 |
Factor 6 | Accident | Based on Recordable Rate |
For each instance of non-compliance with an acute regulation or each pattern of non-compliance with a critical regulation during a compliance review, one point will be assessed.
A pattern of non-compliance is considered more than one violation. When a number of documents are reviewed, the number of violations required to meet a pattern is equal to at least ten percent of those examined.
Each pattern of non-compliance with a critical regulation relative to Part 395, Hours of Service of Drivers, will be assessed two points. Each factor is then rated as follows:
Rating | Description |
---|---|
Satisfactory | Acute and/or critical = 0 points |
Conditional | Acute and/or critical = 1 point |
Unsatisfactory | Acute and/or critical = 2 points |
Vehicle factor. When a total of three or more inspections are recorded in the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS) during the 12 months prior to the compliance review or performed at the time of the review, the Vehicle Factor will be evaluated on the basis of the Out-of-Service (OOS) rates and non-compliance with acute regulations and/or a pattern of non-compliance with critical regulations. The results of the review of the OOS rate will affect the Vehicle Factor rating as follows:
Accident factor. In addition to the five regulatory rating factors, a sixth factor is included in the process to address the accident history of the motor carrier. This factor is the recordable accident rate which the carrier has experienced during the past 12 months.
The recordable accident rate will be used only when a motor carrier incurs two or more recordable accidents within the 12 months prior to the compliance review.
The following formula is used to compute a carrier’s accident rate:
Recordable Accidents x 1,000,000
Total miles operated by the carrier
in the 365 days prior to the compliance review
An urban carrier (a carrier operating entirely within a radius of 100 air miles) with a recordable accident rate greater than 1.7 will receive an unsatisfactory rating for the accident factor.
All other carriers with a recordable accident rate greater than 1.5 will receive an unsatisfactory rating for the accident factor.
The FMCSA will consider preventability when a motor carrier contests a rating by presenting compelling evidence that the recordable rate is not a fair means of evaluating its accident factor. Preventability will be determined according to the following standard: “If a driver, who exercises normal judgment and foresight could have foreseen the possibility of the accident that in fact occurred, and avoided it by taking steps within his/her control which would not have risked causing another kind of mishap, the accident was preventable.”