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Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) is an enforcement program designed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to reduce commercial vehicle crashes through improved safety management and better compliance with safety regulations.
Generally, CSA affects motor carriers subject to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs), carriers transporting passengers or cargo in interstate commerce, and carriers of hazardous materials in intrastate commerce. CSA may also include carriers whose state requires that they obtain a U.S. DOT Number.
The CSA program can be broken down into four main components:
CSA constantly measures safety performance and compliance, determines safety fitness, recommends and applies interventions, and tracks and evaluates safety improvements. The program continuously evaluates and monitors carriers’ and drivers’ compliance and safety performance.
Data collection. The CSA model primarily relies on data collected from roadside inspections and crashes. Nearly all safety-related violations that appear on roadside inspection reports are entered into the federal database that feeds the SMS. In addition, all state-reported crashes go into the SMS. (Note: Motor carriers and drivers may use DataQs to challenge the preventability of an accident to request it be removed from CSA calculations.)
The motor carrier SMS scoring process uses two years of inspection reports and crash data, while the driver scoring process relies on three years of data. The SMS also uses the number of inspections that a carrier has had, violation data collected during in-house carrier audits, and carrier census data as reported to the FMCSA on the US DOT registration form.
A driver’s violations will stay on the employing motor carrier's CSA record — and continue to affect that carrier’s CSA scores — for two years, even if the driver stops working for that company.
Measurement and Evaluation. The SMS uses the inspection and crash data to “measure” how a motor carrier or driver is performing in terms of safety, in relation to their peers. This is done through the Carrier Safety Measurement System (CSMS) and the Driver Safety Measurement System (DSMS). The incoming violation and crash data are separated into seven categories known as the BASICs (as described below) and is then “weighted” based on how likely each crash or violation will lead to injuries or crashes and how recently they occurred. The SMS then generates a percentile rank or “score” on each BASIC, with the worst performers being assigned a score of 100 percent.
BASICs. The inspection, crash, and investigative data that enters the CSA system is automatically categorized into seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs). The BASICs represent behaviors that lead to or increase the consequences of crashes. Every 30 days, the SMS generates a score on each BASIC.
The BASICs include:
Interventions. Having a driver’s or motor carrier’s scores on the BASICs allows the FMCSA to determine if some type of “intervention” is necessary to prevent injuries and accidents. The agency has established certain thresholds for BASIC scores, and once a carrier’s scores exceed that threshold, an intervention becomes likely. The intervention thresholds are shown in the table below. Note that driver interventions only take place during the course of a motor carrier audit. These intervention thresholds are subject to change.
BASIC | Passenger carriers | Hazmat carriers | Others |
---|---|---|---|
Unsafe Driving, HOS Compliance, Crash Indicator | 50% | 60% | 65% |
Driver Fitness, Drugs/Alcohol, Vehicle Maintenance | 65% | 75% | 80% |
HM Compliance | 80% | 80% | 80% |
The interventions include: