Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA)

Scope

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.

Regulatory citations

• None

Key definitions

• Accident:
  • Except as provided in the second part of this definition, an occurrence involving a commercial motor vehicle operating on a highway in interstate or intrastate commerce which results in:
    • A fatality;
    • Bodily injury to a person who, as a result of the injury, immediately receives medical treatment away from the scene of the accident; or
    • One or more motor vehicles incurring disabling damage as a result of the accident, requiring the motor vehicle(s) to be transported away from the scene by a tow truck or other motor vehicle.
  • The term accident does not include:
    • An occurrence involving only boarding and alighting from a stationary motor vehicle; or
    • An occurrence involving only the loading or unloading of cargo.
• Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs): Categories that incorporate violations of the FMCSRs and the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMRs) and are organized to focus on behaviors that may cause or increase the severity of crashes.
• Commercial motor vehicle: Any self-propelled or towed motor vehicle used on a highway in interstate commerce to transport passengers or property when the vehicle:
  • Has a gross vehicle weight rating or gross combination weight rating, or gross vehicle weight or gross combination weight, of 4,536 kg (10,001 pounds) or more, whichever is greater; or
  • Is designed or used to transport more than 8 passengers (including the driver) for compensation; or
  • Is designed or used to transport more than 15 passengers, including the driver, and is not used to transport passengers for compensation; or
  • Is used in transporting material found by the Secretary of Transportation to be hazardous under 49 U.S.C. 5103 and transported in a quantity requiring placarding.
• Compliance, Safety, Accountability: The FMCSA's safety compliance and enforcement program, which holds motor carriers and drivers accountable for their safety on U.S. roadways.
• Driver: Any person who operates any commercial motor vehicle.
• Motor carrier: A for-hire motor carrier or a private motor carrier. The term includes a motor carrier's agents, officers and representatives as well as employees responsible for hiring, supervising, training, assigning, or dispatching of drivers and employees concerned with the installation, inspection, and maintenance of motor vehicle equipment and/or accessories. This definition includes the terms employer and exempt motor carrier.
• Roadside inspections: Examinations that a certified Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) inspector (usually state or local law enforcement personnel) conducts on individual CMVs and drivers to determine if they are in compliance with the FMCSRs and/or HMRs.
• Safety Measurement System (SMS): The FMCSA’s workload prioritization tool. The SMS uses this safety data to assess carriers in the seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories.

Summary of requirements

The CSA program can be broken down into four main components:

• Collection of safety-related data from roadside inspections, investigations, and crash reports;
• Measurement of that data across seven categories known as the BASICs, using the SMS;
• Evaluation of the data to determine which carriers and drivers are performing more unsafely than others; and
• Intervention (enforcement action) to persuade unsafe carriers and drivers to improve their safety performance.

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:

• Unsafe Driving
• Hours of Service (HOS) Compliance
• Driver Fitness
• Controlled Substances and Alcohol
• Vehicle Maintenance
• Hazardous Materials (HM) Compliance
• Crash Indicator

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.

The interventions include:

• Warning letters advising of apparent safety problems and the potential consequences.
• Targeted roadside inspections to verify that the warning letters are being taken seriously.
• Off-site investigations involving the collection and reviewing of documents at an FMCSA location.
• Focused on-site investigations at the motor carrier’s place of business, focusing on a particular safety problem.
• Comprehensive on-site investigations at the motor carrier’s place of business.
• Cooperative safety plans developed and followed voluntarily by a motor carrier to address safety problems.
• Notices of violation to put a carrier on notice of specific regulatory violations that need to be corrected “or else.”
• Settlement agreements to contractually bind a motor carrier to take actions to improve safety.
• Notices of claim to levy a fine and compel compliance in the case of “severe” or repeat violations.