News

Spring is almost here, and the calendar has switched to 2011. Going forward CSA 2010 will simply be referred to as Comprehensive Safety Analysis (CSA)

One of the main thrusts of CSA was to initiate a method of measuring certain statistics on trucking risks regulated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Seven core areas for measurement were identified and grouped under the term BASIC. The seven items included under BASIC are;

• Unsafe Driving
• Fatigued Driving
• Driver Fitness
• Controlled Substances and Alcohol 
• Vehicle Maintenance 
• Cargo Related
• Crash Indicator

The measurement of these 7seven basic items were tied into their statistical correlation with existing crash data and compared to other trucking risks operating a similar amount of trucks. FMCSA ranked the BASIC items on a percentile basis and provided warnings if an individual trucker was deemed to be MARGINAL or DEFFICIENT.

Three trade groups protested the terminology used by the FMCSA, and eventually filed suit. The suit contended that the terminology being used was causing shippers and others to not do business with certain trucking risks that had a marginal or deficient rating on one or more of their BASIC scores. They further argued that the FMCSA thresholds were to be used for interventions with the individual trucking companies and was not meant to be a method of rating individual trucking risks by third parties. A trucker with one or more warnings on their individual BASIC scores could very well still be deemed by the FMCSA to be SATISFACTORY.

Click on these links to see a press release by the FMCSA as well as the press release from the law firm representing the three trade groups for more information.

Seaton & Husk, LP Press Release

FMSCA Press Release

The FMCSA will replace any references on their BASIC scoring that previously referred to marginal or deficient with a yellow triangle symbol.

What does this mean to you? If you are a broker that specializes in writing truckers, or only has a few trucking accounts, your clients are all affected by CSA implementation and changes. They may very well welcome information and insight that you can provide to them to help keep them in compliance and to improve their overall trucking operation.