CSA 2010 Methodology
Posted on Fri, Jan 08, 2010 @ 12:42 PM
SafeStat, which CSA 2010 is replacing, rated motor carriers only in 4 areas… accidents, driver out-of-service (OOS) violations, vehicle OOS violations and the company’s safety management controls.
CSA 2010 will rate motor carriers and drivers in 7 areas or BASICS… unsafe driving, fatigued driving, driver fitness, controlled substances and alcohol, vehicle maintenance, loading/cargo securement and accidents.
CSA 2010 will use all violations discovered on roadside inspections not just OOS violations. (Historically, OOS violations have been a very small percentage of total violations discovered). This has the potential to have a huge impact on the industry.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)
has indentified the types of violations shown to most likely predict future involvement in accidents and assigned them higher values. Notably these include reckless driving, using or possessing drugs or alcohol, “jumping” an OOS order, operating while ill or fatigued, multiple licenses, serious HazMat violations and most load securement violations including failing to inspect cargo within 50 miles of loading and failing to reexamine cargo and load securement during transport.
In addition, CSA 2010 weights violations and accidents based on the time frame they occurred. Most recent violations/accidents are weighted three, violations/accidents between six and twelve months old are weighted twice and violations/accidents between twelve and twenty-four months old are weighted once. (Accidents resulting in injury or fatality are weighted twice.
Tow-away accidents are weighted once however any accident resulting in a
HazMat release is given one additional weighting).
I won’t pretend to understand and tell you about the logarithms CSA 2010 utilizes but suffice it to say it applies data sufficiency standards and peer grouping (carriers of like size are compared) to arrive at percentile ranks and, ultimately, a Safety Fitness Determination. The FMCSA has established “intervention thresholds” for carriers and drivers which, if exceeded may result in contacts ranging from warning letters to on-site investigations to a designation of “Unfit” and an accompanying suspension.
As pointed out previously, CSA 2010 may result in an “Unfit” Safety Fitness Determination without the carrier ever being subjected to an on-site review based solely on its BASICS compared to a pre-set standard.
Carriers need to focus on crash reduction strategies and driver education especially with respect to the violations listed above which all carry a Violation Severity Rating of “10”.
ADS LOGISITCS CO, LLC (Area Transportation) is ready for CSA 2010. Are you?