How Will CSA 2010 Affect Driver Safety and Compliance?
Posted on Fri, May 07, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
Safety and compliance are becoming increasingly more important to carriers and drivers every day for a multitude of reasons.
For instance, carriers have long-known that good safety and compliance numbers (insurance losses and SafeStat for example) translate into better insurance rates, a better competitive position and increased profits.
Drivers know that a bad safety record can cost them their job and make finding another more difficult.
With the onset of CSA 2010 the stakes are even greater.
Carriers can now find themselves the subject of targeted enforcement both on the road (increased inspections) and on-site (Compliance Review) if their scores in any of the seven (7) CSA 2010 BASICS exceed FMCSA-designated thresholds.
Drivers will now have three (3) years of their compliance history with the DOT available to current and prospective carriers. Non-compliant drivers will find their continued employment with their current carrier in jeopardy and prospective carriers reluctant to bring them and their points on board. Future incarnations of CSA 2010 are reported to include direct intervention with drivers whose safety performance scores exceed as yet undetermined thresholds.
The true reward for safe and compliant operations however is even more important and much more personal. Carriers need to ensure their #1 customer, their internal customer, the driver, completes his/her duties every day without being injured or worse, killed. We all owe this basic right to our employees.
Likewise, everyone with whom we share the roads, even those drivers who unknowingly and even intentionally put themselves in harm's way by cutting in front of a truck or riding in a “No Zone”- everyone, has a basic right to return to their families without being injured or killed.
Safety and compliance, in the final analysis, are personal. We can’t put profits (or pay checks) above human suffering and lives.
Safety… is no accident.
Posted by Kevin Mullen- Director: Safety, ADS Logistics Co, LLC
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