Next Phase of CSA 2010 Announced
Posted on Thu, Sep 02, 2010 @ 11:13 AM
The next step in the rollout of CSA 2010 is underway. Carriers can now see how they are being scored in the pending Safety Measurement System. Also as planned, CSA 2010 will stick to its schedule to implement the program state-by-state throughout 2011. Once all the states are up to speed on implementating CSA 2010, the new method for determining safety fitness will be put into effect. All of this is part of CSA 2010’s mission to increase truck driving safety and decrease trucking accidents and trucking-related fatalities. This next phase will hopefully be a major step to ultimately completing these goals.
“This early look gives motor carriers an opportunity to understand and address their safety compliance issues right away," the FMCSA said in an official announcement. The early warnings give carriers an opportunity to assess concerns before they get penalized under the new system. Not everyone is familiar yet with the new standards so this sort of “dry run” is great for carriers who may be committing violations without knowing it. Those who are not yet familiar with the new standards are urged by the FMCSA to visit their website to learn more about how they will be scored according to the seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories, or BASICs. Additional information on CSA 2010 can be found here on the ADS Logistics Blog.
“Taking heed of industry concerns about its approach to measuring exposure in two of the BASICs, Unsafe Driving and the Crash Indicator, the FMCSA is changing from a calculation based just on the number of power units to one based on a combination of power units and vehicle miles traveled,” said by Oliver B. Patton, Washington Editor for Trucking Info. His complete article on the new phase of CSA 2010 can be found here. This small change in these 2 categories will make it easier for larger carriers because they are no longer going to be scored based solely on how many power units they have, which has hurt some larger carriers in the past. In the old system larger carriers were view as more dangerous because they had more accidents. This is only because they have more trucks and therefore more chances for an accident. With CSA 2010, that miles traveled are taken into account, their score in those two categories will come down and the scores of smaller carriers go up.
In its announcement yesterday, the agency took note of a preliminary report that researchers at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute have found that while most of the BASICs are good indicators of future crash risk, two of them are not. UMTRI is analyzing the data from the agency's 30-month field test of CSA 2010. Its final report is due by the end of December. The field test is working with small test groups within certain states to see if any improvements will need to be made to CSA 2010 or the BASIC categories. As of Mid-June, over 11,000 carriers have visited the CSA 2010 website to see their preliminary score. This is good news however, the several hundred thousand that haven’t may be in for a surprise come December, when the system goes live. Be prepared, and get your preliminary score today! Also subscribe to the ADS blog to stay on top of all the important CSA 2010 changes that will be happening in the future.