FMCSA Provides Motor Carriers Early Look at CSA 2010 Safety Standings

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ("FMCSA") announced yesterday its next step in the phased rollout of Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 now simply called ("CSA “). Starting August 16, 2010 the FMCSA will allow motor carriers to see how they are performing in each of the seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories ("BASICS").

The FMCSA also said it has improved the system to address certain trucking industry concerns. For example, exposure under two of the BASICS - Unsafe Driving and the Crash Indicator - will no longer be based on only the number of power units, but will instead use a calculation based on a combination of power units and miles driven. In addition, Carriers will now be grouped by the number of inspections with a violation (for Unsafe Driving) and the number of crashes (for the Crash Indicator); the number of power units will be replaced by the number of relevant inspections when grouping under the Controlled Substances/Alcohol BASICS; etc.

Finally, despite speculation to the contrary, the FMCSA confirmed its intention to proceed with CSA 2010 implementation in accordance with its published schedule available at: http://csa2010.fmcsa.dot.gov/about/csa_when.aspx