CSA 2010 Is a ‘Game Changer’
This Editorial appears in the Feb. 8 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
If it works as advertised, trucking’s new safety rating machinery will be as quick and as responsive as a sports car when compared to the old, glacial way of doing things.
Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010, starting in July, is to replace the existing data collection and rating system known as SafeStat. In contrast with SafeStat ratings, which could remain static for years, CSA 2010 ratings of individual fleets will be updated monthly to reflect the latest inspections and enforcement actions of local and state authorities, says the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
The old system’s effectiveness depended in large measure on infrequent and inconsistent compliance reviews. CSA 2010’s goal is to assign ratings based on a fleet’s actual on-road performance — including, significantly, details of driver activities. Expect greater attention to hours-of-service violations.
FMCSA says adverse driver performance will bring federal intervention: a tap on the shoulder in the form of a warning letter to fleet managers, followed by investigation and possible fines or even out-of-service orders, not to mention downgrading of the fleet’s safety rating. FMCSA says it can direct action against individual drivers, too.
Fleet executives are beginning to recognize that this is “game-changing” stuff for truck operators.
“Many of you are going to have to become experts about CSA 2010 in a way that you never in your wildest dreams imagined,” American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves said during Qualcomm Inc.’s user conference last week. (Click here for p. 1 story).
As with any prototype, a lot of adjustment and tweaking will have to take place before the apparatus is running smoothly. The success of CSA 2010 will depend ultimately on the quality of the data flowing into the system, and that’s the part most vulnerable to failure.
We have said this before, and it bears repeating: CSA 2010 cannot deliver on its promise until uniformity of data reporting can be established across myriad local and state jurisdictions. If it’s like other such problems — wide variation in enforcement activities from state to state is an example — experience shows this will take a long time to resolve, and the results will never be perfect.
The same must be said of the methodology of analysis: The only true reflection of a fleet’s exposure to potential crashes is the total number of miles its vehicles travel. If this is not addressed by FMCSA, then we’ll have much less reason to cheer the arrival of this new model of regulation.
