Getting CSA Ready for Prime Time
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration followed through on its promise last month and made several important changes in its CSA safety rating program last week.
The agency, as Administrator Anne Ferro had said it would last month when she met with ATA’s membership, made several changes in response to what it heard after inviting comments on its proposal. The changes will be included when the program is officially rolled out in December.
As important as some of the changes are, the fact that the agency clearly has responded to suggestions, comments and criticisms of its new commercial carrier safety program is noteworthy in itself.
It is refreshing to see a federal regulatory agency ask for, and then heed, advice from the industry it regulates. While the trucking industry certainly didn’t get all the changes it wanted, the modifications go a long way toward resolving several issues.
To begin with, FMCSA removed the term “deficient” from its vocabulary when referring to carriers that receive scores in categories that bring FMCSA intervention actions. Rather, these carriers will receive an “alert” notification putting them on notice that immediate improvement is required.
Some fleets believe, and rightfully we think, that “deficient” is too pejorative a term and could well harm fleets involved in legal proceedings. Not all of the seven safety categories that FMCSA is rating are equal in importance, and a term such as “deficient” doesn’t differentiate between a fleet that is only barely out of compliance from one that is far below standard.
The agency said it also would reduce the relative importance of some of the components in the cargo-related category under CSA. Fleets had complained to FMCSA that this category was unfairly exposing some of them to criticism. In response, FMCSA said it would ask experts to help it assign severity weightings on cargo-securement violations.
In the interim, FMCSA said it would make public only violations of this category and would not post a carrier’s relative standing on the open website. Thus, carrier ratings and CSA status will be available only to carriers and the enforcement community until work on these changes is completed.
In all, we are hopeful CSA will turn out to be a good and an effective program that will help the trucking industry improve its already commendable safety record by highlighting the accomplishments of good carriers and running off unqualified fleets that do harm to the reputation of the entire industry.
