Improving CSA’s Rules

Kudos to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for agreeing to alter its CSA safety program in light of research showing there may not be a strong correlation between certain violations and the rate of accidents.

FMCSA late last week agreed to lower the importance of two of its safety categories when it rates carriers as a result of several studies, including one by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (click here for p. 1 story in this week’s issue).

It’s important that FMCSA keeps listening to trucking and other interested parties as it changes the paradigm of the federal safety program for fleets. CSA represents a historic shift, and it is crucial that FMCSA retains the support and respect of the carriers it governs if the program is to be implemented successfully. Paying attention to suggestions and concerns is the best way to make CSA work.

FMCSA has divided the safety rules into seven major areas, which it labels BASICs, as part of CSA.

Agreeing to lessen the importance of those two categories — cargo securement and driver fitness — when it evaluates carriers was the right thing to do. UMTRI said its study showed no correlation between fleets that had violations in those two categories and the rate of accidents involving those fleets. FMCSA said it discovered similar findings through its own research.

The agency last week also modified several other issues that had concerned some fleets. There had been a back and forth over whether the number of trucks in a fleet, or the number of miles driven by that fleet, should be the yardstick for evaluation of the safety of carriers.

The agency chose a middle ground in several of the safety categories, saying — for instance — that in the drug and alcohol category, it will rank carriers by using the number of inspections conducted on fleets, rather than on the number of trucks.

Some of the details of FMCSA’s modifications were unavailable when we went to press last week, so we will have more to say on this matter in coming issues.

But we did hear enough to see that the agency seems to be moving in the right direction.

FMCSA’s work on this program certainly isn’t done yet, but the agency has given us renewed faith in CSA. We look forward to working with the agency staff to ensure a smooth start for this new safety era.