FMCSA makes changes to CSA program

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) this week announced several changes to its Compliance Safety Accountability (CSA) enforcement program that will enable it to more quickly identify and address high-risk truck and bus companies with compliance concerns.

“Good data plays a key role in keeping our nation’s roads safe,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “These improvements will enable us to better identify and address unsafe truck and bus companies before tragedies occur.”

The changes will be implemented in December 2012 and include:

• Changing the Cargo-Related BASIC (Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category) to the Hazardous Materials (HM) Compliance BASIC to better identify HM safety and compliance problems.

• Changing the Fatigued Driving BASIC to the more specific Hours-of-Service (HOS) Compliance BASIC to more accurately reflect violations in this area; and weighting HOS paper and electronic logbook violations equally.

• Clarifying definition of passenger carrier companies by:
1. Adding carriers that operate for-hire 9-15 passenger vehicles and 16-plus passenger vehicles;
2. Removing carriers operating only 1-8 passenger vehicles and private carriers operating 1-15 passenger vehicles such as
limousines, vans and taxis.

• Strengthening the Vehicle Maintenance BASIC by including cargo/load securement violations from today’s Cargo-Related BASIC.

• Including intermodal equipment violations that should be found during drivers’ pre-trip inspections.

• Removing 1 to 5 mph speeding violations to ensure citations are consistent with current speedometer regulations.

• Ensuring all recorded violations accurately reflect the inspection type (i.e., only driver violations will be recorded under driver inspections).

“CSA is raising the bar for truck and bus safety. Our preliminary data shows that fatalities involving commercial vehicles dropped 4.7 percent last year compared to 2010,” said FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro. “Still, on average, nearly 4,000 people die in large truck and bus crashes each year. That is why we are implementing these important changes to make CSA even more effective.”

For complete details on the new CSA improvements, go to http://csa.fmcsa.dot.gov/.