Bituminous Insurance Companies
Release Date: April 26, 2010
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) will replace its current Motor Carrier Safety Status Measurement System (SafeStat) with a new evaluation system called the Carrier Safety Measurement System (CSMS) on November 30, 2010. The CSMS has been developed and tested as part of the FMCSA's Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 (CSA 2010) initiative.
By implementing the new CSMS system, FMCSA hopes to be able to better identify high-risk motor carriers, make more efficient and effective allocation of compliance and enforcement resources by the FMCSA and its state partners, and provide the motor carrier industry and other safety stakeholders (including insurance carriers) with more comprehensive, informative, and regularly updated safety performance data.
FMCSA states that there are three important ways that the new CSMS is different from the existing measurement system, SafeStat. The CSMS is organized by seven specific behavioral areas (BASICs), while SafeStat is organized into four broad Safety Evaluation Areas (SEAs); the CSMS uses all safety-based inspection violations, while SafeStat uses only out-of-service violations and selected moving violations; and the CSMS uses risk-based violation weightings, while SafeStat does not.
Until its implementation on November 30, 2010, FMCSA will allow access to the CSMS by individual motor carriers to preview their performance data. FMCSA hopes that this preview, in advance of full implementation, will provide an opportunity for motor carriers to become better educated on the CSMS and identify and correct any safety compliance problems in the database.
The CSMS is the first component of the FMCSA program called Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 (CSA 2010) which the FMCSA hopes will improve the effectiveness of the FMCSA’s compliance and enforcement programs. CSA 2010 is expected to help the FMCSA assess the safety performance of a greater segment of the motor carrier industry and allow it to intervene earlier to change unsafe behavior and practices. The FMCSA’s ultimate goal is to achieve a reduction in large truck and bus crashes, injuries, and fatalities, while making efficient use of the resources of the FMCSA and its state partners.
In contrast to the FMCSA's current operational model, CSA 2010 is characterized by three principal components: a more comprehensive carrier safety measurement system (i.e., CSMS); a broader array of progressive interventions to augment comprehensive on-site investigations (compliance reviews), including warning letters, off-site investigations, and on-site focused investigations; and a new safety fitness determination (SFD) methodology based more on performance data and not necessarily tied to an on-site investigation.
There are nine states currently using the CSA 2010 program in an FMCSA "operational model test" and will carry out the full array of CSA 2010 interventions after the test concludes in June 2010. These states are Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, and New Jersey. For the remaining 41 states, the new CSA 2010 interventions will be phased in during 2011.
COPYRIGHT ©2010, ISO Services Properties, Inc.
The information contained in this publication was obtained from sources believed to be reliable. ISO Services Properties, Inc., its companies and employees make no guarantee of results and assume no liability in connection with either the information herein contained or the safety suggestions herein made. Moreover, it cannot be assumed that every acceptable safety procedure is contained herein or that abnormal or unusual circumstances may not warrant or require further or additional procedure.