Sunday, September 27, 2009

CSA 2010 - DRIVER SAFETY MEASUREMENT SYSTEM

For the first time Drivers of Commercial Motor Vehicles will have a Safety Profile developed by DSMS -Driver Safety Measurement System. Points will be assigned to each violation, not just Out of Service Violations, that is considered to be a Driver Violation. This includes in-operative lights, brake violations, logs, log violations to include form and manner violations such as Miles missing from the log, Shipping Document Information and do not forget about Speeding tickets and other Motor Vehicle Law convictions. These points range from 1 to 10 and are weighted by time periods. Violations within the current 12 months have a factor (multiplied by) 3; 12 to 24 months have a factor of x 2; and 24 to 36 months would be the assigned points.

These points will stay with the Driver, even if he leaves the employ or lease of the current Motor Carrier. Well you would think that would be enough, not quite. There are plans to outsource this Driver Data to third parties and will be able, upon a request and release from the Motor Carrier, to provide the Driver information before or at time of being hired.

Driver's can also be determined to be UNFIT by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. If this should occur the Driver will not be able to operate a Commercial Motor Vehicle (CMV) for anyone. They will have to wait a time period for points to fall off the report, in order to go back to work as a Driver of a CMV.

Motor Carriers will be under pressure to not hire Drivers with unacceptable Safety Profiles. Eventually Insurance companies will get involved and demand Drivers have an acceptable score, which is yet to be determined.

Below is a link to the points assigned by violation. Also visit our website and join our Forum to ask and receive answers to questions you may have. If you are the Motor Carrier, get this information out to your Driver's

Link to the Points assigned - http://tinyurl.com/yek89tf

RMR Consultants Link (Also join our Newsletter) - http://www.rmrconsultants.com/

Our next segment will be on the Motor Carrier Intervention

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

CSA 2010 INITIATIVE

I recently attended a conference and one of the major discussions was on the CSA 2010 Initiative fy the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Admisistraion (FMCSA). This Initiative was started in 2008 and added motor carriers in a few States as a testing grounds. A few more States were added earlier this year and more in the Fall of 2009 are being added. The full implementation Nationwide is scheduled to begin in July of 2010 with all States added before 2011.

This Initiative, even though not very well publicized, will revolutionize the Motor Carrier Industry and the way Safety Ratings are assigned. All carriers will be starting out in the hole, so to speak. The data used is for the preceding 24 months. So in July of 2010 the data used will start with August of 2008. Due to carriers being in the hole and not knowing it, alot of them will be getting blind sided with a Compliance Review. Today carriers can look at the Safersys.org website to see where they stand in relationship to receiving a Compliance Review. The data on the new Initiative will not be able to be reviewed until January of 2010, unless you are a carrier with your main office in one of the test States.

The methodology used will assign a value to all violations found on roadside inspections, not just Out of Service violations and will be a weighted average over the preceding 24 months. Safety Ratings will be subject to change every 30 days, when updated data is released. Shippers need to be educated on this as well, is your agreement conditioned on you the carrier maintaining a Satisfactory Safety Rating. You may not be able to, at least in the beginning, and it could change several times a year due to a bad hiring decision or a string of maintenance related issues. These are additional things to consider.

I encourage all carriers to start getting pro-active and start now reviewing your existing data to find out where you are and start developing a plan of action to counteract the effects that otherwise will be felt later next year. Take your existing violations for 24 months apply the methodology and see where you stand. A FMCSA representative stated that SEA values could increase by a factor of 20 in Vehicle and Driver categories. This will put alot of carriers in the "High Risk" category and subject to a Compliance Review.

Then once the data is available in January of 2010 a review needs to be conducted every 30 days, at the time the new data is released to re-evaluate your standing and make revisions to your action plan. This is a must for all carriers, if they want to survive in the new era of this Initiative.

Our company is putting together resources to perform these reviews and to assist carriers in putting together a action plan to help reduce the violations being received. If you need assistance, please get with us before it is too late.

More industry information can be found at:

http://www.csa2010.com/

http://csa2010.fmcsa.dot.gov/