The Highly-Touted Safety Accountability Program is Under Review and Creating a Stir in Trucking News

The effectiveness of the Compliance Safety Accountability (CSA) program, which is overseen by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, is getting a second look after members of Congress expressed concerns recently.

The program made trucking news when it was launched in 2010 to promote safety
for commercial truck and bus industries. The program’s major focus is on a safety
measurement system that analyzes safety-based violations. It was believed that the
CSA would allow more “corrective interventions” to be applied to a wider range of
commercial carriers, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The program made trucking news again after a hearing last September in Washington
D.C. in front of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Highway and Transit
Subcommittee where concerns were aired. Those concerns gave way to an audit of the
CSA. The CSA’s main focus, the Safety Measurement System (SMS), was also the
biggest concern among the congressmen on the subcommittee. The main issue appears to
be the way the SMS evaluates performance and risk.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will be evaluated, particularly in how
they implement the CSA. One member of the subcommittee said that the audit will
look at the controls established by the FMCSA to ensure that the data they gather was
of the appropriate quality, and if the FMCSA is correctly enforcing the interventions.
Furthermore, the Government Accountability Office is looking at the highest risk carriers
and how CSA identifies those carriers.

When the U.S. Department of Transportation established the CSA, it was believed that
the SMS would use seven safety improvement categories to examine carriers’ on-road
performance and what risks they pose. Some of the data that was to be looked at includes
the fitness of the driver, whether any drugs or alcohol were ingested by the driver, the
number of hours they are on the road, vehicle maintenance records and crash records. By
looking at each of these categories, the CSA would better determine the risk associated
with each carrier, which has also been a highlight in several trucking news publications.
The FMCSA was to conduct compliance reviews, onsite, and determine if the carrier was
complying to the safety controls set up by the FMCSA. The audit will determine if these
measures were being followed as they were laid out in 2010.

FMCSA has the power to place strict civil penalties on carriers that are not in compliance
with the safety regulations.