Feeling the Heat
performance. For one, it casts a wider net for including violations in the safety scoring system, rather than just out-of-service violations, tickets and crashes. Independent owner-operators and other carri-ers will not have to undergo a full on-site compli-ance review for safety data to have an effect on safety ratings in any of the seven violation catego-ries the agency has set, expanded from four under Safestat. Ratings will be updated monthly with new data, mostly from violations noted at roadside. (A chart on Pages 34-35 gives a simple overview of how the system works.) CSA 2010 also employs an individual driver-rating tool that will provide the agency with the ability to intervene with a carrier due to a particularly bad safety re-cord for a single driver, whether driving company equipment or leased. This tool is being employed internally by FMCSA officials, who say it has the look and feel of the system rating carriers in violation categories. Drivers will not receive a formal, points-based assessment that's publicly re-leased, says FMCSA Senior Transportation Spe-cialist Bryan Price. That would require another rulemaking and might require increased authority through legislation from Congress, he says. Still, FMCSA acknowledges on its CSA 2010 website that its internal approach to driver measurement does not preclude FMCSA from developing a driver rating or safety fitness deter-mination process at some time in the future. Regardless, the program is expected to bring independents and other small carriers under a level of scrutiny similar to what large fleets have always experienced with compliance reviews, says Prime Inc. Director of Safety Don Lacy. They didn't pick on the little guys, Lacy says. They recognized the need to look at new entrants but had limited manpower, so they devised this system. CSA 2010 is now operational in some form in nine states. Since it was implemented in 2008 in Colorado, We've had carriers whose numbers have improved just as a result of the change in system, says Patti Olsgard of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association. However, she notes, we'll see a lot more of the opposite, because of how the system works. Carriers and drivers in the pilot states report mixed results. For Atlanta-based Kennesaw Transportation, which operates 194 company-owned power units, mostly in reefer applications, the CSA 2010 journey began in 2008. What put me on their radar was my driver number, says Mike Clay, safety director. Though that measure-ment was about average under SafeStat, FMCSA had found a pattern of speeding violations and MARCH 2010 Overdrive 27 T odd Dills eTr uck er .com poll: 263 r esponses eTrucker.com poll: 229 responses 2010 increasing safety reporting and enforcement? It's too much government intrusion 68% OK. We need a high safety standard. 16% We'll have to wait and see. 16% How much do you know about CSA 2010? What's CSA 2010? 35% I know the basics 28% Reading everything I can about it 27% I think I've heard of it 10%