The carrier crash-risk rating given by the CSA known as a BASIC score (Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories) is a notoriously poor judge of a carrier’s actual safety risk. It’s a relatively new system, but so far the scores have had very little bearing on actual safety while having a disproportionately large negative impact on drivers’ lives.
A carrier’s BASIC score is made up of seven different categories, Unsafe Driving, Hours-of-Service Compliance, Driver Fitness, Controlled Substances/Alcohol, Vehicle Maintenance, Hazardous Materials Compliance, and Crash Indicator. The VP of safety at FedEx, Scott Mugno, famously claimed that only three of the seven categories have any correlation to a carrier’s actual crash risk. From all corners of the industry, there has been a universal call for a reexamination of the BASICs scoring system. It seems that the noise has gotten so loud that the CSA has finally heard it.
At a panel discussion held at the Great West Fleet Executive Conference, the FMCSA admitted that the CSA scores still had many kinks that needed to be ironed out.
FMCSA Senior Transportation Specialist Bryan Price said that the agency is hoping to unveil a redesigned version of its Safety Measurement System website sometime this summer. The new version will hopefully help users differentiate between different BASIC scores and help to emphasize the ones that actually have a bearing on crash risk. Price said that the website should be up and running by late summer and will also help to differentiate a lack of data from a bad score – a problem that many small carriers are currently experiencing.
Along with the website, Price also stated that the CSA is running different studies to see how effective the BASICs scores are, and what can be changed to make them more useful.
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The FMCSA claim that “police officers don’t lie about truck drivers” So I sent them the report on the accident in Ohio I was envolved in,and how the Ohio State Highway Patrol manipulated the facts on the accident report to “cover up” for the Ohio state,and it’s employee against the “out of state” truck driver. It was probably ignored by the FMCSA ,but I at least tried to get them to listen.