Why a strike? The CSA 2010 will cripple trucking.

Hey :
I am not quite that old yet. But I did start trucking way before all of this BS started.
I understand what some say about the SAFETY end of things .....
Back in the day you knew when nearing a truck stop. "Where's all the smokin dope" That was only one of the most common things we heard.
We all knew that had to go and soon. Well , It did and now it is gone .

So the drug thing is not really an issue anymore. We moved on.
Next we got a bran new speed limit of 55MPH.. That was to save fuel..
Maybe it did. It also made the states millions of dollars.. That was more of the reason than the fuel issue.

Nothing has ever been about saving fuel... Never was never will be.
Back in 1987 my Freightliner Classic got 6.1 MPG. 400 BC 4 and would run rather quickly down the road. you have a hard time buying a new truck today that gets 6.1 MPG...

Safety ???? Outlaws ????? I too was taught by OLDER MEN that knew what they were doing .... No by some driver trainer that just passed a course to become an instructor....
The whole idea of pumping out drivers from these so called driving schools now days is totally insane. Safety is the price we will pay for that.
It is NOT the older O/O that actually owns his truck rather than leasing it from a rip off company that has or ever has had a safety issue.
It is the new breed of so called drivers out here today that don't have a clue what to do when crap hits the fan on the road.

Next snow storm you go through look at the trucks off the road and laying on their sides.. Company owned and driver driven OR O/O ????
Be honest here .. I did not see even one O/O truck in the ditch this year.
Not talking about {lease, train and drive trucks} ....

Why do we have CSA 2010 coming at us ????

Fact is when this ne wso called law hits it will effect company drivers and not the real O/Os...
O/Os will have this in court .... Company drivers just get fired.

So before picking on OLD OUTLAWS some should take a longer look at things..

There is no arguement .. Hitler tried to create a perfect race too.
How far will we let our government take this ????
Overweight ? Black ? White ? Too OLD ? Last I knew discrimination was illegal ......
Stand for something or fall for anything........

 

And you'd think CSA will be giving those books away to as many drivers as they can, free of charge, if it was really about safety.

There's still $700 billion left in Democrat re-election slush fun.....I mean, stimulus fund. I'm sure CSA would have asked those "compassionate" Democrats to allocate a chump change so they can print a couple million copies of the booklet so all drivers on the road are informed and become safer, if it was really about safety.

Naturally.

So much for the gurantee of pursuit of happiness. You'll now be denied of the right just because some bureaucrats decided you are too fat.


If law enforcement and federal/state revenues were decoupled, most of BS regulations will go away. Unfortunately, that'll never happen.

Sometimes I wish I was a liberal. I'd be a much happier person seeing ever-increasing government interference and decreasing freedom. Ignorance is a bliss, indeed. Sigh.

 

Ok, now that I gathered my notes, refreshed my memory, and read most parts of the 115 pages handbook CSA 2010, here is a summary of what I learned.

CSA 2010 replaces the FMCSA’s existing enforcement model, it will touch the same carriers that are currently subject to FMCSA tracking and enforcement – those that have obtained a US. DOT number. So, in response to question, if you operate a commercial motor vehicle as defined in § 390.5 you are subject to CSA 2010.

All crashes and all safety-related violations reported at the roadside will be used to grade both carriers and their drivers. CSA 2010 is based on roadside inspection primarily. So, it’s important to “control” your roadside inspection and keep a copy of all roadside inspection forms/ reports.

A violation can be logged even if a citation or ticket is not issued – even if the violation simply appears on an inspection report – and even if the driver is not placed out of service. In summary, under CSA 2010, all violations count. As consequence, carriers and drivers that appear to be performing adequately under the current SafeStat-based system, may find their safety performance grade to be much worse under CSA 2010!

A driver’s violation will stay on the employing motor carrier’s record (for 24 months) even if the driver stops working for that company. And will stay on the driver’s record for 36 months. During the CSA seminar, someone asked why 24 months for the company and 36 months for the driver. Again, another unanswered question….

Once a violation data is entered into the SMS (Safety Measurement System), it’s compared to a list of about 930 specific rule violations across seven categories, known as the “Behavior Analysis Safety Improvement Categories” and they inclule:

• Unsafe driving
• Fatigued driving
• Driver fitness
• Drug and alcohol
• Vehicle maintenance
• Cargo loading/securement
• Crash history

After a carrier or driver’s violation are classified into the BASICs, they are assigned different “weights” that is, some violations will count more heavily than others based on:

• How old the violation is
• The relative crash risk associated with that violation
• How long ago the inspection took place

Finally, the BASIC measurement is used to assign a percentile rank from 0% to 100% in which poor safety performers can be spotted and singled out for intervention or other enforcement actions. Depending on future rulemaking action, those that cross a certain threshold (not specified yet), will receive a safety rating and may be judged unfit to operate (and shutdown).

Once a month, carriers and drivers will be ranked with each BASIC and assigned a percentile score.

The “Driver Pre-Employment Screening Program” (PSP) will allow motor carriers and drivers to electronically access driver inspection and crash records. Carriers will need written permission from driver to access info. The company awarded the contract to run the program , NIC Technologies is said to charge an annual subscription fee of $100.00 and a $ 10.00 transaction fee for each record pulled. Drivers will be able to get their own records for free. The database will contain driver performance data on more than 4 million commercial drivers.

A clean inspection report will be very valuable to help prevent those BASICs from becoming deficient, or help to improve those BASICs if they are already deficient. So, it’s a good idea to make sure all clean inspections get recorded so they can serve to improve your safety record!

Vehicle Maintenance Basic – the following steps are taken to generate driver’s (and carrier’s) vehicle maintenance measure:

• Gather of the violations
• Assign severity weights (from 1 to 10 – 10 being the highest)
• Adjust for OOS ( an additional severity weight of 2 is added to the severity weight of any violation that resulted in an out-of-service order).
• Adjust for age (severity is multiplied by a 1, 2 or 3 depending on the age of the violation or how long ago the violation was recorded)
• Add them together
• Time weight the inspections (a time weight of 1, 2 or 3 is assigned to each relevant inspection depending on its age (including any clean inspections)
• Divide severity by inspections

For example, Jane had 3 inspections all with the past 12 months. One inspection had a lighting violation with a severity of 6. She was not placed out of service, but because the inspection was within the past year, the severity gets multiplied by a factor of 3 to become 18. The number of inspections (3) also gets multiplied by 3 to become 9, since all inspections were within the 12 months. The vehicle maintenance BASIC measure, therefore, is 18 ÷ 9 = 2

The sum of all violation severity weights from any one inspection is capped to a maximum of 30 (on each category).

Interventions – Under CSA 2010, the existing tool (on-site audit) will continue, plus warning letters, targeted roadside inspections, cooperative safety plans and others will be added to surgically address concerns.





Interventions can be triggered by:

• One or more deficient BASICs
• A high crash rate
• A complain
• A fatal crash

Interventions are designed to be progressive, increasing in severity. However, they do not have to be used “in order”. For example, an unsafe carrier may be subject to a comprehensive on-site audit, without receiving a warning letter.

Although individual drivers can be subject to interventions, the FMCSA is limiting its driver interventions at this time.

A summary of the interventions under CSA 2010:

• Early contact – warning letters, targeted roadside inspections
• Investigations – off-site investigations, focused on-site investigations, comprehensive on-site investigations
• Follow-on – cooperative safety plans, notices of violation, notices of claim, settlement agreement, unfit suspension.

The FMCSA will only be able to declare carriers unfit under CSA 2010 after the Part 385 rules are changed (find that in the Safety Fitness Procedures in the FMCSA regulations part 385). These are expected to undergo dramatic changes under CSA 2010.

Carriers deemed “unsatisfactory” will be given 45 days to fix problems or being shutdown.

Safety Fitness Determination – Under CSA 2010, safety fitness determinations could be based on safety performance data alone, and would not necessarily require an on-site investigation.
According to the FMCSA, using the terms “Continue Operation”, “Marginal”, and “Unfit” instead of “Satisfactory”, “Conditional” and “Unsatisfactory” will help clarify the rating process.

Under the CSA 2010 methodology, the FMCSA says there would be four major factors that could impact a motor carrier’s safety fitness determination:

• Roadside inspection results
• A verifiable crash rate
• A case where “essential” safety management violations are 10 percent or more of records checked during the intervention process
• Fifteen violations which the FMCSA believes are so “fundamental” to ensuring safety that no motor carrier should be allowed to operate if any of these violations are found and not immediately corrected.

During an intervention, the agency intends (in part) to compare a carrier’s operation against:

• A list of 53 “essential” violations, equivalent to the current list of “critical” violations
• A list of 15 “fundamental” violations, equivalent to today’s list of “acute” violations

For the “essentials”, if the FMCSA finds a 10 percent violation rate during its records check, the carrier will fail the BASIC that is tied to those violations, and will be rated Marginal at best, or Unfit at worst. For the “Fundamentals”, if the FMCSA finds a single violation, the carrier will receive an automatic Unfit rating.

The FMCSA says it intends to issue safety fitness determinations on all motor carriers for which it has sufficient data, and that these determinations would be updated monthly and made available to the public.

 

That was a lot of work you did which culminated into a good report......from the horse's mouth too! Thanks!

 

Just a quick question, an observation really, Does anyone feel that Drivers have or are getting to the point where mabe thier qualifications, or requirements are becoming more strict than, say an Airline Pilot?

Lower pay and higher standards, hmmm.

 

FMCSA has a website where we can post our comments, opinions etc... not sure how helpful this really is. I wonder if they even read what we write there... But I wish people would innundate them with comments...

Anyway, go to http://csa2010.fmcsa.dot.gov/listeningSessions/

and click on "Submit Comments on the CSA 2010 Public Listening Sessions".

Then, click on http://www.regulations.gov. To submit comments on the CSA 2010 the id number is FMCSA–2004–18898 and for comments on the HOS the id number is FMCSA-2004-19608.

 

Hey :
We Lack Balls... This is why our government is walking all over us.
Company drivers need what ever income they can get. They FEAR being fired and replaced by a mill driver.. {At the drop of a hat} .

They Rammed health care down our throats and there is a lot more on the way.. We are all just sitting back and letting the neighbors dog eat our children. Prove me wrong..

Any driver going along with this BS CSA2010 crap should loose his job..
And yes , we are more regulated than an air line pilot...

Ever see a big bellied cop ????? Why don't they loose their jobs over that ?
How about a fat congressman ???? It's time we start making demands of our own.. They need to do the drug screens also.. If they fail a random drug screen they are fired with no bennies or retirements.

They also need a Doctors slip for a no show and if not they are fired with no bennies or retirements...
They are public servants and all of there records need to be public..
COP's TOO....

This is all BS... No different than the gun laws. Over 20,000 gun laws on the books and yet the bad guys still have guns. The only ones that obey the laws are the good guys..

The FBI has now started RAIDING suspected Militia members in several states AGIAN....
When does all of this STOP....
4 Years before the health care thing goes into effect. BULL,,, I recieved an E-mail from our no so honorable Carl Levin.. {MICH}.. In 6 months my insurance plan will be reviewed.
I get the feeling something really bad may happen soon. :smt067

 

Safety in Numbers, problem is getting enough people together to be noticed or heard.