how C.S.A. points can cost money

If the company I'm leased to sends something like that out, they'll get their trailer back...

 

How come you never see a DOT inspection on a bus? Shouldn't people be the most common safty concern.

Safety has been abused by all that take advantage of it to keep a job, make a profit off of, and marketed for business.

 

When you read that they take away the operating licence off certain buscompagnies then you know DOT does check them.
DOT has taken licences from buslines in the past.................so yes they do check them.

 

Sorry, not trying to be rude, but I have never read anything about a bus company losing anything to DOT inspections.

Hell, they blow right by the scales and can use the HOV. Ever see one on the road being checked for log books? Or do they even run log books? I don't know

 

Then you don't follow the news much. A few get shut down every year. it not only makes industry news publications but also main stream news.

Enforcement on trucks is concentrated at scale houses. Enforcement on buses is concentrated at their place of business with random audits and vehicle inspections. this probably has to do with the fact that they don't want to deal with 50 tourists at a road side inspection.

 

Did I read that right? Are they actually paying 300 bucks for each clean dot inspection? that's an easy 900 bucks a day right there. I wonder how long I'd last before being terminated for to many clean inspections.

Op, your company is getting stupid. That does not have anything to do with the csa program itself. Low hiring standards have them facing a very bad csa score, so they are using scare tactics to try to change a culture of bad maintenance.

Going back to the csa program itself. Your example of every one having a marker light go out(yes, they are required lights by the dot rukes) mid trip. You are correct, it absolutely can happen to anyone, and every one will have that happen a few times. But it won't happen every day, or even every year. Getting csa points once for a marker light won't effect you at all. It's the habitual guys that rack up points all the time that it will effect.

And for anyone that wants to talk about drop and hook trailers with missing mud flaps and lights. That's a company problem, not a csa problem. Yes, once in a blue moon a light will go out on a trailer while it's parked, but in the vast majority of cases that light was out when the last lazy uncaring driver dropped the trailer. company wide culture of not my problem let the next guy worry about it.

 

Yes, they have HOS requirements.

 

I remember what happened to us in the fall of 2013 when our CSA score tanked. A lot of good brokers like Landstar would not load our trucks. It was 6 months until it came down and was satisfactory for them to load our trucks again. Talk about hitting your wallet it sure was a rough period but we hung in there and made it through. Dead weight operators who don't care and invest nothing in their equipment will bring a company down fast

 

But the bottom line responsibility was the drivers who were not maintaining the equipment. a missing light on every inspection is not enough to increase your ranking on the CSA. And CSA is all about rankings, not raw scores. That way there will always be a group that keeps the FMSCA employed, and the money rolling in.

And of course the insurance company increased the rate it charges the company, as statistically, they were become a larger risk. And the company was passing that cost onto the ones who where increasing the risk.