When choosing a company how important is it to consider the FMCSA scores?

I guess i do...i tend to stay out of trouble
I would have no clue as to where my personal score actually stands

 

The winds of change are blowing stronger and stronger out of DC and they are only expected to get hotter and stronger. I ran outlaw for most all my career. Not crazy, but definitely "compliance" wasn't on our agenda. As I saw the winds of change and became more involved with Safety and Compliance I pushed real hard for compliance - it doesn't keep bad things from happening altogether but it is a fact that the more compliant a company is the chances of the really bad stuff go down. I guess guys like me were the ones CSA and the whole personal accountability thing were after. Guys and companies that COULD do better but just needed some motivation. It's not that we were bad or evil yee hawing down the road with no regard for safety. It's just that's the way things were done. We probably knew better on some level, it just didn't seem like it was really anything bad. The big stuff was fine, we just fudged and bent to get the job done. Well, once CSA and the recession hit things got real personal. I'm lucky, my fudging never got caught or lead to any accidents and I had zero CSA points and a clean MVR, but some seminars my State and the Feds and a Law firm put on really woke me up. I was done with the outlaw thing. I made it through with no harms and no fouls but just how long would that hold out? I really got to thinking. Why am I putting myself and I guess others at unnecessary risk? This isn't what it's about. The New World is "comply or die". I need to get with the new program or someone's gonna get hurt - or worse. I don't HAVE to stay here. Fifteen years of accident free OTR, spotless MVR, zero CSA points, a spotless criminal record and I haven't done drugs since the late 70's or even been around them. What am I doing HERE? I can go anywhere. There's bad handwriting on this wall.

They wouldn't comply so I went to a company that runs 100% legal, uses e-logs, if so much as a light is out then you send a macro on the Qualcomm and they'll send you to the closest shop OR you can fix it yourself. Anything is wrong at all and the closest shop is where you'll go before you go anywhere else.

Well, I can tell you from running on both sides of the fence, I am SOOOO much happier now. The e-logs were my main concern. I'd heard all the horror stories about not making any money. Well, they have been a challenge for me because I've had to rethink how I run and sometimes I still mess up my trip plan and wind up 30 miles from where I need to be and no hours, but honestly I can track that mostly back to something I could have done differently. I had also never used GPS before. Sometimes shorter is definitely not faster. It's been a shallower learning curve than I like but I'm getting it down and so far I still make just as much money. So take it from me when I say go with the company that runs you legal, uses e-logs and takes good care of their equipment. Age is not as important as how well it has been maintained. There's a lot of debate about e-logs but like em or not they're here and they'll be mandatory before too long so you might as well start your career using them and save yourself the learning curve hassle of having to unlearn outlaw paper and learn e-log legal.

When it comes to the CSA scores of the company; they CAN definitely be an indicator. But do look at the long term history. Take the company I'm with now. They had a pretty rough history until a DOT audit in early 2013. Then their scores got better and better each month and now are consistently good. The Safety Manager's speech at Disorientation was quite up front. They used to run outlaw, they got caught. Now it's 100% compliant and if squeaks and it shouldn't; stop and get it fixed. Regardless how minor. He said the DOT beat them up pretty badly but "we deserved it and needed it. It woke us up. We changed our ways and it's been a change for the better. Now all we have to do is keep doing it and show some of you outlaws in the back of the room there that it's not what you heard and you'll still make a good check."

I still peek at my last company's CSA scores. The trend is consistently worsening despite a DOT audit and their accident involvement is increasing and they recently had an at fault fatality. But for the Grace of God that driver could have been me. I shudder to think about what happened to him after the investigators put his ECM from the truck and his logs under a microscope. He was issued a violation for his logbook not being current. That was the trail that told them right where to dig his grave. It doesn't matter if it had anything to do with the accident. He's toast and will likely do prison time. NONE of us ran legal. They'll find his cheats and burry him under the jail house. Its a high tech world now and the Law has the technology.

Yeah. Much better to run with a company that runs 100% legal and fixes their stuff like they should. TRUST ME on that one.

 

That pretty much says it all right there - good post.

The contrast with UPS is stark.

Have a good look at CRST and CRE there too . . .

 

Animal - well said, some good insight there.

Jungle drums - seeing a trend here?