Compliance Safety Accountability: Why the Scores are Important

The Compliance Safety Accountability (CSA) was created by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to improve heavy truck and bus safety by targeting unsafe truck fleets.

Designed to make highways safer, CSA was rolled out in 2010 and is a proactive, data-driven, performance-based, national safety initiative with cumulative effects that are transforming the way carriers, shippers, and enforcement personnel approach heavy truck highway safety.

CSA aims to weed out as many as 5 percent - or 150,000 - of the nation’s 3 million or so long-haul truck drivers that the government believes are involved in a disproportionately high number of truck accidents and fatalities.

CSA uses seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories, known as “BASICs.” These seven BASICs are designed to identify specific driver and carrier safety performance issues.

They include: unsafe driving; hours-of-service; driver fitness; controlled substances and alcohol abuse; vehicle maintenance; hazardous materials cargo; and crash history.