Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/339482
30 | Overdrive | July 2014 TRAPPED IN A CSA NIGHTMARE Safety Administration's Compliance, Safety, Accountability program in 2010. One crumbling notion is that mini- mizing contact with law enforcement authorities is always best, particular- ly when it comes to the compliance review or, in CSA parlance, the federal safety "intervention." This is at the root of the prolonged problem that Old Time Express ex- perienced. FMCSA is transi- tioning out of the SafeStat safety-rating model. However, it remains the only system in which a safety evaluation of a carrier can take place, officially. Ratings of Satisfactory, Conditional or Unsatis- factory are possible. Only an onsite comprehensive compliance review or intervention can result in a rating for a previously unrated carrier. Given the limitations in the number of carriers the system can reach, being unrated in the SafeStat model hasn't posed a problem for carriers before or since CSA began. The Conditional rating is another story. It used to be that a Conditional rating was unlikely to put a carrier out of business because FMCSA made it a priority to follow up on Conditional ratings to assess changes the carrier had made in cooperation with the agency. Now the agency essentially has abandoned old policies that prioritized follow-up Conditional carrier reviews. One senior official, speaking on background, explained that even before CSA, a transition was under way. Today's emphasis is on more of a "performance-based program whereby we recognized that it is more appropri- ate to intervene first on known current performance problems rather than follow up on old Conditional ratings." A carrier rated Satisfactory under CSA, the source went on, may need more enforcement attention than a carrier with an "ancient" SafeStat Conditional. That's because, in FMCSA's view, the performance data delivered by the CSA Safety Measure- ment System are better markers of carrier safety than the snapshot-rating approach of the old model. Even though FMCSA is placing less importance on Conditional ratings, some in the private sector see the Conditional rating of the old model as gaining even greater import for small carriers' business prospects. Combined with CSA's seven BASIC category measures of carrier compliance, the Conditional rating has assumed great- er importance in broker and shipper carrier-selection processes. That link- age largely is ignored by FMCSA's new approach to Conditional ratings. Meanwhile, the replacement for the SafeStat rating model remains years off. The agency plans to tie a new "Safety Fitness Determination" rating to performance-based data garnered from roadside inspections and crashes. Conditional carriers before and after CSA "There are carriers out there who have been Conditional for 10 to 15 years," says longtime regulatory consultant Richard Wilson, based in Delaware. If they don't have high CSA scores, they have no reason to request a review to upgrade to Satisfactory, which 385.17 of the Code of Federal Regulations allows at any time. That "why bother" approach "is the old philosophy," says Wilson. He tells of Conditional carriers he's worked with that have gotten their compliance operation in shape after the rating was handed down. Six months to a year after beginning such work, Wil- son typically would advise the carrier to request a vol- untary compliance review to upgrade to Satisfactory, inviting FMCSA to come take a look. By then, Wilson's done what amounts to "a complete compliance review myself," he says. In the past, following such reviews, "70 percent of the feedback I'd get is that, 'It hasn't bothered us, it hasn't cost us business. As long as we keep ourselves under the radar, we don't have to worry about dealing with the FMCSA.'" The new world, however, is proving otherwise. Old Time Express' most recent audit was its fifth since 1999, according to the CSA SMS. It was prompted after the fleet "popped a triangle," or exceeded the intervention threshold, in the Hours of Service Compliance BASIC in the CSA SMS, Mark White says. On March 15, 2012, an inspector came out for the audit. "He'd been the one doing the previous two or three CSA's FALLOUT Business PART TWO " Some say a Conditional safety rating is the new Un- satisfactory. " — Transportation attorney Henry Seaton Scan the code for an extended video interview with con- sultant and for- mer own- er-op- erator Richard Wilson about current industry practices relative to the Conditional safety rating. " Here's Big Brother the insurance company: … 'The carrier you're dealing with has a Conditional rating … We don't think you ought to be dealing with these people.' " — Richard Wilson, TCRG Consulting CSA2_0714.indd 30 6/26/14 9:20 PM