Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/339482
32 | Overdrive | July 2014 Trapped in a csa nighTmare audits, a nice guy and a former driv- er," White says. He uncovered a pat- tern of hours violations by requesting time-stamped fuel receipts, something he'd not done previously. The audit is listed on Old Time Ex- press' carrier profile in the CSA SMS as a traditional compliance review, but White's telling of it sounds like it began as a focused hours of service in- tervention. It resulted in a Conditional safety rating in addition to the high Hours BASIC score. Larger brokers said, " 'Look, we're not going to load you.' Over time, more and more started to drop off," White says. "There were some who would say that as long as you can show us that in good faith you're making an attempt" to improve things, "we'll keep using you." In the aftermath: "Roadside inspec- tions spiked," White says. This likely had less to do with the company's Conditional rating and more to do with its "alert" status in the Hours of Service BASIC. The Hours BASIC is the only one of the seven CSA cate- gories of measurement where a single alert status flags carriers for roadside inspections. Before it could get better, Old Time Express started to look worse. Its Hours BASIC score went up, and with all the added inspections, maintenance violations pushed its Vehicle Mainte- nance score eventually fairly close to the intervention threshold. Mean- while, trying to deal with the Condi- tional rating, the carrier initiated a log-auditing service and repeatedly stressed the importance of log book currency and accuracy and operating within legal constraints. However, two to three months following the Conditional rat- ing, the plan was rejected by the Ten- nessee FMCSA division as inadequate, White says. The agency declined to conduct a follow-up review. Old Time Express was experiencing what transportation attorney Henry Seaton calls the "safety jail" effect. It happens when the Conditional rating is combined with a golden triangle or two in the CSA SMS, said Seaton, speaking last fall at the National Asso- ciation of Small Trucking Companies' Since the advent of the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program, having a safety rating has had much more impact on a carrier's ability to win or keep shippers. Yet over CSA's four-year history, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has become much less likely to issue a rating. Of reviews of U.S. carriers in the most recent complete fiscal year, 2013, about 76 percent of reviews that could have re- sulted in a safety rating actually did so. Compare that to the final pre-CSA year of 2010, when the percentage of ratable reviews was 87 percent. Furthermore, the number of general reviews – the kind that result in safety ratings – in 2010 was twice as high as the number conducted in 2013. That's be- cause the agency has shifted away from the general compliance review to greater reliance on more focused reviews. Transportation attorney Henry Seaton contends that by doing so, FMCSA has shifted accountability for determining carrier safety "from itself onto the shippers and brokers." The economic pressures those parties exert are the re- sults of FMCSA's attempt to "strong-arm the public" into doing the agency's job. fewer ratings, less business 0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 SAFETY RATINGS ISSUED Satisfactory ––––––––– Conditional ––––––––– Unsatisfactory ––––––––– TOTAL ––––––––– SOURCE: FMCSA; data comprises carrier reviews of U.S.-based entities, including passenger carriers, that resulted in a safety rating or had the potential to. 2010 2011 2012 2013 GettinG out of 'safety jail' In Old Time Express' case, these steps turned the lock open: • Stress rigid hours compliance. • Take a high-touch approach with FMCSA. • Use a well-connected consultant to streamline effective measures. • Implement electronic logs. • Beef up back-office load operations and coordination to make e-logs feasible, taking pressure off drivers. • Follow through continuously. " It's their game, and you've got two choices – play it by their rules, or go and find your- self another game. " — Mark White, Old Time Express CSA2_0714.indd 32 6/30/14 12:58 PM