Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/698304
VOICES 2 | Overdrive | July 2016 There's more than a little fatigue over the Compli- ance, Safety, Account- ability carrier scoring and rating program these days, especially now that Safety Measurement System scores are behind the curtain, but other data is available. The problem is an increasingly adversarial relationship between enforcement offi cers and fl eets or their drivers, says Robert DeLullo of Penn- sylvania-based small fl eet DeLullo Trucking. This confl ict too often generates more violations, becoming data that's fed into CSA to produce scores that carri- ers are being judged on. Even with the program's potential revamp being studied, for about a third of carriers, scores have remained an issue, accord- ing to our poll on page 33. What's more, most Overdrive readers surveyed in 2015 wanted more than just CSA percentiles and alerts in the BASICs pulled from public view. In addition to absolute mea- sure scores, inspection and violation data going back two years remain available for public perusal. If you judge carriers by looking at the CSA SMS, says DeLullo, "the safest carrier on the road is the new carrier, the guy with no history. I've been doing this for 30 years, and I look worse at a glance than a brand-new carrier," given a long history of small violations, many of them equipment-related. Fact is, most of the violation captures at roadside concern equip- ment, so carriers' public profi les under CSA refl ect that, putting the wrong priority on safety eff orts, says Clark Freight Lines' Danny Schnautz. "When a carrier has $1 or one min- ute to spend on something, what do they spend it on?" he says. "Of the many choices available, would the highway users best be served by that carrier replacing conspicuity tape, stopping an oil leak or rewarding a safe driver? The 'gains' that CSA touts through unrealistically mi- cromanaging equipment condition come at a cost." His thoughts on it refl ect a variation of the old "garbage in, garbage out" phrase that describes the uselessness of computers or other systems when the input is bad. DeLullo points to a recent incident in which Drivers for the DeLullo Trucking small fleet carry two-gallon jugs for situations they might encounter in the course of a workday: one filled with salt, the other with oil. These particular jugs, secured next to the frame rail behind the cab, resulted in an improper secure- ment violation after a not-so-genial encounter with a local officer trained on CVSA standard inspections. Robert DeLullo says it's just one example of an improper viola- tion contributing to the CSA system. How attitudes can distort CSA data