Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/71813
"If there are rules that have no " statistical correlation to crashes, why are they regulations? lamps and tail lights or speeding. "If I operate in Louisiana," he — Brett Sant, Knight Transportation. "You can't take the flexibility away says, "because a seatbelt violation has a relatively high severity weight, I'm subject to the risk of having a higher score than a carrier operating in the northeast. This creates an area of unfairness." Brett Sant, a safety vice president for Knight Transportation, says CSA is "fundamentally flawed." Because the system is based on peer comparisons, using scores taken from so many varying levels of enforcement and posting them publicly erodes the program's intent. from the states," Sant adds. "But at the same time, if you're going to compare peers, you have to account for [disparities] in the scoring, and they don't do that." He's done a small study, too, in which he compared numbers of all of his fleets' inspections and violations. In the two states with the highest violation-to-inspection ratio, there were about 1.7 violations per inspection. The two lowest states had a 0.3 ratio, meaning the most aggressive states are issuing almost six times as many violations per inspection as the least aggressive. "It's tough for the fleets that operate heavily in the states with more violations per inspection," he says. "All other things constant, your scores are going to be much worse." Sant also says that while he and his fleet agree with the premise of CSA, everything embodied within the program should relate to safety, not compliance. "If there are rules that have no statistical correlation to crashes, why are they regulations?" Sant asks. "I think the industry is really concerned, and justifiably so. What we're seeing are things that indicate CSA is not, in many ways, as effective as it was touted to be." Sant says carriers like Knight risk getting caught up in trying to comply with CSA regulations rather than managing safety. "If compliance detracts from the focus on safety, is it really serving the interests of safety?" he asks. Introducing ® LARGE 7"Screen Weather Visit randmcnally.com/tnd720 for more details. *Weather feature requires Wi-Fi Internet connectivity. User is responsible for all thrid party data charges. Rand McNally and IntelliRoute are registered trademarks and TND is a trademark of RM Acquisition, LLC, d/b/a Rand McNally. Wi-Fi is a registered trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. NAVTEQ ON BOARD is a trademark of NAVTEQ. ©2012 Rand McNally. All rights reserved. U.S. Patent No. 7,580,791. Circle 060 on Reader Service Card or visit overdrive.hotims.com JULY 2012 OVERDRIVE 29 TRUCK DATA connected. Tougher. More