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By Brad Hollister

Massive change is on the horizon for the Transportation Community and it would seem as though news of the impact is actually falling on deaf ears. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has stated a limited number of the 500,000 current freight carriers have logged onto the CSA 2010 page to look at their pages. The FMCSA has strongly encouraged assisting drivers and firms understand the effect of the new legislation as well as the significance associated with monitoring their performance. FMCSA administrators have been stunned that just over 2% of all motor carriers have actually logged in to determine their company’s rankings and make sure they are in compliance with the fast approaching regulations.

A lot of individuals in the market from Owner Operators, Consultants, and Carriers, to Freight Brokers, 3PL’s and Shippers have considered CSA 2010 Regulation as a “GAME CHANGER” for the transportation industry. The media coverage of the new legislation has become wide-spread and has been the topic of countless heated debates. Certainly, there has been countless charged discussions the marketplace and the FMCSA and Congress. Despite the pleas of countless in the industry, Federal Officials have determined that the substantial number of carriers whom have not logged on is a direct result of many carrier’s concentration on everyday operations which unfortunately do not make it possible for them to focus upon the rapidly nearing regulation.

The brand new Safety project will commence in December and will continue to be implemented for the duration of most of 2011. Federal, State, as well as Local Officials may continue to prepare and refine the new system. December, 2010 will probably be a very chaotic month for the staff of the FMCSA. The Agency’s target for December 2010 is to help make the CSA data available to truckers as well as open to the public. In addition to making info accessible, the FMCSA will commence delivering notification to trucking companies whose data does not match current compliance requirements and distinguishing trucking comapies which may be given field examinations.

Perhaps the greatest issue of the project is that the FMCSA still does not have written requirements for how the agency may decide safety fitness. The FMCSA will issue a suggestion for how it decides to determine safety fitness through the first half of the year. The Physical fitness criteria is a crucial element of the CSA Regulation which in turn serves to separate the Compliance Review from a carrier’s safety ranking and add the criteria to the monthly performance data from the new Safety Management System.

The FMCSA recognizes that a large amount of concern exists in the driver and carrier communities. The FMCSA is not thinking about a public driver scorecard or rating/ranking of any kind. The Agency went on to further explain it is not looking to issue mass driver suspensions and the Business will not be entertaining the idea of strategies to stop or restrict truck driver’s ability to drive based mostly on physical characteristics such as weight, body mass index or neck dimensions.

Though the FMCSA is definitely not restricting drivers based on actual physical fitness, there are important reasons why carriers should pay attention to their own status in the latest method. There are numerous risks carriers experience when and if their fleets fall outside of federal government guidelines, while the FMCSA is being rolled out:

In addition to Federal Regulation, the threats of having inadequate CSA scores with respect to their ranks.

Risk # 1) Shipper’s Carrier selection. If a Carrier’s ratings are jeopardized a Shipper, Manufacturer, Freight Broker or 3PL may possibly re-assign their business to another carrier with superior compliance scores. It is crucial to understand the significance of effectively serving their Customers with superb service and compliance with federal regulation.

Risk #2) Availability of Reasonable Insurance Premiums. Insurance companies regularly evaluate safety and compliance rankings as a foundation for determining carrier insurance premiums. Soon after December’s availability of the new CSA reporting, it looks as if insurance companies will implement these scores as the standard for selecting rates. Non-compliance with these standards will eventually result in higher premiums or lack of available premiums all together.

Risk #3) Claims payouts. Carriers with poor compliance scores generally pay higher Claims settlement values mostly due to the fact the added care and safety taken with much more successful operations produces lower claims rates.

Risk # 4) Inadequate Driver Environment. Excellent truckers will continue to seek out companies with increased CSA Scores since those companies with greater importance paid on better ratings may be more looked for by Shippers.

Risk #5) Possible FMCSA Intervention. Skirting the line of compliance will continually place your company at risk of intervention or shut down by the FMCSA. This will certainly cause employees and clients a like to feel much less confident about your capability to produce remedies for their requirements and in your service overall.

Preliminary statistics indicate that nearly 20% of all service providers on the road tend to be in jeopardy of a FMCSA Intervention into their operations. The new formula with regard to examining safety compliance under the new regulation has found that more than 1/5 of the carriers reviewed will be likely to get ‘unsatisfactory’ results; especially within the Fatigued Driver Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories. The actual sample of 60,000 carriers suggested that the smallest fleets with less than five trucks saw risk of intervention grow from 10 to 15 percent, while the largest fleets with greater than 500 power units saw their own risks decrease to 42 percent.

Driver fatigue continued to be the largest cause for concern, even though vehicle maintenance, as well as dangerous Driving were also seriously problematic categories. The crash indicator as well as hazardous driving BASICS reduced across the board especially amongst large fleets. Looking at of preliminary Safety Improvement Categories started August 16, 2010. The CSA 2010 Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICS) are:

1. Driving Unsafely.

2. Driving Outside of Driving 3. Driver Health & Fitness 4. Driver Chemical Abuse 5. Maintenance of Vehicle 6. Cargo Regulation Violations 7. Crash Statistics

Carriers deadline to examine their safety performance information and deal with any alarming conduct that may lead to crashes and fatalities on our roadways is on Dec 5, the national roll out of CSA2010.

View Full Article Here: http://blog.freightaccess.com/2010/11/carriers-slow-to-respond-to-csa-2010-requirements-as-deadline-rapidly-approaches-says-brad-hollister-of-freight-access-inc/.

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