Welcome back to Part II in our series taking a look at how you can improve your CSA scores. In our last post we examined exactly what a CSA score is and how it is weighted. This week, we will begin diving into key ways that you can ensure your CSA score remains as sparkly clean as possible.

Consider this: It takes around 20 good inspection to offset one bad inspection. There are many reasons to pay close attention to your CSA scores, but this one should really give you pause. There are essential tips every truck driver or fleet manager should know, so let’s get started.

Data Verification

Ensuring your inspection data is verified is critical to avoiding a bad inspection on your record. You need to make sure your inspection data is valid, accurate, and warranted. If you see bad inspection data, make sure to get it corrected.

You can always challenge bad information through an RDR, or request for data review process. Just bear in mind that before you do so, you will need to make sure you have clear, factual evidence for why the data is incorrect. You will also need to clearly list issues, whether they are missing records, incorrect or duplicate information.

It is also critical that you use neutral language. The review officer is very much likely a peer of the officer who made the original notation. If you have ELD records, photos, eyewitness accounts, or otherwise, all of this will be good for your cause. Also remember that you have up to two years to challenge inspection data.

When it comes to ensuring proper data trails, make sure your carrier registration is kept up-to-date. Motor carriers are required to complete an MCS-150 form at least once every two years. Ensure truck and truck driver numbers and mileage data are all up-to-date.

Ensuring Control

Does your management team have adequate safety controls in place? The Safety Management Cycle put forth by the DOT was done so to ensure there are controls in place. The operations team must establish clearly-defined roles and responsibilities, as well as hiring and training standards.

When a truck driver or other member of the team is not performing up to standard, it is on the management team to do something about it. Some fleets use a three-strike process. It might help to establish thresholds for events such as speeding, swerving, or harsh braking.

Whatever process your fleet uses, you must make sure your management controls are properly documented and make sense. Otherwise you could find yourself on the wrong end of a DOT audit.

Dispatch Limitations

Always remember that staying CSA compliant is not just the responsibility of your truck drivers. Dispatch operators and managers also have a big job to do. Consider dispatch limits as defined in regulation 395.3 of the HOS rules. These rules are not up for debate.

Dispatchers must make sure that they are not overloading the fleet truck drivers to such an extent that it forces them to violate HOS rules. If the home office is not doing a good enough job helping truck drivers stay compliant with HOS rules, you may find a CSA violation is not far behind.

With the ELD mandate here, it is far easier to eliminate what used to be one of the largest HOS violations, problem with logbooks. Have you already outfitted your fleet with electronic logging devices? If not, you may be on the unfortunate receiving end of a violation.

Join us next week in our final installment of this series!

The fact is this: Improving your CSA score can benefit you in many ways. Even more, it can benefit your truck drivers and other stakeholders who have an interest in seeing your fleet succeed. Since CSA scores are public information, motor carriers with higher scores will be preferred by clients who want to rest assured that their freight is in good hands.

Even more, fleets with better CSA scores suffer fewer DOT audits and roadside inspections. This directly translates into lower insurance premiums, which could mean thousands of dollars saved every year. And since potential recruits want to work for a company that has a good reputation, great CSA scores go a long way in ensuring you can find the best truck drivers for the job.

While staying compliant is important, the overriding factor in keeping CSA scores acceptable should be the safety of your truck drivers and others on the road, as well as providing a good working environment for your employees. Unfortunately, many motor carriers still aren’t even sure what goes into their CSA score. Smaller fleets may not feel the imperative to learn everything they need to learn about this important compliance and safety metric.

What is a CSA Score?

CSA was rolled out at the tail-end of 2010 as a way to introduce greater enforcement and compliance from information collected during roadside inspections. The Department of Transportation also wanted a way to identify “at risk” carriers, which CSA allows them to do. Scores are shown as a percentage, with the DOT choosing to investigate a motor carrier if their score falls to 80% or below.

A CSA score is a rating made up of any violations a motor carrier has racked up over a 24-month period. The rating system itself is made up of over 700 different violations, which all fit into seven different categories. These categories themselves are referred to as BASIC scores, which stands for Behavioral Analysis Safety Improvement Categories.

They are as follows:

• Unsafe Driving: Speeding, reckless driving, improper lane changes, and inattention or distraction.
• HOS Compliance: Hours of Service compliance and operating the vehicle while either ill or overly fatigued.
• Truck Driver Fitness: Failure to have a valid or appropriate CDL or being medically unqualified to operate the vehicle.
• Controlled Substances/Alcohol: Use or possession of controlled substances or alcohol.
• Vehicle Maintenance: Brakes, lights, or other mechanical defects or failures where a repair should have been completed.
• Cargo: Improper load securement, cargo retention, or hazardous material handling.
• Crash Indicators: Histories or patterns of high crashes, whether that be in frequency or severity.

Now that you are aware of what the CSA scores are made up of, we want to take you through key steps to improving them. Ensuring your CSA scores are in good shape could be the thing that makes or breaks your business. Even more, it could be the signal to proper operation and safe truck driving. What more could you ask for?

The guidelines we are going to outline for you over this two-Part series are designed to become a critical part of your motor carrier’s culture. These are not quick fixes. To ensure you get the most out of them, you must have buy-in from those within the organization who can directly impact. If you do not know your CSA score, make sure to visit the official website here and search by your carrier name or USDOT number. Be sure to join us next week as we dive into the steps required to get control over your CSA score.

If there is one thing that truck drivers know, it is that a blowout can happen anytime, anywhere. While a truck driver can pay extra attention to ensuring tires are properly maintained, there is no way to completely eliminate the dangers of a blowout. Even worse, if a blowout occurs on a steer tire, both the truck driver and others on the road could be put in extreme danger.

It is important that when a blowout occurs, an untrained truck driver does not react with a “natural instinct” if they feel a pull from a blown out steer tire. Usually, that natural instinct is to pull the wheel back in the opposite direction and slam on the brakes. The problem is, these two actions are exactly the wrong actions to take.

What Should a Truck Driver Do?

With so many new truck drivers on the roadways today, paying careful attention to how to recover from a potential safety disaster should be at the front of everyone’s mind. When going through truck driver training, recovery is critical.

Should a blowout occur on a steer tire, the correct approach is to apply full acceleration and adjust the steering wheel to maintain a course going straight ahead as much as possible. The point of applying full power to the vehicle is that it will help the vehicle maintain a straight-forward course.

For some, this may seem counter intuitive, but it does make sense when you break it down. When a steer tire blows out, both the working tire and the blown out tire will pull in the direction of the blowout. At that point, your only hope is to rely on the four dive tires, which are always trying to push the vehicle in a straight line. By increasing forward thrust from the drive wheels, it helps to overcome the sideways pull of the blown tire. This will help overcome the sideways pull from the blowout.

Overcoming a Psychological Reaction

Of course, it is easy for us to write this out, but when a truck driver is in the seat, traveling down the highway at 70 mph, and they suddenly hear loud bang and immediate change in direction, how does one overcome the “natural instinct?”

Take a comparison between truck drivers and airplane pilots as one example. When a pilot needs to make a course correction, they have plenty of time to evaluate what kind of impact the move they make will have on the trajectory of the plane. A truck driver, on the other hand, literally may only have a second – or a fraction of a second – to make a critical life or death decision.

There are different reasons for tire blowouts that do not relate to tire maintenance. Whether it be from road debris or otherwise, truck drivers must put themselves in the mindset that if they suffer a steer tire blowout, it is critical they:

1. Apply full power to the throttle;
2. Make slight steering drift corrections, and;
3. Decelerate slowly and pull over once the vehicle has stabilized.

The key thing to note is that this is not a maneuver truck drivers get to practice. It is something that they simply must deal with when it occurs. It is important not to get rattled or let emotions or fear overcome the right course of action.

For a little inspiration on doing the right thing, there are more than a few YouTube videos out there that amply demonstrate what happens when a truck driver incorrectly responds to a steer tire blowout. Don’t let that be you. Stay calm and stay safe and you will get through it.

Back in 2016, the FMCSA allowed certain vehicle safety technologies to be mounted on windshield interiors. This included inside the area swept by windshield wipers. The rule was part of the 2015 FAST Act highway bill. The regulations specified that the voluntary mounting of safety technology on a windshield was allowed.

The technology specified included:

• Camera systems
• Speed management systems
• Lane departure warning systems
• Forward collision warning systems
• Collision mitigation systems
• Active cruise control
• Other applicable technologies

At the time, the current regulations stated that devices could not be mounted more than six inches below the upper edge of the windshield and outside the truck driver’s line of sight. With the new regulation, the devices have to have been mounted no more than four inches below the upper edge or seven inches below the lower edge of the area swept by the windshield wipers. Again, they would have to be mounted outside the operator’s line of sight so that they could see road signals and signs.

Federal regulations further defined vehicle safety technologies as those related to fleet management, performance, behavior, speed or other systems related to those factors. Over time, the FMCSA made further exceptions to the rule, but it wouldn’t be long before requests were coming in for something more.

Then, came petitions from transportation companies that it should be more than just safety devices that are granted the exception. Read on for the full story.

Fleets Petition the FMCSA

By March of this year, a 60-truck fleet requested a waiver from the FMCSA asking if they – and other fleets – could be allowed to mount GPS devices in the area around the windshield. Specifically, they were asking about the area which had previously been designated for vehicle safety technology.

While the FMCSA had allowed vehicle safety technology mounting for three years, GPS devices were still off-limits. The trucking company asking for the waiver specifically stated in their petition that any carrier who wishes to mount a GPS device on the windshield within the area defined for vehicle safety technology should be allowed to do so.

The FMCSA took public comment on the potential waiver through April 23^rd before finally making their ruling.

The FMCSA Decides

After some time tossing the idea around, the FMCSA finally came to a conclusion on the matter in mid-August, when they announced that they would grant the trucking company requesting the waiver a limited 5-year exemption. Furthermore, the exemption applied “on behalf of motor carriers operating commercial motor vehicles.”

Their exemption specifically stated that motor carriers operating commercial motor vehicles would be allowed to mount a GPS device on the interior of the windshield normally designated specifically for vehicle safety technologies. In their ruling, the FMCSA determined that mounting a GPS device in the windshield area would not have a negative impact on the safe operation of the vehicle.

They did specify that transportation companies would have to adhere to the terms and conditions of the exemption and that, if so, they would achieve a level of safety equivalent or greater to the level of safety provided by the original regulation.

With the new exemption in place, expect trucking companies to jump on board. By allowing motor carriers to mount the devices on the windshield, it frees up interior space in the cab for other critical devices and mechanisms. Furthermore, it puts necessary information in easy viewing range of the truck driver whenever they need it.

While many say a loosening of trucking regulations create an unsafe environment, most industry advocates agree that this change is only good and creates a better environment for professional truck drivers who have safety on their mind. The ELD mandate has proven this.

Have you heard of LIDAR? If not, it is one of the most commonly-used methods for sensing vehicles and objects on the road, whether it be in passenger vehicles or in commercial motor vehicles. Most new passenger vehicles use a combination of cameras, radar or LIDAR, which essentially stands for “laser radar.”

LIDAR is used to look in front of the vehicle for potential hazards or collisions. It also works in concert with other safety systems such as collision mitigation systems and automatic braking systems. In fact, LIDAR is used in almost every safety system in production today, whether for passenger cars or commercial motor vehicles.

Many companies are working on using LIDAR for Class-8 commercial motor vehicles in a way that prevents the need for autonomous technology, although LIDAR can be used in either autonomous, semi-autonomous, or full truck driver control situations.

Even better, infrared LIDAR systems can work at night, low-light situations, fog, rain, and even swirling snow. LIDAR systems are particularly good at measuring physical distance no matter the environment. State-of-the-art LIDAR systems can measure the road up to six cars ahead.

The key is laser power amplification. As laser and lens technology continues to improve, real-time status updates come a lot faster. The only problem left is ensuring the LIDAR systems do not become blocked during use. Like a human eye with something in front of it, a blocked LIDAR system loses most of its functionality.

What Makes it Better

LIDAR is better than radar and other sensing technologies because it can sweep faster and view farther. On a Class 8 commercial motor vehicle, the application is even better because the LIDAR camera can be placed high up on the vehicle so that it has less obstructions and a good bird’s-eye view of what is going on around it.

Conversely, if you are using a simple camera system, the camera or video technology must take many pictures and then feed those images into a processing system that runs off an algorithm. This takes time, and when time is of the essence as a large Class 8 truck is barreling down the road, there is no room for delays.

LIDAR systems measure the distance to an object by bouncing a laser off an object and evaluating the reflection. This allows physical distance data to be the clue, rather than brake lights or a slowing vehicle. These systems mitigate the stopping distance required for large commercial motor vehicles.

Are They too Expensive?

Certainly, with these new technologies, cost can be an issue. Fortunately, as these devices go mass market and become far more commonplace, the price point will drop. Today, some manufacturers are offering multi-channel units for under $3,500. While this price tag may seem high, it is far lower than the cost of an accident.

The fact is, manufacturers are making significant strides in increasing the viability and safety outcomes of these systems. With a LIDAR unit on top of a big rig measuring the height of bridge overpass that is nearly 1,000 feet away, safety decisions behind the wheel become a lot easier.

Transportation companies and motor carriers see these technologies as a way to buttress their current safety efforts without compromising on cost. There is little doubt that technologies like LIDAR will eventually become mass market and far more ubiquitous in heavy-duty trucks. While it is still unclear when that day will come, as technology progresses, there is little doubt lasers will play an increasing role in improving the safety of large commercial motor vehicle use on our nation’s roads and highways.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance has put a new focus on trucking safety north of the border. In a 10-point plan they’ve created, the CTA has posited working with Transport Canada and government agencies in all the provinces to strengthen safety measures and increase overall compliance with government agencies.

The draft plan, which was released two months ago, asks local and federal Canadian transportation agencies to strengthen compliance with vexing trucking problems such as hours of service and unsafe truck driving practices. Representing thousands of carriers, CTA is looking for multiple ways to increase and improve trucking safety. And considering how tightly bound trucking is on both sides of the border, what Canada does has an impact on the United States market.

According to CTA President Stephan Laskowski, the CTA board looked at multiple ways that trucking safety could be improved in Canada. Specifically, they wanted to focus on smaller carriers and owner-operators who may feel like they don’t have to take safety or compliance as seriously.

Specific Proposals

CTA specifically intends to put forward regulations calling for an ELD mandate like what was put in place in the United States. To what may be the surprise of many, Canada does not have an ELD mandate in place. They are hoping that they will see an ELD mandate go into effect in 2019. The first draft proposal of a Canadian ELD mandate was released in December of 2017, with the Canadian government still reviewing the draft proposal.

The difference with the Canadian rule, however, is that it will only apply to motor carriers who are federally regulated, in other words, truck drivers that operate between different provinces. For carriers that operate within the provinces to fall under an ELD mandate, the provinces will need to create their own version of an ELD mandate.

The plan CTA has outlined calls for government agencies to partner with vehicle manufacturers to explore the feasibility of specific technologies, such as forward-facing cameras and other devices that track truck driver behavior. They also want a study to investigate how these technologies can be combined with an existing ELD.

They would also like to see provincial law enforcement officers with pre-screening technologies trying to seek out and identify operators who are flouting compliance and operating in ways that could contribute to a potential accident.

Identifying Best Practices

The final part of the plan is designed to help government agencies and industry advocates develop a system that identified trucking companies who pose a safety risk. They also want to create a best practices guide that transportation companies can use to improve their overall safety profile.

Going beyond what is happening in the United States, the plan also calls for mandatory training for new truck drivers. They specifically want to focus on distracted driving, but also cover safety basics for commercial motor vehicle operators.

Part of the new drive from Canadian regulators stems from an accident that happened in April between a big rig and a bus carrying a junior hockey team. The crash resulted in multiple fatalities and injuries and shortly after the crash the motor carrier that the truck driver worked for was suspended. Now the Canadian government is completing an audit of the carrier to determine if there were glaring deficiencies in the level of safety awareness the motor carrier exhibited.

Of course, CTA acknowledges that most of the Canadian truck drivers operating north of the border are professional and safe, but that there is also a minority of operators that may need to be addressed from a safety standpoint. Will we see an ELD mandate take hold north of the border within the next year? If CTA has anything to say about it, the answer is a definitive yes.