The new federal highway bill is prohibiting CSA scores from being made public. That is probably a good thing. CSA – Comprehensive Safety Accountability (2010) was supposed to be this great SMS (safety measurement system). It was not. From the beginning it was fatally flawed.
It has some good ideas. The idea was to set up a basic score using seven categories. They were unsafe driving, hours of service compliance, driver fitness, controlled substance/alcohol, haz-mat compliance, and crash involvement. It made sense. Unfortunately, like many government programs, it was well intentioned and poorly executed.
Small business trucking companies and independents complained. That one bad incident could ruing their scoring. The big companies could average out several incidents. They were right. Like the trucking industry itself, CSA did not fairly average in long term safe experience.
To me the first basic flaw was the DATA Q system. If you were warned but not ticketed, it would
count against CSA and PSP (pre employment screening program). Warnings can not be appealed. We have the court system for a reason. Use it. The idea that a driver or company can be punished without a conviction is not the American ideal. My favorite way to explain the way DATA Q works is this. I live in a town named Kewaunee. We spell it with a U. I get pulled over and my logs get checked. The officer rights me up for a form and manner violation because they believe that I misspelled Kewaunee. That officer believes that Kewaunee should be spelled Kewanee, like it is spelled in IL. The judge laughs it out of court. That can stay on the PSP/CSA because the final judge can still be the original officer. That is not going to be huge. Imagine this. An officer is clocking trucks 200 yards before a speed limit drop into a construction zone. That mistake can damage a career without a conviction.
Another thing to change is how crash indicators are read. All crashes are bad. Some can't be avoided. If you are sitting at a red light and get rear ended, it should not be held against you. If you have 1,000 trucks, it is still wrong, but can get averaged out. If you have 1 truck, it can not.
Including driver turn over rate in a company's score would help level the playing field. Large companies tend to have a higher turn over rate than small ones. That is because they hire and train less experienced drivers. Experience is a good thing. Keeping experienced drivers happy and on the road should be rewarded.
Having a good safety measurement system in place is important. Having no system can hinder enforcement efficiency. Using a bad system is unfair. We still need to push for a fair system, one that actually finds a fair way to improve safety.