Learn how to improve your CSA score with these 5 tips

As former Chief Safety Officer of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, I led the design and implementation of CSA — the federal government’s new program to measure the safety performance of motor carriers, including truck and bus operators.

From that vantage point, it became clear that there were five key steps companies could take to achieve satisfactory CSA scores, and I’ll describe those a little later in this post.

Naturally, the most important reason for a company to operate its trucks or motor coaches safely is to protect the driving public, passengers and their own employees. But there are other implications as well: unsatisfactory scores can increase insurance premiums and result in lost business. In addition, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is using the scores to prioritize its enforcement actions. Companies with low scores will be targeted.

Following are five tips for succeeding under CSA – short for Compliance, Safety, Accountability. For more detail on how to execute on these five suggestions, see a full-length CSA article I have written that is posted elsewhere on the FDRsafety site.

And an important note: CSA covers not just truck and bus companies but also other organizations that use trucks and buses in their operations.

Guideposts for CSA success

1. Make safety a core, non-negotiable value of your company.
This doesn’t mean merely posting a sign in the workplace that “safety is important in our company.” It is communicated by the way the company is managed, the behavior and attitude of company officials and the actions management takes when a safety violation occurs.

2. Get educated on CSA and explain it clearly to your employees.
Ensure that drivers, maintenance shop staff, trainers, executives, etc. understand CSA and its impact on the company’s bottom line and how each of them contribute to the scores earned by the company.
 
3. Examine the data maintained by the government that underpin your CSA scores and ensure the data is accurate.
Aggressively pursue data correction through the DOT DataQ’s process and get your record correct. Ensure your registration data (MCS-150) information is updated. 

4. Implement specific, competent countermeasures to address your safety deficiencies.
If any of your measures exceed the “alert” threshold, put into place known effective measures that correct the reasons your company is receiving violations.
 
5. Recruit, train and vigorously monitor drivers.
Driver performance is a backbone of the CSA system since violations in the three driver categories (Unsafe Driving, Fatigued Driving and Crash History) are given added emphasis in the measurement calculations.

Rose McMurrary, Senior Transportation Advisor for FDRsafety, retired earlier this year as Chief Safety Officer of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. She now consults with companies on improving their CSA scores and other transportation safety issues. Rose can be contacted at 615-370-1730 or rmcmurray@fdrsafety.com.