Proposed Changes to Safety Management System

The Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced on February 15^th they will be making changes to the Safety Measurement System (SMS). After thirteen years under the current system, these changes will include prioritizing the highest risk (safety rating) through the use of roadside inspections and audits to prioritize risk.

How FMCSA scores carriers are changing – 5 main proposed changes

1. Reorganize the BASICS (7 categories) – Now will be referred to as  Safety Categories (Not BASIC)
   1. Current categories: Unsafe Driving, Crash Indicator, Hours of Service, Vehicle Maintenance, Controlled Substances, Hazardous Material Compliance, Driver Fitness
   2. Proposed changes will move Drug & Alcohol (the smallest volume of violations) to Unsafe Driving
   3. Vehicle Maintenance (the largest volume of violations) will be split into:
      1. Vehicle Maintenance (Discovered by a mechanic or deeper inspection and service than DVIR) – Mechanical issues
      2. Vehicle Maintenance Driver Observed (should have been discovered by the driver in routine inspection)
2. Consolidating and re-organizing violations
   1. 959 violations that can be cited currently will be
   2. Consolidated to 116 categories where
   3. Multiple violations of the same root conduct will be grouped
3. Simplify Severity Rating
   1. 1. Currently, severity is ranked from 1-10
      2. To Remove subjectiveness and reduce complexity – New – Severity weight of 1 or 2
         1. 2= Out of Service (OOS) Violations
         2. 2= Driver qualifications or unsafe driving behaviors. see list in FMCSA)
         3. 1= Non-OOS Violations
4. Proportionate percentiles
   1. Currently, carriers are grouped based on Inspection Frequency – Safety Event Groups
   2. New – based on the size of carrier and frequency of violations – compared to peers (Safety event group) which is a more complex calculation intended to account for carrier size rather than just frequency of inspection.
5. Schedule changes to intervention thresholds
   1. If the Motor carrier exceeds the threshold – FMCSA flags the carrier and intervention may occur.
   2. Based on Basic and type of Carrier (General Commodity, Passenger, HAZMAT)
      1. The level will rise from 80% to 90% , now targeting worst 10% of carrier performance)

Takeaway thoughts: 

The SMS may be moving in the right direction (on paper) to help improve safety performance by motor carriers on the roadways. Will this lead to the FMCSA tying Motor Carrier Safety Rating to Safety Data? That is not currently being projected. However, that could be the next challenge that carriers may face.

See FMCSA How FMCSA Carrier Safety is Changing CSA – What’s New (dot.gov)

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