Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA)

Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) is a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) initiative to improve large truck and bus safety and ultimately reduce crashes, injuries and fatalities that are related to commercial motor vehicles. It introduces a new enforcement and compliance model that allows the FMCSA and its state partners to contact a larger number of carriers earlier in order to address safety problems before crashes occur.

CSA re-engineers the former enforcement and compliance process to provide a better view into how well commercial motor vehicle carriers and drivers are complying with safety rules, and to intervene earlier with those who are not. Rolled out in December 2010, the program establishes a new enforcement and compliance operational model that will utilize FMCSA resources, and those of its state enforcement partners, in an attempt to make the roads even safer.

The new CSA Operational Model has three major components:

MEASUREMENT: CSA measures safety performance, using inspection and crash results to identify carriers whose behaviors could reasonably lead to crashes. >CLICK TO LEARN MORE

EVALUATION: CSA helps the FMCSA and its state partners to correct high-risk behavior by contacting more carriers and drivers with interventions tailored to their specific safety problem, as well as a new Safety Fitness Determination methodology. >CLICK TO LEARN MORE

INTERVENTION: CSA covers the full spectrum of safety issues, from how data is collected, evaluated and shared to how enforcement officials can intervene most effectively and efficiently, to improve safety on our roads. >CLICK TO LEARN MORE

The FMCSA carefully planned and developed CSA over the years. The first step involved a thorough review of the agency’s compliance review process. This was followed by the development of the Safety Measurement System (SMS) that uses all roadside inspection and crash data and the development of a new interventions toolbox to deal efficiently and effectively with safety problems of various natures and different levels (as identified in the SMS).

In addition, the CSA model includes a change to the Safety Fitness Determination (SFD), also tied to SMS results.

The expanded suite of intervention tools enable investigators to systematically evaluate why safety problems are occurring in order to recommend remedies, encourage corrective action(s) and, where corrective action is inadequate, invoke strong penalties.

Iowa Truck Services can assist any size trucking operation with the proactive prevention or required intervention process to reduce the number of potential violations, which will lower and keep CSA ratings below threshold. ITS accomplishes this through cooperative corrective action plans, customized development of company policies, FMCSA compliance reviews, mock audits and proactive action plans.

Contact Iowa Truck Services at 515-244-5193 for more information or request consultation.