The truck of an independent owner-operator is four times as likely to get inspected as a truck running under the authority of carriers with more than 500 trucks, according to inspection data from the first two years of the Compliance Safety Accountability program. The likelihood of being placed out of service is three and a half times as great for independent drivers – and almost twice as likely for their vehicles – compared to those of the biggest fleets.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration insists that its system is not biased against any carriers. Any apparent disparities are not flaws, but simply a reflection of how CSA is structured, the agency says.
One factor in the skewed enforcement actions against small operators is CSA scoring. Smaller carriers showing public BASIC (Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Category) percentile rankings on average receive negative (high) scores. At the same time, because most of the smallest carriers have no public score, the average score for all of them together is abnormally low.
Of close to 470,000 carriers with U.S. Department of Transportation operating authority, less than half have any data in the CSA Safety Measurement System, according to recent estimates by Dave Kraft of Qualcomm. Just less than a quarter have a few inspections, but no SMS ranking or “score” in any BASIC.
In fact, more than two years after its advent, CSA has failed to produce a single public score for 80 percent of carriers with operating authority. About 90,000 carriers, or 20 percent, have at least one BASIC ranking; that’s an improvement over the 12 percent – as determined by Commercial Carrier Journal – that was cited widely in the program’s early days.
Given their higher exposure with so many trucks, the largest carriers are from two to 30 times more likely on average than single-truck independents to have a score above an intervention threshold, depending on the BASIC.
While FMCSA believes its system is fair, the ASECTT (Alliance for Safe, Efficient and Competitive Truck Transportation) coalition of trade associations, carriers, brokers, shippers and other service providers that has taken the agency to federal court believes otherwise. They argue that the system, amplified by FMCSA’s guidance on what the scores mean, puts all carriers – and small carriers disproportionately so – unfairly at risk, as shippers and brokers use the scores as de facto safety ratings.
