FMCSA recently made available to motor carriers and law enforcement a preview of the planned changes to CSA’s Motor Carrier Safety Measurement System (SMS). The preview period lasts until the changes are made available to the public in July of 2012.
The changes to the SMS system are intended to improve the effectiveness of the identifying and prioritizing high-risk and unsafe motor carriers for enforcement in order to decrease crashes and hazardous material incidents. The preview will enable motor carriers to see how the changes to the SMS system will impact their individual safety data within the SMS system.
The changes are as follows:
1. Moving cargo/load securement violations to the Maintenance BASIC from the Cargo-Related BASIC;
2. Renaming the Cargo-Related BASIC the HM BASIC and changing how HM carriers are classified to better identify HM-related safety problems;
3. Better aligning SMS with Intermodal Equipment Provider (IEP) Regulations;
4. Aligning violations that are included in the SMS with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) inspection levels by eliminating the vehicle violations derived from driver-only inspections and driver violations from vehicle-only inspections;
5. Improving the identification of passenger carriers; and
6. Changing the SMS website to display:
a. Change in terminology to fact-based definitions that clarify the carrier’s status in each BASIC; and
b. Distinguishing between crashes with injuries and crashes with fatalities.
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