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CSA 2010, Comprehensive Safety Analysis
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Number of Commercial Motor Vehicle Fatalities Remains Constant Rate of Commercial Motor Vehicle Fatalities Leveling Off Over the Last Decade
In an effort to maximize federal and state enforcement agencies' efforts to reduce the commercial vehicle related fatality rate, FMCSA has taken a new approach to how the agency evaluates and addresses the safety of motor carriers and drivers.
 
Why Is CSA 2010 Needed?

Since the 1970s, Federal and State enforcement agencies in partnership with many other stakeholders have progressively reduced the rate of commercial vehicle crashes resulting in injuries or fatalities on our Nation’s highways.

The rate of crash reduction has slowed, prompting FMCSA to take a fresh look at how the agency evaluates the safety of motor carriers and drivers and to explore ways to improve its safety monitoring, evaluation, and intervention processes. CSA 2010 is the result of this comprehensive examination.

Limitations of the current Operational Model

FMCSA's compliance and safety programs improve and promote safety performance and save lives. However, agency resources available for these efforts have remained relatively constant over time, despite increases in the regulated population and additional programmatic responsibilities. FMCSA has identified limitations in both how safety is measured and how unsafe behaviors, once identified, are corrected.

  • FMCSA's current compliance review (CR) program is resource-intensive and reaches only a small percentage of motor carriers, making it increasingly difficult to continue to improve motor carrier safety using existing tools.
  • On-site CRs to determine a motor carrier's safety fitness require an average of three to four days to complete. At present staffing levels, FMCSA can perform CRs on only a small number of the 700,000 active interstate motor carriers.
  • SafeStat is FMCSA’s current system for measuring safety performance. Despite its effectiveness SafeStat groups safety problems together to identify carriers for a one-size-fits-all CR. It also does not focus on the behaviors known to cause crashes.
  • The FMCSA Large Truck Crash Causation Study indicates that increased attention should be given to drivers of commercial vehicles.

CSA 2010 builds on FMCSA’s current processes for assessing and improving the safety performance of motor carriers and drivers through a new safety measurement system and a new suite of tools. These include an enhanced CR, in addition to more focused and efficient interventions tailored to address specific problems.