How does CSA 2010 work?

Originally posted from CSA 2010
CSA 2010 Website

CSA 2010 re-engineers the existing enforcement and compliance business process to provide a better view into how well large commercial motor vehicle (CMV) carriers and drivers are complying with safety rules, and to intervene earlier with those who are not.

When the program is fully rolled out by the end of 2010, FMCSA will have a new enforcement and compliance Operational Model that will utilize its resources, and those of its state enforcement partners, more efficiently and effectively, making the roads even safer for everyone.
This new CSA 2010 operational model has three major components:

Measurement – CSA 2010 measures safety performance in new ways, using inspection and crash results to identify carriers whose behaviors could reasonably lead to crashes.

Evaluation – CSA 2010 helps 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.

Intervention – CSA 2010 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.

CSA 2010 has been carefully planned and developed over the past few years. It began with a thorough review of the agency’s current compliance review (CR) process, and proceeded through the development of a new Safety Measurement System (SMS) that will use 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 SMS). In addition, the new model includes a proposed change to Safety Fitness Determination (SFD), also tied to SMS results, although implementation of CSA 2010 is not dependent on the proposed change.

The expanded suite of intervention tools enable investigators to systematically evaluate why safety problems are occurring, to recommend remedies, to encourage corrective action(s), and, where corrective action is inadequate, to invoke strong penalties. The new SMS and interventions toolbox are now being tested in Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, and New Jersey. Testing began in February 2008 in four states, and expanded to add two more (Montana and Minnesota) in spring 2009. Two additional states may be added in Fall 2009.

Feedback from enforcement staff and carriers indicate that the new model is both efficient, reaching more carriers, and effective, with some carriers undertaking proactive efforts to learn more and to correct their safety problems.