Truck drivers do not get a CSA score, as do carriers, said Bryan Price of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. He spoke about the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program at a seminar Thursday at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky.
“We are not rating drivers,” Price said, addressing a point of debate that has accompanied CSA since its launch. “We do have a driver measurement system.”
That system is internal to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Carriers do not have access to it. When FMCSA investigates a carrier, it might also look further into the records of a driver who has a known problem “as part of our evaluation of the carrier,” said Price, a senior staff member.
Under the Pre-Employment Screening program, mandated by Congress, FMCSA sends driver data to a carrier when the driver gives consent to the carrier, such as when applying for a job. However, that data is not a score, but a record of violations and crashes.
Some private vendors are accumulating the data sent to carriers and “turning it into something they’re calling a CSA score,” Price said. The “score” doesn’t have a meaning for the feds, but carriers and insurance companies can evaluate it as they wish.
