Tag: Interventions

FMCSA and some states sharpen audit teeth with ‘enhanced investigative techniques’

‘EIT’ in the parlance of acronym-happy bureaucratese, Jeff Davis of Fleet Safety Services likened new investigative approaches of auditors to another EIT, Enhanced Interrogation Techniques — or ‘compliance-review waterboarding,’ so to speak …

December 16, 2016

“What’s it mean when a bunch of exclamation marks pop up on my computer?” —Anonymous Tennessee state trooper, after checking a carrier’s DOT number, to a driver he’d just put through a Level 3 inspection — and clear evidence understanding of the CSA Safety Measurement System isn’t total among law enforcement. The driver knew what those marks meant — alerts that the carrier’s category scores were higher than FMCSA’s intervention thresholds — but didn’t exactly offer to help the officer. He was on his way shortly.

CSA’s Fallout: ‘Play the game’ to get out of the lockup

How the team at Old Time Express turned the lock open out of ‘safety jail,’ reversing its Conditional rating and winning back business.

July 8, 2014

CSA’s Fallout: Trapped in a CSA nightmare

Part 1 of this story of how one small fleet operator got stuck in “safety jail” as a Conditional safety rating, a high BASIC score in hours and violations compounded and business vanished.

July 7, 2014

Safety Ratings Issued chart

Consultant: New CSA wave washing ashore

Regulatory compliance expert Jeff Davis says a virtual tsunami of regulations directly or indirectly related to CSA has begun to hit the trucking industry.

June 25, 2014

golden triangle

Overdrive Extra

You read it here first: CSA’s built-in unfairness

With the March and May issue installments of Overdrive’s CSA Data Trail stories, Senior Editor Todd Dills scooped GAO’s report this week by at least seven months.

February 4, 2014

Mass. fleet owner pleads guilty to bribery; FMCSA shuts down three drivers

Korca Enterprises owner Irfan Dushku faces home confinement and extended probation after bribery attempt; and drivers in Texas, Michigan and Illinois are declared imminent hazards to public safety by FMCSA.

October 25, 2013

All three imminent hazard orders proceeded from crash investigations that uncovered patterns of serious violations, a dynamic discussed in-depth in Overdrive‘s “Crashes and Interventions” reporting as part of our CSA’s Data Trail series earlier in 2013.

Losing the golden triangle: More proof shippers (mis)use CSA

A small fleet owner on CSA: “We lost our triangle, and it is incredible how much difference it has made. Many of our old customers … called as soon as we lost the triangle.”

July 29, 2013

“We lost our triangle, and it is incredible how much difference it has made. Many of our old customers told me they checked every month to see of they could use us again, and called as soon as we lost the triangle.” –small fleet owner J. Webb Kline on shedding his fleet’s Hours BASIC score under CSA

Crashes and interventions: Crackdown!

FMCSA is putting extra muscle into shutting down truck and bus fleets. Often lacking robust back-office resources to deal with interventions, small carriers can be considered most vulnerable.

May 10, 2013

Following the raft of warning letters that went out in 2011, FMCSA has sent out far fewer letters, which representatives say is an indication that the letters prompted the desired compliance improvements. Onsite investigations resulting from carriers’ lack of improvements, however, are moving away from full compliance reviews or comprehensive investigations to focused looks at compliance problems as indicated by a carrier’s CSA BASIC scores. Such focused attention allowed the agency to get their hands into the inner workings of about 10 percent more businesses in 2012.

Crashes and interventions: CSA’s crash flaw

Independent owner-operators have the lowest rate of truck-involved crashes but are far more likely to be put out of service than drivers for carriers with 500 or more trucks, which have a higher crash rate.

May 6, 2013

Click through the chart above for a larger view. SOURCE: RigDig Business Intelligence (rigdig.com/bi) and Overdrive analysis of federally recordable truck-involved crash data for years 2010-12. Carriers represented include the total registered population with at least one inspection over the course of those years and with some version of for-hire operating authority.

Crashes and interventions: Blitzkrieg probes coming to trucking

The FMCSA’s quick-strike sweep through “high-risk” passenger carriers, say officials, will be hitting our industry sooner rather than later. Knowing the agency’s definition of a high-risk carrier is your first step in avoiding involuntary shutdown.

May 3, 2013

In FMCSA’s Safety Measurement System, this symbol indicates a carrier’s ranking in a certain BASIC has exceeded the intervention or “alert” threshold, marking the carrier for investigative action.

On dying breeds — and free pickup bedliners!

When talking about past “outlaw” segments of trucking culture, owner-operators are hardly the primary participants. (Also: a contest from Plastikote to win a free pickup bedliner — you’re welcome.)

April 11, 2013

Overdrive‘s Partners in Business seminars, conducted twice yearly at the Great West and Great American trucking shows in partnership with ATBS, offer strategies toward building owner-operator business acumen.

POLL: Have you experienced a CSA intervention since Dec. 2010?

March 26, 2013

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