CSA changes: Agency implements plan to account for due process in inspection citations

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Violations against drivers or carriers that are dismissed or result in a “not guilty” ruling will no longer count in Compliance, Safety, Accountability scoring nor on driver Pre-Employment Screening Reports.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced Aug. 25 that the changes made final in June have gone into effect. The changes account for due process and any legal processes that come after roadside citations are issued.

The changes will allow staff working within the agency’s Motor Carrier Management Information System to remove violations from its system if the violation was dismissed or resulted in a “not guilty” ruling.

The MCMIS data well feeds the agency’s Safety Measurement System, the key element of the CSA program. MCMIS data also feeds drivers’ PSP reports.

However, drivers and carriers will not have their data changed for citations issued prior to Aug. 23: Only citations issued after that date and overturned will be changed in the MCMIS.

Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills wrote at length about some of the then-coming changes in August installments of his CSA’s Fallout series, which ran this month. As the relevant piece notes, some in the industry have seen a change in the way officers write citations, based on FMCSA’s changes.

Click here to see the full story, “The shifting enforcement target as states move on driver violations”.

The story also includes this chart, which breaks down what changes will be made to a citation given subsequent judicial action:

Courts adjudicated citations Challenges to the agency’s MCMIS (like those made after a court dismisses a citation) will continue to be made through the DataQ’s system, via Roadside Data Review requests.

FMCSA will direct the state in which a citation occurs to change the results in its system after successful RDR submissions, the agency says.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has brought several lawsuits against the agency over its use of roadside citations in its data in which due process was not accounted for. The lawsuits are still ongoing. Click here to read the latest news from them, from April.