I had an opportunity to talk with a safety director at a trucking company in one of the CSA 2010 test states yesterday. The company is now enduring their second intervention since October of last year. The second intervention is an on-site inspection and still underway in its second week! "It's not a friendly environment" is what I was told as the company has also incurred many thousands of dollars of fines since entering the test.
There is a lot of confusion out there about how all of this works, even the inspectors are unable to describe exactly how many of the components actually work. There are concerns about the fairness of some of the rules.
A few things I took from the conversation were, this CSA 2010 initiative IS GOING TO HAPPEN and it will affect everyone. Although the drivers will be given a safety score under CSA 2010, the major emphasis still appears to be on the carrier. Carriers will be paying more in fines than before. There is more to come and much training that needs to be done.
My advice is to start today doing everything you can to train your employees and drivers to avoid interventions, because once you have an intervention there will be more to follow.
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QUESTION: Will it be in an employer's (company's) best interest to terminate a driver who fails an inspection? In other words, can a company avoid "taking a hit" under the current CSA 2010 rules if said company quickly fires a driver who gets hit with points during an inspection?
The reason I ask is because I'm starting to hear of drivers who are being terminated after being cited for very minor safety infractions. I was wondering if there was a loophole in the regulations allowing a company to use drivers like disposable tissue. Such a loophole would clean up the company's safety record at the expense of the driver's job.
I don't think it would make much sense to terminate a driver who failed one inspection. Since CSA 2010 looks at 36 months of the drivers record, one failed inspection by itself would likely not be grounds for termination, unless that failed inspection puts the driver into an "unfit" safety rating.
It does not help the company to quickly terminate a driver. The company takes the hit regardless.
I don't know of any loopholes as you describe. If companies are terminating drivers because of minor infractions, it is most likely the driver is already in the danger zone and might be declared unfit. Keep in mind that the more recent a violation is, the more it will hurt your safety rating. Violations in the most recent 12 months causes the points to be tripled. Additionally, some insurance carriers may only insure drivers with a particular safety rating, so when a driver reaches a certain safety score, they might become "un-insurable", and would therefore have to be terminated.
Does this apply only to the United States company and drivers? Does it, also, include the Canadian and Mexican drivers that cross the borders?
This applies to Canadian and Mexican drivers as well. Here's the workding from the FMCSA: "Carriers from Canada and Mexico that operate in the United States under open border agreements will be rated under CSA 2010 in the same way as U.S."
I THINK THIS IS MR BIG COMPANY TRYING TO GET RID OF THE SMALL CALL SO HOWS GOING TO SUPPORT THE 175,000 THAT LOSE THERE JOB THE COUNTRY ALREADY SUFFERING JUST ADD MORE TO IT SHURE HOWS DRIVER GOING TO FEED THERE FAMILY OR EVEN GET ANOTHER JOB IF THE ONLY THING THEVE DONE IS DRIVE TRUCK I THINK THERE BEING VERY STUPIED WITH THIS RULE MAYBE TRUCKS SHOULD JUST STOP ROLLING ALL TOGETHER WE ALL JUST GO HOME AND PARK THEM THEN HOWS THIS COUNTRY GOING TO SURVIVE TRUCKS AINT ROLLING MAYBE IT IS TIME TO STRIKE FOR THESE RULES NOT TO BE PUT IN HOWS DUME IDEA WAS IS
I got a seatbelt ticket in Ohio last November. Will that be on my safty rating?
Yes, that ticket will be part of the calculation of your safety rating when CSA 2010 goes into effect. FMCSA will evalute the last 36 months of your driving record. This is a rolling 36 months, so when a new month rolls around the oldest month of the 36 will drop off. Since this ticket was last November (almost 12 months ago) this ticket will be included in the calculation of your safety score, since CSA 2010 is scheduled to begin nationwide next July. Well inside the 36 month window.
It is important to know that violations are time weighted so the older the ticket the less weight it carries in your safety score. By the way violations carry severity weights ranging from 1 to 10 with 10 being the most severe. A seatbelt violation is a one (1) point violation.
If I got a ticket in Canada does that go against my CSA?
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