DC Velocity - March 2012

condition.” The disclaimer says that unless a motor carrier in the system has received an “unsatisfactory” rating or has been ordered by FMCSA to discontinue operations, the carrier is “authorized to operate on the nation’s roadways.” A carrier with no rating is considered safe to operate, the agency has said in the past.

Sanderson said the FMCSA website’s language provides sufficient legal protection for Transplace to go about its business independent of the CSA scorecarding quagmire—which, in Sanderson’s eyes, is a good thing.

Angel of PeopleNet said that while he understands the frustration felt by Sanderson and others, he takes issue with that approach. He warned that their logic will be of little value if plaintiffs’ attorneys pursue a shipper or broker for damages in the wake of a truck-related accident. “The first thing a plaintiff’s lawyer will look at is the CSA scores, then the driver’s history and his cell phone records,” he said.

He added that a courtroom with a jury sympathetic to the plight of a victim’s family is the last place a shipper or broker wants to be arguing the statistical validity of CSA.

Angel advised carriers to work within the CSA guidelines by focusing on their most frequent and severe infractions, rather than addressing all of their violations. In vetting their carriers, shippers and 3PLs should concentrate on what carriers are doing to address those primary violations, he added.

RATING SYSTEM UNDER FIRE Much of the criticism leveled at the CSA centers on the way it is currently administered. Sanderson, for one, said the CSA methodology rates carriers in an arbitrary manner and is misleading and incomplete. According to Sanderson and other critics, only 12 percent of 797,000 companies regulated by the Department of Transportation (DOT) were graded as of mid-December. Of those graded, about half were placed under what the agency calls an “alert” status in one or more of the BASIC categories. An alert under BASIC means the FMCSA could target a trucker for what the agency calls a “safety intervention” into the carrier’s operations.

“You mean to tell me that half of the carriers under DOT authority that have been graded under CSA are unsafe to operate?” Sanderson asked.

Perhaps CSA’s most grievous
shortfall in Sanderson’s eyes is that it
frames its findings in relative terms
by comparing carriers against each
other. “We think safety is an absolute
measure, not a relative one,” he said.
“A carrier is either safe to operate on
the roads, or it isn’t.”
The FMCSA defends its progress
to date. In e-mailed comments to
DC VELOCITY, an FMCSA spokes-
woman said the FMCSA has collect-

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