From the advent of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s CSA Safety Measurement System in 2010, its shortcomings were well-evident to carriers and baked into its structure. At that time, carriers were focused on scoring inequities, particularly when comparing the way a small carrier's scores moved wildly, because of very little data input to average, versus the slow climbs and falls with more data on the large-carrier side.
There's since been refinement of a feeling among critics that the very public nature of the data underpinning what passes for CSA today is its fatal design flaw, creating far too many "unintended consequences," in the words of Payne Trucking Safety Director Chris Haney. Those consequences have been, at best, unfair to carriers forced to contend with them on a daily basis.
That’s inclusive of small fleets and owner-operators, and company drivers to an extent, too, given the increased importance of every violation you could possibly think of.
[Related: Ticket challenges, courtroom crash drama, DataQs hurdles: Video's power for clear communication]
