All Articles Under the CSA Category
Pre-Trip Inspection: Train Your Drivers to Understand Vehicle Maintenance CSA Rules
Vigillo's Top 10 CSA Violations show that basic pre-trip inspections could dramatically reduce vehicle maintenance CSA scores.
Of the top ten CSA violations, seven could be prevented with one simple step: a pre-trip inspection by your drivers. Inspecting the truck before driving is the law, and yet 70% of CSA violations are truck-related!
Over on LinkedIn (login req’d), managers asked: “How do you really know that your drivers are doing a proper vehicle pre-trip inspection?” Sure, your drivers may be checking all the boxes on their daily vehicle reports, but are they actually inspecting their trucks?
It’s a great discussion, with several real-world suggestions.
- Tie a red ribbon around the dipstick or something else they need to check.
- Bring in a DOT inspector for everyone to watch what they inspect.
- Have the manager do spot checks weekly to show “it really matters.”
- Reward, rather than punish, finding problems.
Managers Agree: It’s All About Training and Repetition
But the advice, again and again, came down to training the drivers about what to look for in a pre-trip inspection, and what a DOT inspector will ding them for. You can’t assume that drivers — even experienced truckers — have been trained by someone else to inspect brakes, belts, or even tire pressure!
New Pre-Trip Inspection Lesson, Including CSA Infractions
Today, you’ll be happy to know that we’ve *radically* updated our pre-trip inspection lesson. It provides your drivers the specific knowledge they need to do a pre-trip inspection. It gives them a checklist to use, and tests their knowledge of what to look for. And it’ll give them the confidence that they can do the inspection in less than 10 minutes.
Our training tests their knowledge along the way, and tells them the severity and weight of violations in CSA.
See the Pre-Trip Inspection Lesson Yourself
This video is just a short teaser of our full, one-hour lesson. (Want the full demo? Just drop us a line.) Though the lesson takes an hour, a pre-trip inspection should take much less time. And the more your drivers do it, the faster and more thoroughly they’ll inspect the truck.
Pre-Trip Inspection Lesson Outline
- Introduction
- Importance of a Pre-trip Inspection
- Inspection Requirements
- Areas of Focus
- Getting Started
- Cab and Under the Hood
- Walk Around Inspection
- Tractor Checkpoints
- Coupling System Checkpoints
- Trailer Checkpoints
- Inside the Cab
- Vehicle Controls
CVSA Out-of-Service Criteria Don’t Match CSA Regulations
Lastly, your fleet is in a heap of trouble if inspection reports are ignored by your maintenance team, or if your maintenance team lacks the money or manpower to address them: an excellent article from Vigillo and Aon discusses this. We highly recommend it, because the criteria from the CVSA don’t always match what a CSA inspector will flag.
How the CSA Changed the Hazmat Rules (and Why You Need to Care)
New rules from the FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) mean that carriers who believed they were subject to one set of CSA thresholds may, in fact, be subject to more stringent hazmat CSA scores. Let’s take a look at all this confusing information, and find a few ways to do something about it today. (Hint: Training your drivers to understand hazmat carrier regulations would be a good step!)
Fact 1: Hazmat Carriers Have to Run Safer Under CSA
Everyone knows how CSA scores work: The higher your score, the less safe you are. And that leads to higher insurance premiums, your fleet being put under extra scrutiny by police and inspectors, and all sorts of other unpleasantness. There’s a “threshold” CSA score. If your fleet is above that score — based on violations, infractions, and inspections — you’re put on notice and the FMCSA will start to take corrective action.
| Cargo | Hazmat | Passenger | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unsafe Driving | 72% | 67% | 50% |
| Fatigued Driving | 72% | 67% | 50% |
| Driver Fitness | 77% | 72% | 55% |
| Drugs & Alcohol | 77% | 72% | 55% |
| Vehicle Maintenance | 77% | 72% | 55% |
| Cargo-Related | 77% | 72% | 55% |
| Crash Indicator | 72% | 67% | 50% |
The key CSA takeaway: different types of fleets have different alert scores.
Fact 2: Inspections and Reviews Now Determine if You’re a Hazmat Carrier
In the past, YOU determined your hazmat status by how you registered yourself with the DOT every two years. Today, the FMCSA will determine if you’re a hazmat carrier based on:
- An inspection over the past 24 months where your truck was carrying a placardable quantity of hazardous materials.
- A FMCSA review or safety audit over the past 24 months where the motor carrier was carrying placardable quantity of hazardous materials.
- You’ve got a hazmat permit.
Fact 3: You can Check Your Hazmat Status Online Right Now
- Go to the SMS Website at http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/sms.
- Enter your U.S. DOT or MC number on the right-hand side of the page.
- Scroll down to the registration information at the bottom of the page.
- View the item entitled “Subject to Placardable Hazardous Material Threshold” where you see either a “Yes” or a “No.”
- If the answer is Yes, click on the link. A table will explain the reasons why you’re now in the hazmat threshold group.
Fact 4: If You’re Now In the Hazmat Threshold Group, Your CSA “Limits” Just Changed
Remember that chart at the top? If you went from cargo (OK, technically the group is called “Other”) to hazmat, you now have different CSA limits. A Driver Fitness score of 73% would not have triggered any official action by the FMCSA before, but it will if you’re designated a hazmat carrier. That’s why you need to care.
For more detailed information on the HM regulations and how to comply with them, motor carriers should visit FMCSA’s Website at the following link:http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/safety-security/hazmat/complyhmregs.htm#hm
Finally, we can help train your drivers and managers on CSA. Training in all the basics will lower your CSA score over time, and show the FMCSA you’re taking things seriously. Visit our page on our CSA training course.
CSA Training: “Get It” in Just 45 Minutes
Never let it be said that the trucking industry ever let facts get in the way of strong opinions.
Case in point: the CSA regulations. We hear all the time about how CSA hurts the drivers, hurts the fleets, makes the roads more dangerous, and will bring about armageddon by 2013. Yet a survey by ATRI showed nearly 90% of drivers get some very important and basic facts about CSA wrong. And based on our conversations, drivers aren’t the only ones working with the wrong information: maintenance, dispatch, executives, you name it. You can argue all you want about the impact of CSA, but there’s two facts you can’t argue:
- CSA is here and in-force.
- Lots of people are flat-out wrong about what’s expected under CSA.
CSA Overview (45 minutes)
| What is CSA? Safety Measurement System Individual Driver Records and Data Access Knowing the BASICS |
Inspections Violations Intervention The Consequence of Intervention |
Scoring Violation Severity Weight Violation Severity Weight Red Flag Violations Pre-Employement Screening Preparing Yourself |
Like all Pro-TREAD online lesson, it is “mastery training,” meaning that the student must correctly answer quiz questions to advance (and finish!) the training.
Interested in a demo of the newest CSA training? Sign up for a demo, and we’ll call you back with a demo login.
Survey: Drivers’ Misconceptions about CSA
So what if drivers don’t understand CSA? If drivers think that the CSA rules are more draconian than before, isn’t that a good thing? No. Misconceptions and false information lead to drivers doing crazy things we could NEVER predict. More importantly, CSA puts drivers and carriers on the same team: infractions follow both the driver and the carrier. And since CSA infractions stay with a carrier after a driver has moved on, it’s more incentive than ever to keep that driver and FIX the problem with good training about CSA (which, by the way, we have).
According to ATRI, here’s some of the most common misconceptions from drivers about CSA.
Train for the Craziness of the Road
Republished from Internet Truckstop’s September/October 2011 issue.
Why Online Training is Worth Your Time
Is training all that expensive compared to your deductible? No, it's really not.
We’ve never met a driver who believed they need training. You’ve got your CDL and years of experience. You’ve been around every inch of this country, so who are we to suggest you need training?
Rewire Your Brain to React Faster
But firemen train. Cops train. Linebackers train. And the military has “bloody drills” so they can have “bloodless battles.” Training keeps you sharp.
So why online training? Much less training with quizzes? The answer is simple: (more…)