As I write this column, we’re already halfway into both the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues. And if you don’t know what those are, just know that baseball is back—and the upcoming season looks to be a good one. Go Sox!
Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I can talk baseball, youth baseball, Major League baseball, baseball strategy, or pretty much anything related to baseball. Regardless, the thing about baseball—about sports really—is that at the end of the game, scores are final, the outcome has been determined, and those who are watching know who the winner and the inevitable loser is. The good thing about scores is that they determine something, settle an outcome, or even decree a winner. Yet that is not what can be said about FMCSA’s recent return of the “absolute measure” of the five BASIC scores to the CSA Carrier Measurement System.
The absolute measure is indeed a score, but a score that relates to what is the question that now reveals itself to our industry and even worse, those that have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. My point is, many folks have no idea what that absolute score means; in fact, one carrier had stated that it might as well be in a different language because the absolute score alone is basically (pun intended) pointless.
The absolute measure, if paired with its peer grouping or coincided with its percentile ranking, certainly would make better sense, but the agency is not permitted to publish that information as a result of language in the FAST Act.
What many can perceive—and what many are perceiving—is that the act of revealing the absolute score is merely a sarcastic position that the agency has taken in an effort to muddy the CSA waters even more than before. Upon examination of one’s absolute score by the common lay person, the popular phrase of “Huh?” will most likely be muttered.
The harsh reality of the removal of the BASIC scores from the public eye is that it really had zero effect at all. Attorneys for carriers, shippers and plaintiffs can easily recreate these scores through a third-party vendor if they have the desire and financial wherewithal—or they could ask a carrier point blank.
In fact, that is the exact approach many of the shippers and insurance providers have taken. Ask the carrier for its scores to paint a better picture of how that carrier will perform in the big picture of safety rather than follow the footsteps of a program that no longer provides inaccurate and now meaningless information.
We all know the troubles that CSA has had in determining the safety “value” of a carrier. The agency continues to believe that the SMS data is sufficient to target at-risk carriers, but it fails to acknowledge the effects CSA has on carriers that are not viewed as at risk.
The data used to derive absolute scores is flawed. Crash accountability, small fleet inaccuracies, state disparities—I could go on and on. In fact, many of my peers, myself included, have written entire columns about this. They have spoken and conversed about this issue many times over, almost too many times for the agency to turn a blind eye to this very topic. The theory of CSA has proven itself to be fruitful by placing the onus and practice of safety on just about every person employed by a carrier; however, that is where it ends.
Until the agency can truly repair the measurement system to accurately portray how a motor carrier performs, we will not have a system that accurately identifies at-risk carriers and separates the good from the bad.
