FMCSA
The FMCSA or the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is a governing body in the commercial trucking industry. It’s important for truckers to be familiar with the policies and programs of the FMCSA because they directly affect their day-to-day operations.
They also substantially affect commercial truck insurance industry regulations and rates, though usually indirectly.
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration was established in the year 2000 to regulate the U.S. trucking industry from an all-encompassing perspective. It’s headquartered in Washington, DC, but employs a total of about 1,000 people that are stationed in all 50 states.
The main priority of the FMCSA is safety—many of their programs and efforts are in the interest of making commercial vehicles safer and industry operations safer as well. The FMSCA initiates most of their safety programs based on data they collect from what’s know as ART, or the Offices of Analysis, Research and Technology that serve as 3 separate divisions of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for data collection.
CSA 2010
CSA 2010, a program that’s acronym stands for compliance, safety and accountability, is the most recent and somewhat controversial program instituted by the FMCSA.
CSA 2010 was implemented in December of 2010 after compiling and analyzing research performed since February of 2008.
What CSA 2010 essentially does is collect information on motor carriers and trucking companies and assigns them a safety score rating from 1-100, 100 being the worst possible score. Scores are assigned based on data from several different categories that take accident history, violations, safety program data and other factors into account.
Shortly after the program was rolled out, many complaints, most notably from the OOIDA or Owner Operator Independent Driver Association and a pending lawsuit from representatives of several small trucking company associations challenged the program for it’s safety score accuracy.
FMCSA Regulations
In addition to highway safety and commercial vehicle safety, FMCSA regulations exist in other areas of concern throughout the trucking industry, such as environmental impact and technological advancement.
For more information regarding the FMCSA, regulations and their programs, you can visit their Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Motor_Carrier_Safety_Administration or their official FMCSA homepage at http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/
Contact one of our agents today for more information about how FMCSA safety programs may lower your truck insurance rates, or to receive free commercial truck insurance quotes!
