How to and When to Check Your Fleet’s CSA Score
22 Oct 2018
The Compliance Safety & Accountability (CSA) score for your fleet is more than just a tool the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) uses to keep up with your compliance and safety efforts. It also has a profound effect on many facets affecting your business. For this reason, you should know your score and various steps you can take to improve your score.
Why Do You Need to Know Your Fleet’s CSA Score?
Your CSA score reveals important information about your fleet that effect the way others view your fleet and you as a carrier. This includes things like potential drivers, clients, and even insurance companies. In other words, your CSA score can have an impact on the amount of business you receive, the quality of drivers who want to work for you, and how much your insurance premiums will cost.
The better you know and understand your CSA score the better you can gauge how others may perceive your organization and act to employ corrective measures when necessary.
When Should You Check Your Fleet’s CSA Score?
CSA scores are updated each month with all scores being updated by the last Friday of the month. It should be a “best practices” move for all carriers to check their scores each month as this indicates your current score and tracking month to month trends helps you determine whether you’re moving in the right direction or if you might want to consider organizational changes to encourage the outcome you’re looking for.
How to Check Your Fleet’s CSA Score
Because the FMCSA believes it’s important for carriers to stay up-to-date with the latest information about their CSA scores, they’ve created a website referred to as SAFER (Safety and Fitness Electronic Records). From this website, you can learn your current CSA score and compare it to the information from previous months as well. You will need the following information to access your score:
- The name of your carrier.
- Your DOT number. You will need a USDOT pin number for full records concerning your carrier, including CSA scores from previous months. You can request that information through this link.
- Your motor carrier number.
The current score is determined by information from the previous 24 months. This means each month offers you the opportunity to improve your score a little bit at a time.
If you’re interested in improving your CSA score you might find GPS fleet tracking to be a perfect fit for your organization since it helps you do the following:
- Monitor and address bad driver behaviors (speeding, aggressive driving, weaving, etc.)
- Maintain proper hours of service compliance.
- Manage maintenance and ensure all vehicles are in good running order.
Checking the CSA score for your fleet often and understanding it well is your first step toward better scores in the future.
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