FMCSA Returns CSA Raw Data to Public View
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced on March 7 that it has returned to public view the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program’s raw safety data for property motor carriers.
The so-called “absolute measures” data are generated directly from safety data and not based on relative comparison to other motor carriers.
The CSA percentile scores for property motor carriers will remain unavailable for public view to comply with the new transportation law, the FAST Act, which was signed in December.
CSA data was pulled from public view only minutes after President Obama signed the law.
A provision of the FAST Act required that the agency review the CSA program and, during that review period, remove scores from public view.
The transportation legislation called on FMCSA to ensure its CSA scoring program provides “the most reliable” analysis possible. “While the agency is not prohibited from displaying all of the data, no information will be available for property carriers while appropriate changes are made,” FMCSA said when it removed the data.
All information on passenger carriers, which was not removed, continues to remain available to the public.
Trucking leaders consistently have argued CSA data paint an erroneous picture of most carriers’ safety records, and a Government Accountability Office report criticized the agency's CSA methodology.
Proponents, however, have argued that CSA scores offer reliable crash-preventing information.
In a recent statement, American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves said the law “takes critical steps to improve trucking safety and efficiency” by reforming CSA and other programs at FMCSA.
