CSA: Compliance, safety and accountability

CSA: Compliance, safety and accountability

FMCSA's program, which will likely improve highway safety, is here to stay, and vehicle maintenance plays an important role.

Everybody’s in favor of safe highways. Few of us, however, like to be told what we have to do to make those highways safe. So, when FMCSA announced its new “Compliance Safety Accountability 2010,” there was little applause from the trucking industry.
When fleets use the TMW system, maintenance technicians can immediately receive work orders generated automatically by the program using driver pre-trip inspections information.
While still not finalized, CSA is becoming an acceptable program for fleets. Tim Frazier, for example, who is the director of safety and member services for the Alabama Trucking Association, recently wrote, “Most all the rumors and misunderstandings as to how the scores were affected and calculated have been dispelled, realizing the roadside inspection process totally affects the carrier’s score, good or bad. That stated, I believe we have seen a positive impact regarding equipment condition and driver compliance throughout our industry.”

But was a new program really needed? Over the past four decades, the rate of commercial motor vehicle crashes resulting in injuries or fatalities on our Nation’s highways has steadily decreased—certainly an indication that the compliance and safety programs FMCSA had in place were effective. They improved safety performance and saved lives.

However, despite increases in the size of the trucking industry, the agency’s resources available for such efforts have remained relatively constant. In addition, SafeStat, its former system for measuring safety performance, while effective, was labor intensive and did not focus on the behaviors known to cause crashes.

According to FMCSA, CSA builds on its earlier programs with a new Safety Measurement System (SMS) and a new suite of tools. The goal of the program is to allow FMCSA to earlier inform a larger number of carriers about potential safety problems they have before crashes occur. SMS quantifies the on-road safety performance of carriers and drivers to identify candidates for interventions, determine the specific safety problems a carrier or driver exhibits and to monitor whether safety problems are improving or worsening.

The system uses carrier data from roadside inspections to include safety-based violations, crashes and the Federal motor carrier census to quantify performance in the following categories:

• Unsafe driving
• Hours-of-service
• Driver fitness
• Controlled substances
• Vehicle maintenance
• Cargo-related
• Crash indications based on state reported information.

CSA and maintenance
While the majority of the CSA categories relate to drivers, vehicle maintenance also plays a significant role. A recent study of fleet managers done by CK Commercial Vehicle Research (ckcvr.com) last December found that over a third of the fleets surveyed indicated they have made changes in their maintenance programs as a result of the implementation of CSA. These consisted primarily of more preventive checks. One respondent said, “We’re repairing more minor things before a unit leaves on dispatch, and, when we might have earlier nursed a unit to a repair facility while under dispatch, we may now send a vendor to make a repair.” Another fleet manager said, “The main impact of CSA is educating and holding drivers more responsible for better pre-trips.”

The goal of the CSA program is the operation of vehicles with zero defects, and the foundation of that process is a good inspection and maintenance program. One of the perplexing situations faced by many fleets is that inspection frequencies can be somewhat limited. The driver, of course, has a requirement to inspect his equipment before every use, and most have been properly trained and do an exceptional job. Others may not be quite as good. The number of inspections and audits being done roadside is forcing fleets to take a more conscientious approach in this matter.

Good pre-trip inspections can help, but only if the information found during such an inspection is used promptly. Dave Walters, a solution engineer at TMW Systems, said, “The real dilemma has been that a driver may identify an equipment defect, but the process of getting that information back to someone who can take action has always been an issue with many fleets. It has typically been a paper process with critical information getting turned in with driver log sheets, possibly only once a week. The document has to flow through an internal process and finally gets to someone in the maintenance department who can take action. That process could be as long as three weeks, during which time the vehicle is still operating up and down the road.”
brake sentry indicators can reduce brake inspection time to two minutes with visual confirmation that brakes are within compliance limits.
Avoid brake violations
There are both hardware systems and software solutions available to help fleets achieve CSA safety compliance and avoid out-of-service violations. “Walters said, “The three big problems in our industry are just like the sandwich, BLT—brakes, lights, tires. These have always been the three most common defects noted during inspections and continue to be.”

With brake adjustment defects accounting for nearly 30% of all truck crashes and a national out-of-service violation rate of one in every 10 vehicles, exposure to costs, risks and liabilities are considerable. In the CSA safety scoring system, an out of adjustment violations carries a “4” severity rating. This makes it one of the top equipment violations affecting a fleet’s safety score.

Although automatic brake adjusters have been mandated for nearly two decades, air-brake adjustment defects persist as a frequently cited safety defect and out-of-service violation. The problem is not with ABAs, rather with the proper inspection and maintenance of these mechanisms. Although they eliminate the need to perform routine manual adjustments, they do not eliminate the need to perform daily inspections. When a brake equipped with a properly operating ABA is out of adjustment, there is a cause and manually readjusting the brake does not address the cause.

An easy solution to help meet air brake inspection requirements is the installation of visual brake-stroke indicators. Their use provides drivers with a convenient means of inspecting brake adjustment without having to crawl under vehicles to mark and measure the pushrod stroke at each airbrake chamber. Brake Sentry is just one example of such a product. With it installed, drivers can perform a visual inspection of the entire vehicle in as little as two minutes and get immediate confirmation that the air brakes are operating acceptably.

To help over-the-road drivers stay on the road when they experience air system problems, Phillips Industries has put together two new combination kits that hold the company’s most popular Qwik-Fit air fittings. Each kits contains a collection of male connectors, straight unions, 45° male elbows and dust boots in various sizes typically used in everyday air line repairs. The parts are assembled in containers that keep them secure for transport in a truck cab.
peterson's defender system
Lights, an ongoing concern
Vehicle lighting is an important aspect of the CSA vehicle maintenance category since it often acts as a flag that can lead to a vehicle review. The importance of using reliable and trustworthy lighting products should be given significant attention. Truck lighting manufacturers are addressing the needs of fleet managers concerned with CSA compliance.

For example, Sherry White, manager of marketing communications at Truck-Lite, said, “Since we first learned that FMCSA was in the process of releasing new standards, we’ve been building a multi-faceted training program titled ‘For CSA, Choose Wisely-Choose Truck-Lite.’” The company has already created a website (truck-lite.com/csa) dedicated to material on lighting and harness solutions related to potential CSA problems. White indicated this site will be continually updated, so you might want to visit it regularly.

A maintenance department might be interested in adding Truck-Lite’s Light Check System to its arsenal of shop tools. Today, the process of pre-inspecting vehicles before they head out on the road is more important than ever. Light Check is designed to speed up inspection times using a remote-controlled, computerized fault indication system offering a 10-second automatic analysis of all electrical circuits.

Mark Blackford, national fleet manager for Grote Industries, said, “Fleets are finding one of the leading the problems related to CSA infractions is lighting, and those issues are primarily concerned with incandescent lighting. Fleets that were early adopters of complete, high quality LED systems are not having such issues.”

To help with this problem, Grote is marketing LED products that retrofit legacy incandescent products without the need for any adaptations. Blackford said, “Think of them as plug and play.” In this category is a product line called Grote Select, which includes a stop-tail-turn light that, when lit, looks like an incandescent bulb. This allows fleets to replace burned out incandescent bulbs one at a time and have a set of lights that all look the same when lit.

Blackford went on to say, “The best way to minimize CSA infractions is not simply to buy quality lights. The best way is to buy superior lighting systems. In legacy systems, 90% of the problems were caused by bulbs. That problem is eliminated with LEDs. Next is wiring. Quality harnesses will minimize both corrosion and voltage drop.”

Tim Gilbert, director of heavy-duty fleet and OEM sales at Peterson Manufacturing, said, “Everything is under a microscope now, but it’s not so much lighting failures that are causing problems. It’s premature system failures that are caused more by corrosion than anything else. There are people getting tickets everyday even with LED lighting systems. If they don’t have the right harness system behind them, all they did was delay the failure.”
drivers for fleets using a xata maintenance program capture pre-trip inspection information in a mobile communication device for immediate transfer to the fleet.
To help address the problem, Peterson recently introduced its Defender System, a complete harness and lighting package, which the company warrants against corrosion. According to Gilbert, the average cost to repair a corroded harness system is around $300—not counting lost revenue from trailer downtime. He said, “Eliminating only one such repair event in a trailer’s life cycle would more than pay for the Defender.”

Tires and CSA
There are two problem areas with tires that continue to cause issues during roadside inspections—tread depth and inflation pressure. In the new CSA scoring system, they can have a major impact. Tires have a score of eight or three depending on the specific issue. For example, flat tires (less than 50% of the pressure written on the tire sidewall) are scored an eight, as are tires below the minimum legal tread depth. A three-point penalty is assigned to tires that are underinflated. Al Cohn, director of new market development and engineering support for Pressure Systems International, said, “These points can add up, especially when you consider that there are 18 or more tires on a Class 8 vehicle. Only a serious tire program will help assure that your CSA score is not adversely affected.”

Checking tire pressures on a regular basis in combination with automatic tire pressure monitoring and tire inflation systems is required to keep tires at their recommended pressure. Checking tread depths across the tread surface should be done at every scheduled PM.

Software support
Maintenance software and service providers are offering a systems approach to CSA compliance. Xata, for example, says it “offers cost-effective, easy-to-implement solutions that make compliance a snap. Electronic logs and vehicle monitoring systems reduce the time and effort needed to capture and report the required information, enabling drivers to operate in a more efficient and safe environment while giving owners and managers the metrics they need to meet compliance 100%.”

In the Xata system, vehicle maintenance information of concern to inspectors is made up of the series of items that can be captured by a driver in a mobile communication device during a daily inspection. Ryan Barnett, a Xata market analyst, said, “That data is then transmitted immediately back to the maintenance department, which therefore knows at once what truck number has a problem. So when the truck returns to any maintenance facility, a technician will correct the problem and electronically sign off for the repair. That information gets sent back to the driver and stored in his handheld device so that the next time he does an inspection, he knows the problem has been fixed.”

TMW also offers a solution that immediately informs a fleet’s maintenance department that a potential CSA problem exists. Dave Walters, solution engineer at TMW Systems, said, “We’ve created an electronic driver vehicle inspection report, which they complete on their mobile communication device. That information flows directly into our TMW software program. If a defect is noted, it will automatically open a repair order to correct the defect. After the repair has been made, a confirmation will be sent to the driver of the unit to let him know that the repairs have been completed on the vehicle. He has to accept, basically verify, that the repairs have been completed.”

CSA compliance will make our highways safer, and compliance can best be achieved by thorough pre-trip inspections and quick response to any problems found during those inspections.

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