BASIC 6: CARGO LOADING & SECUREMENT

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1 Comprehensive Safety Analysis Initiative BASIC 6: CARGO LOADING & SECUREMENT Staying on top of safety and compliance under the CSA 2010 initiative will mean getting back to the BASICs. This synopsis will focus on the Cargo-Related BASIC. To understand the importance of proper cargo handling and securement, one need look no further than the case of a Missouri scrap metal hauler and the 25-year-old woman who was struck by a metal plate that had fallen off one of the company s trucks on I-70. The woman was killed instantly, the truck driver was arrested and charged with manslaughter, and the company and its driver were ordered to pay $3 million in damages. At trial, the company s president testified that metal objects had fallen off the company s trucks and damaged other vehicles at least 10 times in the past, yet the company had made a business decision to leave it up to its drivers to decide how and when to secure their loads. It has always been a fact that improper cargo handling, loading, and securement can have serious consequences for motor carriers, their drivers, and the traveling public. But now, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) will be holding professional drivers and their employers even more accountable for such violations. Consider this In Alabama, drivers can be fined up to $5,000 and spend a year in jail for dropping a steel coil. Their employers can face fines of up to $10,000 and a year behind bars! That s because cargo loading and securement, including the handling of hazardous materials, is one of seven new categories on which your company and its drivers will be judged under the Comprehensive Safety Analysis (CSA) 2010 program. The CSA 2010 initiative is designed to prevent accidents like the one described above through close monitoring of driver and motor carrier safety performance and preemptive action to correct unsafe behaviors. To ensure that your business thrives in 2010 and beyond, it s vital to understand how you and your commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers will be graded on cargo loading and securement under the FMCSA s new enforcement initiative. What is a cargo loading/securement violation? Under the CSA 2010 model, if you have a CMV incident resulting from a shifting load, spilled or dropped cargo, or unsafe handling of hazardous materials, your safety performance grade will be affected. Among the 506 distinct violations under this BASIC: Failing to use enough securement straps Failing to use a placard for hazardous materials Using a knotted tiedown Just the BASICs Cargo Loading and Securement is one of seven violation categories in which your company and drivers will be graded under CSA The seven Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories, or BASICs: Unsafe Driving Fatigued Driving Driver Fitness Drugs & Alcohol Vehicle Maintenance Cargo & Hazmat Crash History x

2 Operating an oversize/overweight vehicle Pushing a loaded bus Your performance on cargo loading and securement is measured using violations of certain Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations or Hazardous Materials Regulations recorded on roadside inspection reports. It s important to note that a violation can be logged even if a citation or ticket is not issued even if the violation simply appears on the inspection report and even if the driver is not placed out of service. Cargo loading/securement violations are entered into the FMCSA s Safety Measurement System (SMS), which is the agency s replacement for the SafeStat system. The SMS is used to grade both carrier and driver performance on cargo loading/securement and the other BASICs. Cargo-related violations that may have had a minimal effect on your safety rating in SafeStat may have a bigger impact on your rating in the new SMS, and may in turn lead to contact from the FMCSA. How is the cargo loading/securement BASIC measured? Every 30 days, cargo-related violations will be used to grade your performance in the cargo loading and securement BASIC, which contributes to your overall safety rating. Carriers and drivers with the poorest grades relative to their peers become targets of the FMCSA s intervention process, in which the agency takes action to try to correct the unsafe behaviors and prevent crashes. Here s the process used to figure out how you measure up in the cargo loading and securement BASIC: Hiring a driver who has cargo-related violations on his/her record will not affect your company s score, although each violation will affect the driver s score for 36 months. Once you hire a driver, however, that driver s violations that occur while working for you will continue to affect your company s record for 24 months, even if you later terminate the driver Violation severity All of a carrier s cargo loading and securement violations from the past 24 months will be assigned a severity from 1 to 10, based on how likely each violation is to result in a crash. A severity of 1 represents the lowest crash risk, and 10 the highest, relative to other violations within each BASIC. For example, a failure to use enough securement straps has a severity of 10 while using a damaged placard ranks a 1 (see accompanying table). The severity of a violation is increased by 2 if the violation resulted in an out-of-service order. For example, a tiedown violation that results in an OOS order has a final severity of 12 (10 + 2). If there are multiple violations of the same standard cited during one inspection, only a single instance of the violation is counted. And a single bad inspection should not have disastrous consequences on your scores, because the sum of all violation severity weights from any one inspection is capped at a maximum of 30. Age adjustment The severity of each of a carrier s cargo-related violations is multiplied by a 1, 2, or 3, depending on its age. The result is that violations recorded within the last 6 months are three times as damaging to a carrier s grade as violations recorded between 12 and 24 months ago. In other words, the older the violation, the less weight it carries. Inspections (including clean inspections) are also adjusted for age, so older inspections will not affect your scores as much as recent inspections. A time weight of 1, 2, or 3 is assigned to each relevant inspection depending on its age. An inspection performed within the last 6 months is assigned a 3, between 6 months and 12 months a 2, and older than 12 months a 1. Violations inspections The sum of all adjusted severity weights are divided by the sum of all age-adjusted inspections to arrive at a final measure for cargo loading and securement. This process results in your measure for cargo loading/securement, a raw score that can be used to compare your performance against that of other carriers, as described below x

3 For Helpful Guidance on CSA 2010 Preparation, call J. J. Keller Business Services Drivers are measured in a similar way on the cargo loading/securement BASIC except that violations from the past 36 months are included. Which inspections count? When calculating your score on cargo loading/securement, the FMCSA uses only relevant inspections from the past 24 months. A relevant inspection is either: Any vehicle inspection (Level 1, 2, 5, or 6) Any other inspection (including driver inspections) that resulted in a cargo-related violation The scoring process Your measure on the cargo loading/securement BASIC is not your final grade. Rather, your cargo loading/securement measure is held up against the records of other carriers of similar size to determine whether your safety performance is better or worse than your peers. The FMCSA expresses this relationship by assigning you a percentile in terms of cargo loading/securement. For example, if your cargo loading/securement performance is worse x 2010 FLEET TECHNOLOGY OUTSOURCE SERVICES ADVISEMENT & TRAINING Don t wait for FMCSA enforcement. Getting your records organized now will make a difference. We can help. PERFORMANCE GRADING EXAMPLE Ten months ago, ABC Trucking had two inspections that resulted in cargo securement violations. Each resulted in the maximum severity of 30, for a total severity of 60. Because the inspections were 10 months ago, the total severity is multiplied by 2 when adjusting for age, bringing the total weighted severity to 120. The number of inspections, 2, is also multiplied by 2 based on age. Therefore, the severity of 120 is divided by 4 to get a total cargo loading/securement BASIC measure of 30. By itself, this raw score means little until it is compared to the scores of other carriers (see below). than that of 75% of your peers, your percentile for cargo loading/securement will be 75. The worstperforming carrier within each peer group, for each BASIC, is assigned a percentile of 100, and the best is assigned a zero (0). If in the past 24 months you ve had fewer than five relevant inspections OR no inspections that resulted in at least one cargo-related violation, then you will not be assigned a percentile for this BASIC. Consequences A high percentile in cargo loading/securement could have two consequences: 1 Example of Cargo Loading/Securement Violations by Severity VIOLATION SECTION SEVERITY Improper cargo securement No flag on projecting load Improper cargo securement/placement on bus (c) 10 Failing to inspect cargo 392.9(b) 10 Parking brake not set while loading/unloading hazmat (e) 7 Size and weight violations Driver s view/movement is obstructed 392.9(a)(3) 7 Operating hazmat vehicle with overheated tire (c) 2 Improper transportation of Class 1 explosives Improper hazmat markings Failing to have hazardous waste manifest 171.3(b)(2) 1 You may be subject to an intervention If your rank is above the threshold for an intervention, then you will likely be targeted by the FMCSA in some manner. Depending on your percentile, you might be subjected to: x

4 2 A warning letter, informing you of a poor score in cargo loading/securement and what you need to do better (you would also be instructed on how to challenge any incorrect data) Increased roadside inspections that target cargo loading/securement An on-site audit that targets your problems with cargo loading/securement. The FMCSA has at least eight intervention tools at its disposal, ranging from warning letters to suspension. You may be deemed unfit If your percentile places you into the failing category for cargo loading/securement and one or more other BASIC(s), OR an audit reveals that you are violating certain essential or fundamental cargo loading/securement regulations, you may automatically be deemed unfit to continue operating commercial motor vehicles. The failure to comply with certain critical cargo loading/securement regulations appears on proposed lists of essential and fundamental violations that can result in an automatic unfit status after an audit. INTERVENTION REVIEW Intervention #6: The Settlement Agreement The settlement agreement is used to contractually bind the carrier to take actions to improve safety while avoiding fines or suspension. It allows the carrier to avoid significant penalties by committing to major safety improvements. Failure to comply with the agreement usually results in the maximum fine. ARE YOU PREPARED? As discussed above, your on-road safety performance today could affect your scores on the BASICs for years to come. Get a jump on compliance by putting safety management controls in place that will help prevent cargo loading and securement violations. Here are some suggestions that could help: Start paying attention to all cargo- and hazardous materials-related violations noted on roadside inspection reports, because under CSA 2010 they will all count, not just the ones that place a driver out of service or for which the driver receives a ticket. Figure out where your drivers and company stand on the cargo loading/securement BASIC, using inspection reports from the past months. Focus on the violations that could hurt the most (i.e., those with the highest severity), both for the company and for individual drivers. Keep in mind that violations will affect drivers scores for 36 months and the company s for 24 months. Only the passage of time will reduce the impact of those violations. Verify that the cargo-related violations assigned to your company are actually yours. Take time to review the FMCSA s violation data for your company at regular intervals, and contest any violations that do not belong to you. Create and communicate safety standards with comprehensive policies and procedures related to cargo loading and securement. If you have written policies and procedures, review them to make sure you re covering all the bases, and enforce them consistently. Make sure all affected employees are aware of their roles and responsibilities in terms of cargo loading, inspection, marking/placarding, and securement: drivers, dispatchers, managers, and others. The fewer the violations and the more clean inspections you have, the better your score and/or the better the chance that you won t be graded at all. To ensure that clean inspections get recorded, have your drivers start asking for documentation of all inspections. Communicate an expectation that all personnel must comply with cargo loading, cargo securment, and hazardous materials handling regulations and company policies, and provide new-hire and refresher training opportunities to help them meet those expectations. Be proactive! Use the right tools and resources to understand your exposure to risk and unsafe practices x

5 Comprehensive Safety Analysis Initiative The BASICs Unsafe Driving The operation of CMVs in a dangerous or careless manner. Examples: speeding, reckless driving, improper lane change, inattention. Fatigued Driving The operation of CMVs by drivers in non-compliance with the hours of service regulations. Examples: violation of the driving limit, driving while fatigued, failing to maintain complete and accurate logs. Driver Fitness The operation of CMVs by drivers who are unfit to operate a CMV due to lack of training or medical qualifications. Examples: failure to have a valid license, being medically unqualified. Drugs and Alcohol The operation of CMVs by drivers who are in possession of alcohol or illegal drugs, or impaired due to alcohol, illegal drugs, or misuse of prescription or over-thecounter medications. Examples: the use or possession of drugs or alcohol. Vehicle Maintenance CMV failure due to improper or inadequate maintenance. Examples: defective brakes or lights, failure to make required repairs. Improper Loading/Cargo Securement CMV incidents resulting from shifting loads, spilled or dropped cargo, and unsafe handling of hazardous materials. Examples: improper load securement, cargo retention, and hazardous material handling. Crash Histories or patterns of crash involvement, including frequency and severity, based on information from state-reported crashes. Safe & Smart Driver Training Our popular on-site training helps drivers improve skills, be prepared for roadside inspections and reduce accidents! Hands-on, high energy training and your location! Led by experienced transportation professionals! Driver Attitude stress management, goal setting Hazard Perception speed & space management, reaction time, scanning techniques Driving Skills turning & backing, merging, intersections Defensive Driving habits, distractions, road rage Roadside inspections know how to prepare More! J. J. Keller Business Services x Crash history is not specifically a behavior. Rather, it is a consequence of a behavior and may indicate a problem with the entity that warrants intervention. FMCSA Safety Measurement System Methodology Version 1.2 April, x