The Case For Roadside Resume

Background

On December 12, 2010, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) launched the long awaited and much modified Compliance Safety & Accountability Program known throughout the industry as CSA.

The foundation of CSA is to identify Behaviors of commercial truck drivers that are linked to increased incidence of crashes.  CSA, as it has evolved today, consists of seven categories called BASICs, an acronym for Behavioral Analysis Safety Improvement Categories.  A collection of approximately 600 possible violations that are assigned severity weights and assigned to one of these categories.  The resulting score (measure) is then percentile ranked against the other members of the group to arrive at a percentile score of between 0 and 100. A high score being poorer performance, presumably increased likelihood of crash, and cause for intervention by the Agency at certain thresholds.

There are two methodologies for arriving at these percentile scores, one for motor carriers called the Carrier Safety Measurement System (CSMS) who are subject to CSA, and a second, similar methodology that individually scores and ranks commercial drivers (DSMS) who drive for carriers subject to CSA.  Both methodologies are officially published by the FMCSA.  All well and good, a safety scoring system, utilizing the Behavior of Drivers as the ingredients for calculating a safety score for drivers, aggregated to create a carrier score.

An Issue of Fairness

Since December 12, 2010, all regulated motor carriers have had access to a government web site where they can publicly view five of the seven CSA scores, and a private login to view the two private scores.  There is no current system, website, product or service, whether government or business, public or private, where a regulated driver can go to access the score that the FMCSA maintains on their roadside performance under CSA.  The agencies position is that these driver scores are only available for enforcement and will not be made available either to motor carriers or to drivers until such time as an intervention is called for.  Since the driver scores are only intended for enforcement, no need to reveal them to anyone but enforcement officials according to the FMCSA.

Clearly, as enforcement of CSA begins to be the new norm, Vigillo believes that carriers will face pressure not only from enforcement, but from the shippers, brokers, and insurance community to address those issues causing high CSA scores.  It is very clear that carriers will look to the drivers with the highest scores as the low hanging fruit in their efforts to improve their percentile rankings.  There should be no misunderstanding CSA, it is designed and built to focus on Driver Behaviors, and yet no outlet exists to communicate those scores to drivers.  Vigillo believes that it is a fundamental flaw in CSA to keep the very “drivers” of CSA in the dark.  Roadside Resume will cure this defect.

What is Roadside Resume

Roadside Resume is the first and only service that provides driver CSA scorecards directly to all commercial drivers.  There is no cost to either the driver or motor carrier to participate in this service.  Roadside Resume will eventually be supported by product and service advertisement of interest to commercial truck drivers.  Roadside Resume will be made available to drivers through the new Roadside Resume website at RoadsideResume.

In order for Vigillo to provide Roadside Resume, it must have access to its carriers roadside inspection and crash data through the published and authorized data access processes in place at the FMCSA (Compass and SMS).  Only drivers whose historical data is contained in Vigillo’s aggregate database will have access to their CSA scorecards. Vigillo currently has such access for over 2,000 motor carriers and approximately 700,000 drivers.

This service requires that the motor carrier be either a Vigillo Scorecard subscriber (paying scorecard Customer), or Affiliate Member (no cost) who provides Vigillo access to its FMCSA data and that each motor carrier authorize Vigillo to include such data in the aggregate when a driver with a valid Roadside Resume account requests it (opt-in).

How does the Affiliate Membership work

The newly announced Affiliate Member Program provides an option for carriers to provide the Roadside Resume benefit to drivers without paying Vigillo for the scorecard subscription (nor will these Affiliates have access to Vigillo’s other  services).  All that is required is that the Motor Carrier authorize Vigillo to access its data through the approved processes in place at the FMCSA.

If you believe, as Vigillo does, that professional truck drivers should be treated as professionals,  join the wiser fleet movement and become a Customer or Affiliate Member of Vigillo and start providing this important benefit to your drivers today.

roadsideresume@vigillo.com
(503) 688-5100 ext 101 or 103