Most truck drivers have heard enough about CSA, SMS, BASICs, DataQs, PSS and other such topics to know that they are important. But to grasp it all, you would need to read hundreds of pages of mind-numbing government documents…
Most truck drivers have heard enough about CSA, SMS, BASICs, DataQs, PSS and other such topics to know that they are important. But to grasp it all, you would need to read hundreds of pages of mind-numbing government documents that make a day in the bathroom with the stomach flu seem like a better way to spend your time.
Another way to understand how these topics affect your ability to earn a living as a truck driver is to enter the game room at any large truck stop and observe the guy who is standing in front of a large video screen, using a gun to select and shoot at targets.
In this analogy, the rules and point values of the game are set by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). The shooter is the scale cop, state trooper or DOT officer who submits truck inspection reports. And you, Driver, are one of the targets on the screen.
In this game, some targets are bigger and easier to see than others. It is not a combat game in which the targets can fire back. It is not a wildlife game in which the targets can easily hide or run away. It is more like a shooting gallery in which sitting ducks move slowly across the screen, like trucks roll slowly through a weigh station.
As a target, you don’t win the game by shooting. You win by not getting shot. There are two ways to not get shot. The first is to not get targeted in the first place. If the shooter focuses on a target other than you, you pass by free and clear. If you do get targeted, the way to win is to be worth zero points to the shooter.
The FMCSA assigns point values to both drivers and carriers. Drivers get CSA points that are expressed as numbers. Carriers get SMS points that are expressed as percentile rankings. The points are assigned when roadside inspections are made, violations are found and reports are submitted. The fewer points you and your carrier have, the better it is for both.
For example, say you are stopped for driving five mph over the speed limit and the DOT officer also writes you up for an inoperative tail lamp. Those two violations would add 39 CSA points to your record. Your points also count against your carrier by feeding into and bumping up the carrier’s SMS percentile ranking (lower is better).
Getting back to that guy in the game room, there are good ducks and bad ducks on the screen. From a safety point of view, a good duck is one with few or no points. Good ducks maintain good trucks and have good driving records. Their carriers have low SMS scores.
Bad ducks are just the opposite. They neglect their rigs, have poor driving records and pay little attention to their carrier’s compliance practices. From a scale cop’s point of view, a bad duck is a good duck because part of the officer’s job is to identify and take enforcement actions against bad drivers and bad carriers. When a bad duck comes into view, the shooter will tend to focus on it and let the good ducks move on.
So, when all ducks look alike at first glance, how does the shooter know which ones to target? That’s what SMS is all about. When a cop runs the carrier’s DOT number through the system, a bad duck is identified by the high scores that show up on the officer’s screen. The more SMS points a carrier has, the higher ranked it will be. When the ranking rises to a certain level, an alert also appears on the screen that makes the officer more likely to target that truck.
Essentially, if you run with a low-compliance/high-violations carrier, the alert singles you out as a bad duck. You might be perfectly legal while rolling across the scale, but if an alert pops up on the officer’s screen, your chances of being pulled in for an inspection increase while the good ducks are allowed to pass. So too with a traffic stop. Mobile DOT inspectors see and use SMS information the same way.
This does not mean good ducks are off the hook but they tend to pass inspections when stopped. The story is different for bad ducks. More inspections mean more violations, more violations mean more points, more points mean more inspections, and the cycle will continue until the carrier either cleans up its act or earns enough points to have its operating authority revoked.
As stated above, the FMCSA is rolling out this program in bits and pieces. A few states have the system fully in place, but it may be a year or more before all states get their officers trained and systems up to speed. Your carrier may have one or more alerts, but that does not mean every DOT officer in every state will see them. It will happen eventually but it is not happening yet.
There are two pieces of good news for the bad ducks. First, there are a lot of bad ducks out there. A bad duck might be allowed to pass because the scale cop is already busy with another bad duck that went through the line first.
Second, bad ducks can improve their scores by cleaning up their acts and getting inspected more often. Just as a carrier’s SMS score gets worse with every violation, it improves with every inspection that is reported with no violations.
When a bad duck’s practices are changed to match those of the good ducks, the bad duck will still be singled out, but inspections with no violations will get reported. The more that happens, the sooner the alerts will disappear, and the more likely it will be that the shooter in the game room will shift his or her sights off you and onto a different duck.
You can view your carrier’s SMS scores online at: http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/sms/. Simply enter your carrier’s DOT number and view the page.
