CSA Score
Compliance, Safety, Accountability — a scoring system used by the FMCSA to assess the safety performance of carriers and drivers.
CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) is the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's data-driven safety compliance and enforcement program. It measures the safety performance of motor carriers and drivers using data from roadside inspections, crash reports, and investigation results. CSA replaced the older SafeStat system in 2010 to provide a more comprehensive view of carrier and driver safety.
The system evaluates carriers across seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs): Unsafe Driving, Hours-of-Service Compliance, Driver Fitness, Controlled Substances/Alcohol, Vehicle Maintenance, Hazardous Materials Compliance, and Crash Indicator. Each BASIC receives a percentile score from 0 to 100, where higher scores indicate worse performance relative to peers.
When a carrier's score exceeds the intervention threshold in any BASIC — typically 65th percentile for most categories and 50th for Hazmat — the FMCSA may initiate enforcement actions ranging from warning letters to comprehensive on-site investigations that can result in fines, out-of-service orders, or even operating authority revocation.
CSA scores have significant business implications beyond regulatory enforcement. Shippers, brokers, and insurance companies routinely review carrier CSA data when making business decisions. Poor scores can result in lost contracts, higher insurance premiums, and difficulty securing new business. Carriers actively manage their CSA profiles by investing in driver training, vehicle maintenance programs, and proactively challenging inaccurate inspection data through the FMCSA's DataQs system.